A Word on Words; 3507; Ray Waddle

fb liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers the ideas for more than three decades this is word on words tom johnson once again welcome to word on words my guest is an old friend ray waddell author of his book against the grain unconventional wisdom from ptsd welcome to world were children and we're thinking that it back i guess i should say at the outset that you know work together in journalism from

elton is very different feel hardly i don't see you know thank you guy for higher ed is here now to talk about what you are a religion writer writer of remittances and religious themes and this is not your first book by does seem to me that this is a bit of change but it's what is there about this poem was biblical boat then gradually joining us weekly's yes he's it sounds like i'm promising material in a way because he's i considered the great pessimists the great skeptic right there in the holy bible well that was interesting to me how come the heading in the holy bible the first place i think i wrote this book of a certain the bad weather for living in seventeen years i've been saying religion writer following all these controversies in and religious life in this town in this

nation and nine after well you start noticing a couple things one is how many stories controversies conflicts come right out of the bible the bible was the great still the great red and perhaps miss red book in the world because of the most quoted and was quoted book in america political movements are still watched on certain micro quotes from at the center i decided i needed to go take another look deeper look into what's actually been set in their arm another thing i was noticing is how there's a competing this competition right now about images of god when i think it's a the world situation wherein is about the competing images of god you know one image one image says guards on our side that's the kind of worship another is the kind of informal accessible god you see and in a lot of the modern churches are those billboards we used

to see the guard says billboard's remember those who remember him well you know you think it's hot down here you know that kind of thing is a quote from god you know where this could come from rosie was an ad agency that made it up as a very clever interesting campaign that a generation ago no one would have dared written considered whoa to make a record that got recorded from the bible so there's this new kind of ideas got an informal kind of thing another is a force that annoyance years ago the north so violence in a terror mayhem town and an innocent sort of sanctity ecclesiastes days right there in the geographic middle of the bible you might say yet so often overlooked to me is a counter culture counterweight there's a different story a different image message going on about god in there is perhaps a minority view in the bible

and yet it gets itself addressing the god that can't be reduced to our own will our own phrases garden history still the creator god but he's nice he's holding out for the idea that we really need to meet all industry of those are the two things that i'm most appropriate to this guard somewhere in there you say something like two things really on you say oh you know the christian views your postman largely to their own purposes they quote what they like and thousands and this quote what they don't aren't elsewhere to say you know it's there it's there to get out of a really neat work everyone i'm paraphrasing ray waddell now but

berkeley's yes please does indeed seem to run against the grain of the deadly all the old testament and much of the new well you get to write a book that helps to stay amazed and kind of and i'm puzzled by what you're writing about and i stayed a maze of the question the ultimate driving how this thing get into the bible and please yes does make the cut you know it was one of the last to do so and there was debate about whether to kick it out by the rabbi when the rabbis matt to finally consolidating the canon but first century or so in our era because he seemed empire as he seemed to be lacking in a certain it and god isn't even quoted in this book that way the prophet say the us hoped the warden and in genesis direct quotes from the almighty

nevertheless craziest is one the day for i think for a couple reasons the named solomon associated with that for long ago on long ago king solomon perhaps wrote the book modern scholars moscow's now it says provocations probably written six hundred years perhaps later than solomon and i'm but maybe more to the point it's in there because it preserves this idea of the mystery in the hole of god which is a threat to find elsewhere scripture but as more implied this is more direct you know the church has always insisted on keeping the old testament with an adjustment to cut off field just let you got all kinds of problems with it you know and they were always there's always tension between them and some sectarian groups do cut it off and you could not genesis of the deal the profits the exodus story and the wisdom

literature or you say violence in the previous two years closer the social gospel new testament bennett is the traditional well i'd say that you spent some time with ecclesiastes that was spent and down with it when you get to go to the price the wild guesses a little bit of time in as you do i mean everywhere the us uses it a laudable but it is without and so joy and amid commentary that relates to it i was astounded at because truthfully you've been years since i look at fifties and then read it because i guess i had to but i'm astounded at the number of phrases that jump off the page from every day life and in that the vanities is the one that

a n n and then and his recurring theme i didn't realize it but it until are this book but there are maybe they're maybe it doesn't passages in which the words vanity is used mostly a negative a conduit of negative connotations on but beyond that there are other phrases that songs like shakespeare it's not like shakespeare but it's almost like shakespeare in that there are in this poet was a phrase maker and i wonder how much of that in the drug you're going to notice is one of the paradoxes of we know this book mr bones we know parts of the famous porn the begins chapter three you know the season for everything exactly in time to love the time to hate times more divided than we know those things would only set up up the

bird sang that in the nineteen sixties or they did that they said they didn't exactly right yeah it contributes to our heart to our culture to our your music which began with an intriguing as to why this book seems to make organized religion so an easy year rabbis i know nixon alone is visiting the contradictions in the book of ecclesiastes is christian nuns years i know disregarded or anonymize of many because it lacks news of the resurrection of jesus but again there's a mood a mood of the spiritual life is being preserved here and also an idea of god and it's one way in to scripture and audio we know this but they're the only are we so we think we'll do nothing new under the sun in the sun what is crooked cannot be made straight year

in much wisdom is much vexation isn't the thing sound negative but only do and i guess they you know i think i think that's what makes them out of kilter yep says the state was a lottery that great but that's just the way not a deal it's a way of avoiding dealing with what he has to say i think in a larger picture in the end in the long term is not just a fatalist i think he actually has some positive things to say about a good name is better than pressures on and i mean it's like that's right he goes on and on and on your commentary around tell me how you devise a strategy to take a verse sometimes us the law and just at some found that a one liner and then the real thing around here room sometimes just i'm just a verse or to just just a couple lines were rich enough to

allow you to just wander within it and i unpack it and just her lecture impressions flow sometimes in the larger sections and segments that they're then suggest another aunt flo you know i wasn't writing a technical commentary as was more just in a kind of a hybrid kind of impressionistic meditation deadly people ministers to crabs would enjoy you know obama told state secrets per member look back at the tennessean you be put up these huge signs for pity the poor or weaker at the poor interview turn on your computer my message to the reporter was at the corridor no matter what a computer yeah that you've seen that sign you position the pall over the right kinds of thoughts to the wickedness of i've never forgotten that is like it's tattooed somewhere something about the reader think that the questions they might have you know was this guy in a bottle

was he saying these things who was this guy who was ecclesiastical the names of resistance when there was all this made him what is the bible anyway what is holy bible me on china ever feel like people walking around with some of these questions and they would be getting answers river they're not understand this the big answer book but i'm just trying to keep this interesting cover national conversation what is human rights you write this you say as long as people express a rather novel bubble and corn and smart books about the bubble that only written and controversy about the bubble is going to continue to exist to us not long ago in their chair i sat that's adam talk about this with some baptist convention and again that is a question about rome what's inerrancy and ann what's authoritative it's coming down to this in the

steel discussions around what would his religious authority what is inspiration you know the public debate is that is dominated by just you know people who were labeled fine and that was sometimes in the call themselves that often those just a derogatory term but it's it's that group that usually doing the defining of the debate and just lots of other perspectives out there that are not being heard it's almost surprising to me that we haven't had done and some may are former business but we're not had some then religion prince live on those who might say you know really this but does not belong here it'll it has no place here and this is not the sort of thinking that religious people should there's segments that really sort

of signaling seen nothing pornographic the point is the poet but there are moments you wonder why did he say that and where did you get that and certainly not hollows in a traditional religious a conviction or another paradox because of writing aside and roman the clergy and scholars and they always did the same correction there you are you lying when you have to have crazy for trying to write a book about as the subject was yes but then i'd meet laypeople ago are queasy asked you know it was my favorite book of the bible i discovered in the gideon's bible in a hotel room when i was at a low point or something and they just like lay buried treasure they discovered all around and everton church beverly or sermon about it so you know what that sounds like against the grain kind of theology is actually gives permission he says he he he says will sometimes obscures well it's okay to be discouraged

yasir says he put in a good word for the president never hear much of a good word from organized religion about the present the bible is about the past it's about the future too much about a ringing endorsement about the goodness of the present but it's in the book you point out that though would follow them was the fort four to one over fires spoke directly to him here resisted in her own nobel acceptance in the acceptance speeches and then what she had to say and six the question on the us and in her own way she's sort of saying you know i don't i don't i don't do anything but love what you say bolivia

and there are lessons there she says for a fortnight for for what made and done and you go back and think about these little excerpt that you've sprinkled throughout your own text in your own commentary and suddenly realize why it was she chose him is he is not just the music and in the summers well you know it was not a soldier a grabber well this is one individual personality in the bible it is to become role in his own way and i think there's something endearing about that that the songs the many voices there seems to be one person although some scholars say was maybe more than one but i think it's i would make the case as one that's probably one guy jewish sage you probably have some reason teacher maybe three hundred years before jesus' some more scary as it was a wonderful poachers caught on a

cantankerous sort of individuals to self's i think i can see how those to match up one points one point she makes this is that you know as his habit you say there's nothing new under the sonic image around right and your bond book that's hurt other poor india are dreaming he says at one point now where someone's always that adage which really means all his all his ephemeral contemporary and passing not always mean just the modern translation sale is meaningless as if he's some kind of french existentialist know forget it he's usually think a hebrew word has to do with a wispy ms fee for moral here today gone the more then it means if he really meant that in a nihilistic way all of that he would have gotten up in the morning instead he actually wrote his book he was a teacher to them if you still have hope he wrote his book or hadn't allowed it to be written from perhaps lecture notes or whatever but they're so he now

hopelessness in a way gets the last words you say you use then tear to our present movement to politicize religion well to politicize religion one way one one indispensable thing you have to do apparently his claim god for your side god on your side on the human thing to want to do that he flew to an intense and vehement about that then he's slowly slipped slip into thinking that well my words my thoughts my desires of my gender or a divine vision and we're slowly aligning you're infallible or you're fallible will with this huge mysterious creator and you just eat it

will end combat for all of a sudden the pursuit of that sort of purity and a sort of certitude that i think there's a lot of political solutions are not working right now you know the old ideologies are falling as long as i'm as as it's said is considered a replacement for somebody old nationalistic or political ideologies for now but one way to understand the amounts of the poor of the world but then it you know that they had a different magnitude it happens over here to we wanted to claim god were religious nation this is a lot of energy in trying to focus on ecclesiastes east though is this a timeout this is the city got a job you know he said that there were we're when i created everything you order and you don't have all the answers here

i'm god is not visiting crazy ass t's at the end of this book away he visited job is more questions perhaps but then he saw a witness to reticence to you know let's you know let's understand who we are only god is god we're not god our word created not the creators and our time here short and the frustrations are many and probably and seizing throughout life but we do have gifts god this god has given us gets to praise the greater to love the neighbor and to love the moment our work of her food or drink her friends her and we have the gift of a b of language to say this these are those two modest sometimes i think those are the saving

grace that for those who want apocalypse now or wants utopia now the be impatient if it will get their way you know we think of a notice and your profit usually comes to nonprofit in not innocent so much profits on profundity but still profits in many cases were saying it is inevitable that this will happen or it is written that this will happen on that we know that this will happen chris estes as you said a moment ago is is locked into the present and there is not in my judgment a sense of prophecy and check and in the sense of thinking the future

in as you find elsewhere the old well the stories he's a bit of an agnostic about the future he thinks we're not the setup to know we're glad we don't quite have the equipment to really figure that out later jesus made a similar point of warning against too much of prognostication about doomsday says the angels don't know even this un of god and speaking of himself doesn't know the daily hour so don't be enough reading about their well i think he grew the craziest is that all this future too much future oriented you know prognosticating to suggestions and can mischief and i'm just a waste of energy and an end and just an accumulation of fear that intensifies fear you know saw some point of contact between images actually i'm a try to speculate in their boy wonder one of the scroll is yes it was circulating at the time of jesus' i wish just this has been

no evidence of pro or con el but it's it's fun to speculate is a jesus talks in meteorological terms of times that when the spirit blows where it welcomes us to his language talk about them about where he fits into the dogmatic onset of and hard work well as the hell he would be interpreted know over the years and your well i think i think that the benign neglect of ecclesiastes use as a way of saying we don't know how to handle this cause or would just dismiss him as a crank who somehow made it happen which again is deserted dodging the issue is one reason i wrote this book was to try to think about the question well it's different if the

bible is true in ecclesiastes teaches somehow must be true to who was at the award as it is to say that the moods that he represents uncertain present oriented spirit as well as pay fica acknowledgement of weariness of times these are true moods of the spirit and there's no point in no reason to deny it and the church as though you know professional feeler fresh local clergy center they did on the business of being where either they're being paid to be here jaunty tune to offer answers you know and so the sky it was yes it doesn't quite fit that that style so but the question is with what truth is being told here well this is part of this this spectrum of the spiritual life includes so exuberant so in a real is unknown but vargas materialism is what i think he offers a

poetic inside the but also emotional religion and it's in pieces the sanctified thing diseases he's of the holy writer know this is the second book you've written and so it takes a bottle not a test but that takes a parliament left is inaudible coming from me whoa that further lumet and i think this is an illuminating book with it at first because on the somme set up this instance he would cut a goddess is in here and i thought the god of mercy of god of the underdog and nobody cares about the underdog as a stranger you know the next book i have tried i don't jump into the new testament and try to do some kind of jesus book focusing on mark which is the oldest gospel of what i consider to be the true last gospel in all this davinci code talking at gnostic gospels with a reading from the last one is right there in the bible i think so ironically my theory and under our noses so on

consumer loans thank you so much for being here and like all of you for watching ray wobble and i talk about the idea that ryan and john silver fin vt