“You’re taking that out of context.”

“You’re taking that out of context.”  

That is a charge often leveled at people interpreting the Holy Bible.  The critical claim that an interpreter is taking a piece of text “out of context” serves to call into question the validity of the interpretation.  Taking a piece “out of context” is a bad practice, in other words.  And perhaps it is.  

But I don’t think the problem of “context” is that simple.  I don’t think the problem of “context” is reducible to being either “in context” or “out of context.”  I think that if we are honest and a bit analytically savvy we can distinguish multiple contexts at play.  Let me be more clear.

In my would-be professional life, I study world politics.  It is commonplace for students of world politics to define three possible contexts or scales of analysis.  There are micro contexts that involve concrete interactions between people in specific situations.  There are meso contexts that involve interactions between people, institutions and broader regional alliances.  Then there are global contexts that involve broad networks of people and institutions such as capitol markets and the WWW.

Another way to think about the problem of “context” is in these terms.  The texts that compose the scriptures were written by different authors in different contexts.  The events the authors are writing about took place in certain contexts—that the authors may or may not have participated in.  The scriptures were assembled together into the Holy Bible in certain contexts.  We read the Bible in the present through the contexts that we’re living in—and for as many different readers of the Bible today there are probably just as many contexts.

My point, in short, is that there are multiple contexts.  To say that a text is “out of context” begs the question: “which context do you speak of?”  

So I’m inclined to say that while taking a text “out of context” is something one should try to avoid, it is exactly something that one can’t avoid at some level.  I dare say that taking some scriptural text or some aspect of some text “out of context” is unavoidable.  

Why is it unavoidable?

We all speak from a perspective, from a concrete time and place.  No one speaks from nowhere  and no one speaks from everywhere.  We are necessarily context bound creatures.  

And to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the former Department of Defense chair in the US, there are contexts we know we know, there are contexts we know we don’t know, but there are also unknown unknowns that fall completely outside our purview.

My point in this little rant is that to say that someone has taken something “out of context” is an empty criticism that needs a lot of filing in by concrete detail about what you are talking about.  At another level, it is a way of saying “I disagree with your interpretation,” which is fine, but just say that.  It makes more sense.  And, finally, it is a criticism that we are all open to and so that should weigh on the critics mind and tongue—it is a log lodged in all of our eyes.