Don’t we all wish that being quoted or interpreted out of context could not, or would not, happen?
“Out of context” can be harmless and even humorous.
Following our younger son’s high school commencement service, my spouse and I volunteered to serve as parent volunteers for the all night after-graduation fellowship and recreation event. My assignment was “inside security.” Four hundred students and seven hours later, I had encountered not a single incident meriting even the thought of expulsion. During my seven hours “on patrol,” I took four ten-minute breaks to sit and visit with other adult sponsors.
Eight days later, a church member and fellow-parent of a graduate presented me with a 4×6 photo of myself asleep in a chair, having dozed off for three minutes during my 3:30 a.m. break. The caption on the back reads: “Project Graduation 2010 under the ever watchful eye of security guard Ted Foote.”
Her photo and caption are harmless and humorous; I laughed out loud. Yet for the literal interpreter, I want to argue, its implication is completely out of context.
Less harmless and humorous, on September 13, 2001, Jerry Falwell, then pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., responded to an interview question about the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. In his comments, he blamed “abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU, and People for the American Way” for “secularizing America,” to the extent that they infuriated militant religious fundamentalists abroad (such as al-Qaeda) and prompted them to attack. The next day, he said he sincerely regretted that his comments had been “taken out of context.”
Many esteemed experts of sociology, world religions, philosophy, ethics, etc., decry promiscuity, self-absorbed values, and unbridled consumerism in any culture (including the United States). They often base and reinforce their critiques from the teachings and values of religious traditions. They also, however, develop their arguments without endorsing Dr. Fallwell’s personal conclusions of “moral dacay.”
At an informal Friday evening social and community-service event held in a rather small room, during a group conversation, I said to three other persons: “I understand how the Biblical prophets of Israel might have said the oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is evidence of God’s judgment against our cultural idolatry and our economic dependence on the petroleum industry.” A few days later, a church member told me that a person nearby overheard my comment and took it to mean that I, as a clergyperson, personally believed God literally caused this environmental disaster.
Yes, if one follows this logic, God, by extension, is distributing “blanket” divine punishment through collaterally polluting the innocent environment of estuaries and oceans and the habitats of fish, birds, mammals, microscopic organisms, and humans.
Taken in context, I feel fine about what I said. I will argue past sundown that I was correct in terms of what Israel’s ancient prophets might conclude; yet suddenly I felt terrible, and still don’t feel “so hot” about it. I said to my fellow Presbyterian, “I guess I can remove her name from my list of potential church members.”
Attempting to help me feel better, she replied, “I don’t know if you had any real reason for her to be on a list like that in the first place.”
Being taken out of context is always a possibility. It can be humorous and harmless. On other occasions it can leave some, who will not ask for clarification, with an impression or interpretation we’d never want them to have.
So, for awhile, I’ve sent myself to the “J.F. (Jerry Falwell) Memorial Timeout Chair.”
TED V. FOOTE JR. is pastor of First Church, Bryan, Texas.
