On Not Throwing the Bible Out With the Bath Water
Saturday, June 18, 2016
When we read the Bible we want to read
it in a way that speaks into our lives, and helps us to be more
moral. We want it to challenge our assumptions and values, to push us
to go beyond the lame morality of our culture, and to be more like
Jesus. But at the same time a lot of us have noticed that the Bible
is often read by people in ways that justify them in being really
terrible people who do inhumane and immoral things.
The Bible has been called a two-edged
sword, and unfortunately that means it can cut both ways – it can
do great good and great harm – depending on how we use it. So the
question is, how can we know that we are reading the Bible in a way
that makes us more moral, not less moral?
The Bible is a means not an end. Love
is the goal, and the Bible is supposed to be a servant to lead us to
love. If we are reading it in a way that leads us away from love, it
would be better not to read it at all. That’s where a lot of people
end up. They see all of the yucky stuff in the Bible – the parts
that promote racism and oppression and violence and so on – and
they just want to chuck the whole thing. So why do I keep reading? I
can answer that in a single word.
Jesus.
I read the Bible in the hopes of
understanding what Jesus was about, learning to see things like he
did, think like he did, love like he did. In particular Jesus’ idea
about loving your enemies is something that has captured my heart and
mind. It is something that is still needed and radical today some two
thousand years later. I want to learn what it means to do that. So I
immerse myself in that book (including reading Paul, who I see as
trying to figure out how to live out that Jesus-shaped love).
So that’s why I still read the Bible.
But still the question remains, how can I read in a way that makes me
more moral as opposed to making me less moral? How can I read the
Bible in a way that challenges my own blind spots and the blind spots
in my culture?
Something that I hear a lot as an
evangelical is conservative Christians who maintain that they are
going against the grain of their culture today and upholding the
Bible and tradition. So if we all think something is bad, but the
Bible says it’s good then we need to trust the Bible. The basic
assumption is that the Bible should override what we observe and
experience in life to be good.
The logic behind this seems
straightforward enough: If we want to have the Bible and the way of
Jesus act as a corrective to the broken values of our society, then
shouldn’t we let the Bible trump what seems right to us? The
problem is this is an argument based on authority, and as long as we
are basing something on authority alone (including the authority of
the Bible) we are by definition not really understanding it. This
authoritarian approach inevitably always leads to hurtful
interpretations because it has no means to differentiate between what
is hurtful and what is loving. In fact, what happens is we disregard
what we can observe about life, we disregard our hearts (and the Holy
Spirit in us!) saying “this is wrong, stop!” and we disregard
people saying “Hey you are really hurting me, please stop!”
In short, the absolute worst possible
way to read the Bible is in an authoritarian way, and that is
precisely the way most of us have learned to read it. What I want to
propose instead is that it is possible to read the Bible in a way
that informs our morality, and that goes beyond simply mirroring the
values of our culture. That includes by the way mirroring the
entrenched values and assumptions of our particular faith tradition
or of our culture from a couple decades ago in “the good old days.”
Typically one is either on the side of
tradition and the Bible, and dismissive of the voices of those who
are marginalized in society by religion, or one is on the side of
those who are marginalized in society by religion, and dismissive of
the Bible. If we look at how Jesus read Scripture however, what we
find is that he read it in a way that was connected to real life and
our observed experience, and in particular by giving voice to the
voiceless. He interpreted the law in a way that did not ignore the
injustices of his day, as the Pharisees did, but interpreted the law
in a way that resulted in loving those who were being harmed by an
authoritarian interpretation of the law.
The law was the servant of the people,
Jesus said, and so he therefore saw no problem in changing the law to
accommodate the situation so that the end was love – breaking the
Sabbath to help someone in need, ignoring the command to punish in
favor of promoting reconciliation and restoration instead, going
beyond commands for retribution and calling people instead to the way
of enemy love.
What is key here is interpreting and
applying Scripture not in a way that ignores what we can observe
about what is good for people and how life works, but in a way that
is integrally connected with our lived reality. This is the opposite
of an authoritarian approach because instead of saying that we will
obey without understanding, we say we need to seek to understand so
we can obey (i.e. follow, live as a disciple) well.
That means we need to really get what
the way of Jesus is about, and the only way to do that is by living
it out. We will never understand what the complex reality of
forgiveness looks like until we actually walk through it – both as
individuals and as a community. We won’t ever get what
reconciliation looks like until we learn to practice it. It can’t
just be theoretical, it needs to be practiced and lived.
I also have to say that the more I walk
in this the more I find words to describe the Bible like
authoritative, infallible, inerrant, and even inspired to be really
unhelpful. I know that make a lot of people nervous, so let me
explain why I dislike them all. The reason is that they are almost
always used in a way that promotes an authoritarian reading. They are
used to shut down questions, and shut down people. I have no time for
that.
That’s not to say that I reject these
concepts, but simply that I want to be able to have a productive and
practical conversation about how to read and apply the Bible in our
lives, and want to work with words and concepts that help that,
rather than hinder it. So I find it is much more helpful to simply
approach the Bible, and in particular the words of Jesus, like I
would any other idea – not blindly and unthinkingly following it,
not treating it like it was sacred and untouchable, but seeking to
really understand it. I strip away everything romantic and just ask
“is there something good here?” which is the way I would approach
reading any book.
That does not mean that I think the
Bible is just “any” book. But I find that “any” book approach
actually helps. My goal, after all, in reading the Bible is to go
beyond the book and to reach the person behind the book. The way I
have come to understand inspiration is that it is about encountering
the Holy Spirit – inspired = in-Spirit-ed. The book is not the
Spirit. The words on the page are not the Spirit. The Bible is a
vehicle, a window, through which we can encounter the living Spirit
of Christ speaking straight into our heart, personally and
powerfully. So the Bible is not in itself inspired. An atheist can
read the Bible and not encounter God at all (and so can we). The
Bible is a means for us to encounter the Spirit, but that takes our
heart being open to that encounter with the living Word of God,
Jesus.
Labels: authoritarianism, Bible, violence
6 Comments:
Hi Derek.
Concentrating on what Jesus DID is the key to knowing God. This is THE start point for any interpretation of the Bible.
Jesus was not authoritarian.
Blessings.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thanks Derek, continue to appreciate your honest insight.
I guess I struggle a bit between two things. On one side, I strongly lean toward Dallas Willard approach that discipleship is about the life of God being in you and you living more and more like God would have you not because they are just "God's commandments" but because they are a natural flow of how we live life when we know who we are. The Bible then becomes the challenging"is this really the kind of life I want to live?" At times affirming, "yes, this is what I was made for (I.e. to be a blessing not a curse). And on the other side with not just looking for proof scriptures so I can justify what I already believe and how i want things to go as the warning of people looking with itching ears to what they want to hear. I know walking with Christ is living in tension. I struggle a lot to find a medium point where I can affirm God said it and I might not always like to hear it.
Brad,
There's a big difference between something that is hard to hear, but we recognize as being nevertheless good, and something that is just bad.
So on a personal level, the way I distinguish between the voice of the HolY Spirit and the voice of the devil is if it is from God it feels loving. It may still be hard to hear, but in a good way. In contrast, the voice of the devil is not good, not building up, but just destructive.
There are some things in the Bible that fall into that "just destructive" category where I would not say they are good but hard, but that they are simply bad/wrong/immoral/wrong. These are things that are out of line with the character of Christ, but still attributed to God. We should not call those good out of some sort of misplaced loyalty to the Bible.
Personally I recognize that my judgement is impaired the good that I seek to do, the desire to determine what is good for others I'd highly suspect. As I continue to turn to God I realize not only the evil was on the tree of knowledge but also the good.
This of course puts a major flaw in our version of good and not hurting people. The blessing as you have discussed is the ability to see the fruit of how we express ourselves. If we choose to rely on our own understanding it will yield a negative outcome but if we are yielding to God it does go much better.
It is such a big challenge to acknowledge how quickly I use the truth to injure or try to create the outcome I desire by good or evil means. I am torn at times desiring to not live authoritarian but not live being wise in my own eyes either. I think there is a middle ground, which you are trying to articulate. I think moving towards a way of treating people that shows they are valuable is the way to go. Name calling and devaluing our opponents will only give them more cause to dig in their heals. We must find a way to bless and affirm as much as we can, influence where we can, control as little as possible.
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