God Said It, And That Begins It

I remember driving down the road once, and maybe you have had this experience. Right in front of me was a car that was one of "those Christians". It was painted with bumper stickers. Some of them were uplifting and had a good message to share, like "My God is NOT dead", "Prince of Peace", and "My God love you 'this' much (there is a picture of a crucified Jesus stretching out his hands)". But for the most part the bumper stickers were bigoted, narrow-minded, and argumentative. And in the center peice of this ideological collage was perhaps the most concise and to the point bumper sticker I have ever read. Obviously, the maker of the sticker did a very good job, because after all these years I still remember it, but it is too bad he so entirely missed the point. I find that what this bumper sticker represents has become the standard stock and trade approach to the Bible in our modern Evangelical church.

God said it, and that ends it.

If there was ever a bastardization of the Christian faith. It is that statement, right there. Okay, maybe I'm being dramatic. Christianity has existed for thousands of years now, and I am sure it has experienced much greater bastardizations then this, but in our modern world, I think this ranks up there, pretty high. I never quite understood the need to display my ideological positions on my gas guzzling symbol of economic oppression and consumeristic mania. You expect to find Socrates in the public square, but not in the gutter. I kinda think the best representation a Christian can give of Christ when it concerns their cars is to simply obey the laws of the road and drive safely. But perhaps that can be the subject of my next book.

Rick Warren says something similar in Purpose Driven Life, "surrendered people obey God's word, even

when it doesn't make sense". There comes a point in a Christians life when they have to make a very important decision. What happens when the Bible doesn't make sense? Christian fundamentalists are in a fight for their life to make sure that at all costs the Bible wins when this question is asked. In their zeal to defend the Bible they completely miss the point. I remember one of my old fundamentalists pastors, who was a pretty cool guy, said, "People will fight like the devil for the things of God." It was a rather uncharacteristic moment for him, but this was a pretty wise statement, unfortunately I think it applied to him a couple of times when it came to understanding the Bible.

The problem comes when we loose sight of the power of inspiration. God gives us new life. This means that God is never the "end" of anything. God doesn't end debates. He begins conversation. He doesn't end doubt. He begins wonder. The literalist/fundamentalist would remove everything inspiring about the Bible in order to preserve their convoluted idea of authority that must exist in a sacred text, but their objections are certainly not historically founded, nor are they textually grounded, and we know that they were not authored with this intention as well. So where do the fundamentalists get this idea that what God says is the final authority on everything?

Now, for the most part this might not be that bad of an idea, but when we get into the realm of anti-intellectualism it becomes a very serious problem. When major Christian leaders are getting in front of people and telling millions of readers, ten thousand member congregations, and hundreds of thousands more through blogs, books, and viral videos that when it comes to conflicts between obeying God's word or obeying one's conscience the Bible must always win.

Of course, how is any of this different from what the CSBI has to say. In the late seventies Christian fundamentalists gathered to enact a document that would prescribe for them the norms of how Biblical authority would be handled. We saw already how futile their attempt was to define inerrancy without the ability to measure error. Fundamentalists do the same to define the Bible without the ability to measure "inspiration".

Some will hear this teaching and they will fall in line. Fear will grip them, like it did to me, when I used to question the Bible. The loss of fellowship, the disapproval of a pastor, or the potential loss of a spouse will always keep Christians good boys and girls when it comes to reading the Bible. But many, (and I mean, MANY) Christians are simply falling away. The cost is too much. Why violate our minds and intellect in order to understand the Bible the way fundamentalists do?

So what is my solution? Unfortunately, it is not one that accommodates the anti-intellectualism of many believers in the church today. And truthfully, my response is no different then no solution at all. I do not believe one needs to defend what the Bible says in order to prove that God speaks to them through the Bible, nor do I think that the Bible needs to be proven to come from a divine source, as though the Bible were exceptional or unique in a literary context in order for it to be effective as coming from God. The Bible doesn't need to be moral, historically accurate, or practical in order to be a living voice speaking to our hearts. As Christians there is nothing in the Bible, or in our history, demanding us to read our Bible's literally. If we read that God told ancient people to enact genocide against a neighboring nation. We have every right and responsibility to feel discomfort and even doubt concerning the meaning of this pericope, and just because one doubts the Bible it does not mean that one cannot hear from God.

To take a side that says we ought to betray our conscience in order to obey God's word is tantamount to spiritual tyranny. It is the death of faith, according to Paul (1 Tim 1:19). Should the Christian submit to the Bible? Yes. Does this mean that everything the Bible says literally applies to the Christian life? No. If a Christian chooses in good conscience to symbolize certain passage that betray one's conscience in order to maintain faith are they being rebellious, proud, or hard hearted? Absolutely not!

Christian, realize this. If I wanted to live a sinful life, I would simply stop being a Christian. There is nothing to gain from giving myself excuses in the Bible to do what I really wanted. If a person is going to apply the Bible to their life in a symbolic manner then they would simply be taking part in a long history of Christians who have done the exact same thing. It's not picking and choosing, either, because there is no prima facie reason why symbolism has to be rejected. In fact the symbolist is able to apply the Bible more completely for the very reason that he is NOT picking and choosing. It is only the literalist who has to pick and choose.

So in the end, I cannot defend the Bible. I can only defend the Christian need to be devoted to the Bible. I can offer no reason why literalism cannot be true, and I have good reasons to hope for it to be true. And symbolism offers no definitive standard to measure what the meaning of God's Word is in an objective setting. Symbolism appears to be the only hope a Christian has for interpreting the Bible in good conscience, at the very least we have to include it as an equal partner with literalism in Biblical interpretation, which means that literalism still cannot hold a prima facie or exclusive claim to interpretation. Thus, the Bible fails at a very critical juncture. It cannot purify our faith.

This has to be acknowledge in the depths of your soul. The Bible even if it is inspired in the highest order to the heavens, it still is powerless to create or assist in causing a pure faith. For faith is involved in our understanding of it. Your Christian background and upbringing will rebel against this idea, but it has to be accepted. Your faith is in jeopardy if you cannot understand this crucial argument. If you are not willing to completely rid yourself of the Bible in order to maintain faith then the Bible can never truly be inspiring to you. For God's words to be new every morning we must grasp that they die every night. The "newness" of God's message is entirely contingent upon the life that God offers. The message is not equivalent to the life itself. We have to unpack this in our core of what it means to be a Christian. The Bible demonstrates no characteristics that compel a person to accept faith. It is a tool for the faithful. It is not a detached message that can be examined objectively to discover what God's truth must be. 

The first Christians did not have a Bible. For the first three hundred years of Christianity there was no canon. For the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity there was no Bible study. The idea that the Bible is necessary for personal spiritual growth is an entirely modern invention. Participating in the life that God has to offer is the foundation of all spiritual development. The Bible gets to participate in this same process, but the process itself is not contingent upon the Bible, and the Bible can even participate to a privileged degree, but as Christians we have to stop being Biblicists and start being Christ-centered. It's not about what God said in the past, it is about what he is saying to you now. It is not about what can end our debates, our strife, our conflicts, our suffering. It is about what can begin our journey, our adventure, our quest. God is calling us forth. He is offering us new life. This is Christianity, not the Bible.