Edgework

In Part Two of A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren wrestles with how the Bible is authoritative for us today. He begins by describing the mess we are in. First, he says, by making the Bible into a scientific textbook the church has too often found itself on the wrong side of history: the earth remained flat, psychology and psychiatry were denied the mentally ill, the ecological crisis is ignored – just to name a few.

Second, by depending on “proof texting” to find biblical guidance for ethics, we have been left with a long list of ethical issues for which we find no biblical guidance at all: racism, human rights, pornography, genetic engineering, nuclear weapons, torture – among many others. Third, we find ourselves propagating the “us-versus-them” mentality that leads to conflict instead of peace by confusing what God says in the Bible with what we “say God says.”

I can only say I have observed these dynamics for many years. I have found that those who swear scientifically on the Bible tend to focus more on getting their facts straight than on discovering meaning for faith and life in the biblical text. This leads to a “dumbing down” of the Bible as it loses its potential to inspire. And in the absence of a “specific word from the Lord” addressing modern ethical dilemmas, there is a massive secularization process underway in which Christians simply adopt society’s ethical norms – assuming that their “Christian-based culture” gets it right most of the time. Furthermore, it is disturbing that the more “bible-based” Christians become, the more it seems they support violence in the name of God. I agree that all of this is “an old and tired game” (70), as McLaren says.

I was glad McLaren used the subject of the justification of slavery in the past to make his point. Back in the days when I was teaching Christian Ethics at college, once a year I would begin a lecture by delivering a sermon based on the arguments used in the American South to support slavery. I challenged students to either accept slavery as God’s plan for the ages or throw out the Bible.

During the dialogue that followed I would steadfastly uphold the view that the Bible supports slavery. Of course there was a lot of push-back from the students. Near the end of one class a student jumped up from her seat, shook her fist in the air, and shouted, “I’ve got it! If I had been the daughter of a slave owner in 1860 that is exactly what I would have believed. And that scares me!” I consider that the high point of my teaching career.

In chapter 8, McLaren proposes that a better interpretive method can be found by learning to read the Bible as a “library” instead of a “constitution.” A constitution, he states, has to be totally consistent within itself. The problem is that serious students of the Bible know that this is not the case within the biblical text. So, all kinds of ingenious ways have been invented to make the Bible speak with one voice. When viewed as a library of inspired writings, on the other hand, we can allow the internal tensions to remain. Instead of providing specific answers for all times and places, the Bible keeps the important questions alive so that in each generation we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, discern God’s ways for our times.

Reading the Bible as” library” instead of “constitution” calls for a fundamental shift that many sincere Christians will have difficulty adopting. It will mean that they can no longer use chapter and verse to proclaim a definitive answer for every question that confronts them. Also that in many cases they will need to step back from a microscopic analysis of the text to see the larger context within which a specific text is situated. And then depend on the Holy Spirit and a discerning community to guide them in discerning issues related to faith and life in our time. I concur with McLaren that while religious gate keepers will not look upon this proposal with favor, we will kindly need to remind them that the old way simply doesn’t work for some of us anymore and that a new way is needed.

As a “case in point” example of how we must wrestle with tensions within the biblical canon, McLaren focuses on the Book of Job. He notes that Job’s friends spend a lot of time piously quoting Bible verses that prove that Job must have sinned. Had God not said in Deuteronomy 11:26-28 that obedience would lead to blessing and disobedience to curse? Yet in Job 42, God takes Job’s friends to task, saying that they had not spoken for him. That leaves us with the thorny issue of inconsistency within the biblical text.

If we move forward to Isaiah, we notice that he, in fact, envisions that in some cases the righteous will suffer, something which came into sharp focus in the suffering of Christ in the New Testament and in the affirmation that his followers would also suffer persecution. Surely this reversal of truths calls for discernment beyond quoting chapter and verse.

While this may not be satisfactory to many, McLaren suggests that instead of placing ourselves under the text as conservatives tend to do, or over the text as liberals do, we need to place ourselves in the text. That concept in itself needs a lot of unpacking. But I agree with McLaren that as we immerse ourselves in the biblical text and begin to understand God and his ways from inside the larger story, we will begin to discern trajectories from within the story that speak to faith and life issues today. Perhaps not a chapter and verse, but a “word from the Lord,” nonetheless.

For On-going Dialogue:

1. Do you agree with McLaren that we have gotten ourselves into a mess in terms of how to read the Bible? Explain.

2. How do you attempt to discern God’s will on issues that are not specifically discussed in the Bible?

3. Do you think that if you had lived in the American South in 1860 you would likely have believed in slavery as God’s plan for the ages? Does that scare you? Why or why not?

4. What pros and cons do you see to viewing the Bible as a “library” of inspired texts instead of a “constitution” that must be shown to be entirely consistent within itself?