A recent Christian Century article opened with this paragraph:

Gatherings of the worldwide Anglican Communion have been contentious events in recent years. On one occasion, two bishops were participating in a Bible study, one from Africa, the other from the U.S. As the hours went by, tempers frayed as the African expressed his confidence in the clear words of scripture, while the American stressed the need to interpret the Bible in the light of modern scholarship and contemporary mores. Eventually, the African bishop asked in exasperation, “If you don’t believe the scripture, why did you bring it to us in the first place?”

Of course, much of the “contention” has resulted from the disagreements on the role that women and homosexuals play in the church, specifically in church leadership. But I am not going to directly address those issues, but instead address this quote:

If you don’t believe the scripture, why did you bring it to us in the first place?

This is an interesting question. Why bring scripture if you do not believe in it? This line of questioning is often directed to those that hold to a more liberal view of scripture. But “those that hold to a more liberal view of scripture” is a pretty vague grouping also – this covers a large range of people of varying levels of faith and belief in scripture.

With that said, I begin this discussion by saying this – not believe in the scripture does not equate with wanting/needing a better understanding (culturally, linguistically, academically, etc) of what a specific passage means in the current culture and society that we live in.

I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. But that does not mean that I always use the Bible as a literal tool for guidance. The Bible is a piece of literature, and just like any other piece of literature, it needs to be understood in the context of when it was written and who it was written to. Within these important contextual understandings one also needs to look at the language, the genre, the tone, and other related literary factors that will help us understand the true intent of a passage. So while the Bible may be the inspired word of God, we still cannot ignore the important contextual issues related to it as a piece of literature. Furthermore, it becomes even more important to understand the Bible culturally being that it is a religious text that offers guidance to how we live.

So what does all of this mean in terms of “believing the scripture?” It is clear that the Bible was not written in 2006 and it was not written to a technological society we all currently live in. In turn we need to understand both the Ancient Near East (the time/culture that the Bible was written in/to) and the current time/culture that we live in. This becomes even more difficult when we realize that we live in an incredible diverse world with a wide range of cultural understanding and mores.

Back to the original quote. I find it incredibly arrogant for someone to claim that others do not believe in the scripture simply because the want to understand what it means in our current culture. I also find it incredibly ironic that many that hold to a fundamentalist/literal view of the Bible only do it when convenient.

How many fundamentalists do you see wearing fancy clothes/make up?

How many women keep their head covered in church?

How many fundamentalists take Jesus’ teachings seriously to love your enemies? Or love the poor? Or be peacemakers?

I know very, very few Christians who take the entirety of the Bible literally. So why is that people are pick and choose (and sometimes rightfully so) what they take literally get angry at others who “pick and choose” differently?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not one to say that there are thousands of different interpretations of the same Biblical passages. But I do not frustrated with those who claim to take the Bible more seriously than I do simply based on a handful of controversial passages, even though they take other far less controversial passages much less seriously than I do.

I find it heart breaking that there are those who attack one’s belief in the Bible simply because they interpret things differently or look at the Bible through appropriate cultural lenses.

This takes back to the classic quote purported to be from John Wesley:

In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.

[cross posted at the mindful mission]