I Survived the Christian Right: Lesson 2
By Michael Camp • Feb 8th, 2010 • Category: thinkingI Survived the Christian Right: Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home
Lesson 2
Beware of Bible Abuse
With some notable exceptions, most evangelicals I know primarily read the Bible devotionally, meaning they read it in a superficial way without regard to the conditions of history, culture, genre, or its own literary context. They also believe it is the infallible Word of God and expect God to speak to them personally through its message. I read the Bible this way for years. But I gradually learned a valuable lesson. Although harmless on occasion, a predominantly devotional approach to Bible study inevitably leads to Bible abuse—handling scripture in a way that the original author did not intend and the original audience would never recognize. Although it is mostly done unintentionally, I find people abuse the Bible in three ways.
Misinterpretation – The most common form is when people take verses or passages out of their literary context, for example, the practice of citing isolated verses to bolster a doctrine. In other words proof-texting without checking the full context. That’s why we should “read the Bible like drinking beer, not sipping wine.”6
Another form of this is practicing poor exegesis and hermeneutics. Exegesis is ascertaining a passage’s original meaning through understanding its historical and cultural background.Hermeneutics is deciding how to apply a passage to our modern circumstances. Without doing the hard work of both of these, it’s easy to misinterpret what the Bible teaches.7 Passages are applied with a wooden literalism, which causes a host of problems, including dogmatic teaching on divorce, tithing, the eminent return of Christ, and sexuality, to name only a few.
Applying Strict Authority – Despite the fact that the Bible does not claim to be inerrant8, fundamentalists and many evangelicals insist it is. When I visited L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland in 1984, I studied this doctrine and concluded there was little evidence to support it. Gradually, I came to believe that the Bible is not a set of timeless maxims to be obeyed to the letter. It never claims to be the Word of God, only that Jesus is the Word come down from God and the Jewish prophets spoke the word of the Lord. When every isolated verse or passage is applied with equal authority, the phenomenon of Bibliolatry results.9
Moreover, the evidence supports the notion that parts of our modern Bible were added by copyists and go beyond the original manuscripts, which we don’t have.10 One example is the controversial passage in I Corinthians 14 often used to justify the suppression of women. It states women should not teach but be silent in church and in full subjection to men. Yet the evidence is strong that Paul did not write these verses but later copyists added them.11 The Jesus Seminar makes this mistake in the opposite direction when it dogmatically concludes portions of Jesus’ sayings are not genuine based on subjective opinion, not on manuscript evidence.12 These discoveries reveal how our modern Bible can still contain divine inspiration—and powerful lessons rooted in godly wisdom—without every part of it being the Word of God or wholly free from human error.13
Mistranslation – There are several places in the New Testament where the English word chosen in most popular translations is almost assuredly not correct. I will cite several of them below. Our modern English translations are not as accurate as we think and should not always be taken at face value.
Read the Bible in its own historical, cultural, and literary context. Don’t worship it.
[6] N.T. Wright
[7] See Fee, Gordon, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
[8] Countryman, William, Biblical Authority or Biblical Tyranny?
[9] Bible worship; see Thatcher, Adrian, The Savage Text: The Use and Abuse of the Bible, page 4.
[10] Erdman, Bart D., Misquoting Jesus
[11] Fee, Gordon, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, and Erdman, Op. cit., page 183.
[12] Wills, Gary, What Jesus Meant, page xxv.
[13] Wills, Gary, What Jesus Meant and Countryman, William, Biblical Authority or Biblical Tyranny?
Michael Camp is a former development missionary for evangelical aid organizations and a church-planting ministry. He lived in Africa for seven years, earned a Master degree at Eastern University, and was a senior writer for World Vision. These “heretical” lessons and more evidence for them are in a book he is currently writing entitled Confessions of a Bible Thumper: My Sojourn as an Evangelical and Quest for a Reasoned Faith. Addicted to multi-tasking, he is also brewing a second book in his mind with the working title, Smart Ways to Change the World (and Avoid Unintended Consequences). To follow his progress and read more of his ideas, visit his blog at Deep Thought Pub.
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Thanks for writing about this, it needs to be talked about.
Hello Micheal
The Devil really is in the details, Personally I view scripture with 2 big over arching ideas, Love and Relationship. I prefer to view scripture from a birds eye view, recently I was watching a Jesus debater on a podcast and it struck me that he was lost in the words. I wonder when it was that we forgot how to fly brother?
Pastor Bill Langill jr
from Middle Earth
I survived the Christian Right also and lived to tell about it:>) I also abused the Bible for many years and was guilty of Bibliolatry (love that term but don’t know if it you made it up or not:>) I finally realized there is no evidence that the Bible is inerrant (deep down I always had a problem with that idea) but that there is still truth (not so much facts, but truth) in scripture. Now, I read and interpret scripture according to it’s historical, cultural and literary context…and I don’t worship it.
I love your 10 lessons here and will link to your post on my blog tomorrow for 3 Things Tuesday.
I (newly) attend my family’s Bible-Worshiping church.
It’s a deceptive practice, Bibliolatry. I’ve spotted it out, yet have had trouble wrestling my hesitance with it into words.
Thanks for the help.
-Chase
This is a good article and one that I agree with whole heartedly. You did a great job, in my opinion, of writing this so everyone can understand it. Thanks for the definitions of the theological words that I have heard and read but just cannot remember what they mean. I really hope and pray that many folks will read this. While I agree with all that you said about the way to read our bible, I get much enjoyment from reading it for devotions, Lectio Devina is the technical term. Used in devotion time and the way it is taught it is a powerful way to assist us in opening to God and God’s wisdom. I really agree that too many people worship the bible. Though I believe that Jesus was God incarnated, I think we today worship Jesus more than God. The writers of the bible thought and wrote that Jesus asked his disciples, and us, to worship God and not him. He always pointed away from himself and pointed to God.
i guess i might be one of the bible worshipers if i had to classify myself. i don’t really worship the bible. i don’t pray to it and i don’t think that a tangible book has any kind of power. i pray to God. i believe all power comes from God so i don’t believe i am in danger of breaking the second commandment. which is possibly a danger in itself from some of the author’s earlier writing about the law. i read in detail in some of the scripture passages he provided and i do say the the whole law vs grace discussion sounded confusing to me. it’s heady stuff. but back to the bible. it sounds like you who are supporting the author and are nonsupporters of evangelicals are not making clear to me what you actually believe about the bible. i take a very simple view of the bible. that it’s true. this comforts me because it’s God’s way of telling me how He wants me to live. If i didn’t have the bible I would have to guess. i don’t want to guess. i want to love God and do it in a way that he wants me to. if we don’t see the bible as God’s letter to us. Telling us about himself, then it just means that we can all make up our own ideas about who God is and what He wants us to do. We can’t just take grace and then say “sweet, i can just do whatever i want to now and God will forgive me. I don’t need to follow any of his rules as long as i love what i’m doing and treating others how i would want to be treated.” Because if we want to be treated with no rules or laws and want total freedom, then what stops my sinful nature from taking over. This is a lot of rambling on my part. i am obviously not a good writer. i guess in simplest terms what i am asking and noticing is that to seems like the author has a real vague and loose view of the bible and you can kind of pick and choose what you want to obey. am i hearing you right?
doug,
I appreciate your comments. You say if you didn’t have the Bible, would have to guess how to behave. You ask if we didn’t have laws then what would stop the sinful nature from taking over? I’m not sure if you understand the message of grace. In Romans, Paul tells us “we are no longer under the supervision of the law.” He says we are released from the law, so we serve in the new way of the spirit, not the old way of the written code. What you say sounds like you are relying on a set of rules to know how to behave, when the message of grace tells us to to “serve in the new way of the spirit, not in the old way of the written code.” I encourage you to read the first 11 chapters of Romans in one sitting to get a full picture of the message of grace. Look for what Paul concludes in his arguments. Yes, the true message of grace is messy and risky. One learns to govern themselves with only the law of love to guide. What I’m saying is that the Bible is NOT a list of rules for us to obey because the Bible teaches that is not what it is (e.g. we are released from a written code, a set of rules). When we try to codify everything, we are not following the message of grace, but trying to be justified by law. It is the “the spirit” and following the one rule of love that stops the sinful nature from taking over. Actually, the Bible teaches that the law-based way of following God has no power to change us. When people make the Bible into a list of rules that end up ruling one’s life (usually by reading short passages out of their historical, cultural, and literary context, and getting “lost in the words,” so the core meaning is lost), then it is like they are worshiping it over God who has given us the new way of grace in Christ.
Michael Camp, I like the way you described grace. It is very difficult to understand and to practice giving grace to others and to live by practicing love instead of obeying a strict set of laws. For myself, I do not rely on what I perceive God’s Holy Spirit is always saying to me at first thought. We were asked to test the spirit to see if it is truly of God and Jesus’ description to us of what love is. I have lived long and studied every step of the way to know more about God and what was expected of me as one of God’s children. When I have the knowledge of God in my mind and heart that I have obtained through studying the bible, studying books from many authors with various points of view and understanding, ponder all my experiences of God, watched and learned how others LOVE. These are the things that I use in discerning and practicing love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, steadfastness, accountability, etc. with others and myself. Moment by moment as I live my life and have relationships with others, I call upon these resources to tell help me to know what to say and how to act according to the two commandments that the authors of the bible tell us Jesus asked us to follow. Love God, Love others and love ourselves. When I respond to another I use the wisdom I have learned and practiced to intentionally respond in love. None of this has anything to do with law but with freedom. God’s Holy Spirit is with me and everyone all the time and will help in this process. When I have an idea of what to say to someone or what to write, etc. I hesitate long enough to make certain in my mind that it is the loving thing to do. Think before you speak is a really good motto I think. This that I have described works for me and what I believe is something of what Jesus was talking about. The ten commandments were certainly part of my studying and gave me something to be of help to me in my living. However, it must not stop there. If we take Jesus teaching, that of love, we will automatically do all of these things. If you truly love, you will not kill, for example, it just comes naturally. I will not get into a word battle about war. It is so much more beneficial to my well being both spiritualy and physically and mentally to live by the law of love and I hope that by doing so others will see Jesus in me.
Hello all
It seems to me that there are no rules that can teach you how to be in relationship, at best the rules can tell you how not to destroy them. Relationships are a ” leap of faith” what is needed it relationship are the profound demonstrations of the LIFE of Jesus Christ recorded by the Apostles (Love, Mercy, Tenderness, Forgiveness,non violence etc. etc). I have found no rule book that prepared me for my 25 year relationship with the most wonderful woman on earth, Diane! The Things Christ taught and demonstrated can not be “applied” in any legal way but rather must be risked in every possible way.
Pastor Bill Langill jr.
From Middle earth
I think the question you have to ask yourself is, “What kind of God do I serve?”. The answer to this question should be displayed in multiple evidences as observed by the mature Christian. To wit, the part of God that I know from the Scripture teaches me “What” about who He is? To me, it teaches that time after time, I see Him reveal Himself through this preserved Word of His. I also see that no matter what our reasoning, He has chosen this Word as the primary method of communication with mankind, and ideed, with each man individually. I mean, on both levels (collective and individual), where did we first hear of this God in His own (professed) Words?
I believe it a dangerously arrogant practise to put our understanding above the obvious claims of The Bible. That’s not over- simplifying the issue, that’s humility towards a living God (One perfectly able to get “the point” accross through the Book He designed, no matter how man has (mis) handled it). It’s also a realistic admission of my human condition in light of a Book so powerful, every time it is openned and read, the reader (and indeed the world) is not the same.
XDavidx,
The Bible itself tells us to “test everything.” I don’t think it’s arrogant to critically look at the claims of the Bible and the doctrine of infallibility. God wants us to use our minds and not accept everything blindly. I also find in the Bible what you say, powerful teachings that touch our lives, but also much misinterpretation, mistranslation, and misuse of its authority. If we ignore these misuses, how is that honoring God or the Bible? I think if are honest with the evidence (not enough room here to lay it out), the “obvious claims” of the Bible aren’t so obvious. That doesn’t mean God isn’t capable, it means we humans are sometimes in error. Some say I’m picking and choosing what I want out of the Bible. But that’s exactly what the early church did when they made the canon. They picked and chose what they wanted in and out, and over the years made assumptions that it was copied correctly and how authoritative it was meant to be. Don’t we have a right to do that same evaluation, or are we left to just blindly accept what others have done?
In the bible it tells horrific stories of people who claimed that God told them to do these things. What about those passages where it speaks of killing people for their sins, asking them to bash the childrens heads against the wall, these are just a few that come to mind at this time. Their is just so much in the bible that I think God had nothing to do with. Do you really think that God told people to kill others so they could have their land? I do not think God asks anyone to go to war. However, if we do go to war, I think God is with the individuals as they fight. We must look at the teachings and actions of Jesus, or at least I do, to begin my discernment process. Most of the bible was written 70 or more years after the death of Christ and as Michael said, many errors have been detected in the transcribing from what original documents the group had to put the bible together. This I accept and it does not take anything away from my reading the bible and gaining much from it. However, it does tell me that it is not in without error and it has been proven that things have been added since the first translation that was by humans who wanted to change or add to what was said originally just so it would fit their doctrine. God is continuing to inspire writers with new material and this must be read and added to what the bible said, maybe not a new translation, but simply for our own understanding we must retain the information in our hearts and minds.