I have seen some things about Christianity in the press recently that are so obvious that they make me wonder why anyone thinks it necessary even to say them. That it nonetheless seems necessary to say them is an indication of the sorry state of religion in America today and of a massive default by the Christian church. The first thing I saw that got me thinking along these lines is something from The Huffington Post. A pastor friend of mine posted a link to it on his Facebook page. It’s titled “Five Things Everyone Should Know About the Bible, Believe It or Not” by Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. According to The Huffington Post Dr. Swenson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of a book (that I do not know) titled Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time,” Harper, 2010. The five things Dr. Swenson thinks everyone should know about the Bible are:
1. Every Bible is actually a collection of books.
2. Not everyone who believes in it believes in the same Bible.
3. The Bible came after the literature it comprises.
4. If you’re reading the Bible in English, you’re reading a translation.
5. This information about the Bible is compatible with belief in it.
When I read this list I immediately said to myself “And all the people say: Duh!”
The second thing I saw that involved something about Christianity that is so obvious that I wonder why anyone thinks it even necessary to say it has to do with the existence vel non of hell. A United Methodist pastor in North Carolina named Chad Holtz said in a post on Facebook that he doubted the existence of hell. Not long thereafter he was fired from his position at Marrow’s Chapel in Henderson, North Carolina. His Facebook post expressed support for a book by Rob Bell, whom the Associated Press describes as “a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls.” When I read this news about Pastor Holtz's and Rob Bell’s denial of the existence of hell I once again wanted to shout “And all the people say: Duh!”
Really? Are enough Americans really so ignorant about the Bible that someone gets published on The Huffington Post and gets a book published by Harper (with a Kindle version no less) by saying the things Dr. Swenson says about the Bible in her Huffington Post piece? Are enough Americans so stuck in an ancient worldview and an ancient understanding of God that a pastor gets fired for stating the obvious, that the God we know in and through Jesus Christ is not a God who condemns billions of souls to eternal torment for not doing the right things, or worse, for not believing the right things? Apparently so. What a sad state of affairs!
That these things need be said is testimony to a massive failure at best and a massive fraud at worst perpetrated on the people by the Christian church. The Christian church, especially in its Protestant varieties but not only in its Protestant varieties, has taught people for centuries that, in effect at least, God wrote the Bible. The church has taught people that the Bible contains one consistent message throughout, something that is so obviously false to anyone who has ever read the Bible that it’s impossible to understand how the church ever managed to sell this one. The church has taught that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word(s) of God. The result is to lock God up in a book. Which of course makes God understandable. Worse, it makes God controllable. It gives the church control over God, and throughout its history the Christian church has been about nothing if not control. The church has taught people for centuries that if they don’t act the way the church tells them to act and don’t believe what the church tells them to believe their souls will spend eternity in torment in a place called hell. The result of course has been to give the church considerable control over people and their lives, and throughout its history the Christian church has been about nothing if not control.
And the thing of it is, these things are so obviously and undeniably not true! The things Dr. Swenson says everyone should know about the Bible are Bible knowledge that should be the level of about a third grader. Or maybe when I say that I insult first and second graders. These things are so obvious, so basic, that anyone with any interest in the Bible, whether inside the church or outside of it, should discover them in about the first five minutes of Bible study. Or maybe I should give them an hour. It certainly shouldn't take longer than that. How anyone can say in one breath that the God we know in and through Jesus Christ is a God of grace and love and then say in the next breath that that God damns billions of souls to eternal torment because during their life on earth they didn’t do the right things or believe the right things about Jesus, even if they never heard of Jesus or lived before he did, is simply incomprehensible. Yet the Christian church has denied the things Swenson says about the Bible and taught that God of wrath and damnation not quite from its beginnings but nearly that long. We in the church have much for which to beg God’s forgiveness. One major task of those of us who work in the Christian church today is help the people develop an understanding of the Christian faith such that when they hear such platitudes as the ones Swenson states about the Bible or a denial of the reality of hell, or any of the other things the Church has taught that are palpably not true, they will instantaneously shout, as I did when I heard these things: And all the people say: Duh!
No comments:
Post a Comment