Again, this post is not about Bill Gates, so whether you like him or not, or agree with his political statements or religious beliefs (worth reading), is not the point here. So please don't get distracted. My focus here is the very real potential for pandemics, and frankly, what Gate's is talking about is both stunning and sobering. Honestly, it hits us all dead center. (For an 8 minute TedTalks video, go here.)
The question of this post is this: Does the Bible even belong in such discussions?
- On one extreme, some will, of course, say a flat "No!" since the Bible is an old book written at a time well-before the understandings we have now of science and medicine and many more things.
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- On another extreme, some others will enthusiastically say "Yes!" and will proceed (because this is how they have been taught in popular Christianity and have always seen it practiced) by quoting individual versus of the Bible (often completely out of context) to address this or that particular issue.
Both extremes misunderstand the nature of the Bible as we have received it through history.
In this post, I will advocate that while Covid-19 is new, the discussion is not. In fact, Covid-19—along with every other human threat or concern—is exactly why the Bible got written in the first place. As such, the Bible is right now calling out to be read, tapping us on the shoulder, and asking for continuing, ongoing, genuine, deep-level conversation. It is whispering that having genuine "Biblical Conversation" is always needed. I do not imply by this (in any way) that the Bible alone solves a Covid-19 crisis. That would be both a ludicrous and a dangerous assertion. The Bible does, however, belong in the discussion.
Biblical Conversation?
By "Biblical Conversation" I don't mean shooting the breeze with somebody in a Sunday class or a small group about how great the Bible is or how you maybe should spend more time reading it. I'm not talking about conversations about the Bible at all. I'm not even talking about daily prayer or devotional Bible reading ten minutes a day. As important and useful as those things can be, I'm not talking about any of that.
When I say that the Bible is calling out for a continuing, ongoing, genuine, deep-level conversation with us, I'm talking about exactly what we all think of when we sit and have prolonged, focused conversations with a friend, a family member, or a trusted colleague—only now with biblical authors. Here we not only read or talk, we listen, we ask questions, we listen some more, we engage, we get upset or discouraged or angry, we ask more questions, we might laugh or cry, and yet we keep listening and interacting . . . and searching. Friendship is not always easy. And especially not with now dead authors of a book!
When I say that the Bible is calling out for a continuing, ongoing, genuine, deep-level conversation with us, I'm talking about exactly what we all think of when we sit and have prolonged, focused conversations with a friend, a family member, or a trusted colleague—only now with biblical authors.
This is what most people—most Christians—don't understand: this attention to making sense out of life is exactly how the Bible started being written down in the first place. Exactly this! From the very beginning of this process, people in struggle and crisis cried out for meaning and understanding, searching for God, continually conversing with God and with each other over questions we still ask: "Why me! Why us! Why this! Why now! Why not!"
Not a Simplistic Book
The problem is that the Bible is sometimes (or often) used simplistically (and so irresponsibly) to address current issues. In popular Christian fashion, a verse here or there gets summoned out of context and in simplistic ways to prove a point or show the ever-relevance of the Bible. But the Bible is not the simplistic book that it is often used as being.
- It is not a "save your soul" church manual, a book for beating people into line to keep them coming to church. Just because "save" and "soul" appear together in from 1 to 11 verses depending on the English translation you read (Gen. 19:17; Ps. 6:5; 7:3; 68:2; 108:31; Sir. 38:34; Amos 2:14, 15; Jer. 46:18; Jn. 12:27; Jas. 5:20) is no warrant for abuse of biblical texts in that direction.
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- It is not "The Secret" ("Feel good! Change your life!")—not a magic book, not a panacea that solves all problems by rubbing on the covers. The problem here is that many will acknowledge all of this and then turn right around and treat the Bible like this anyway.
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- It makes no claim like "There's always a reason for everything"—itself a popular truism thought to be a summary of biblical teaching. It would be better to say: "God can make sense out of everything." There is a big difference in the former statement and Rom 8:28: "We know that for all who love God, who are called to follow the path he has laid out, all things work together for the good." This text promises no escape from life's continual problems, offers no promise of physical escape "if you just love God enough!" In fact this text goes on to clarify:"What could possibly rip us apart from the love of Christ? Does struggle have that power? Or a pandemic? Or human oppression? Or starvation? Or being destitute? Or any kind of danger, or the horrors of war?" (8:35). This text assumes that the horrors of life are going to keep happening. The question is "How do we face those things?"
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- It is not a science or medical book: The vaccine for Covid-19 is not found here, nor any promise of safety/protection from it, any more than any other scientific formula. I find it so incredibly interesting that the vast majority of Christian people who clamor that Genesis 1-2 must be a literal description of creation showing current day scientists to be either an evil to warn our kids against or just plain idiots (we just did a detailed 3 month class on Genesis 1-11)—these same people will gladly pray for and accept a vaccine by medical science! (Funny how evil, idiot scientists now become our saviors—all because we have no idea what kind of book the Bible actually is.) When people (including some church leaders!) use the Bible as an Aladdin's lamp to find magic protections from things like a Covid-19 pandemic, they show that they do not understand what the Bible is in its very essence.
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- Actually, the Bible is not even a single book! Everybody knows this, but it is an amazing thing to watch how few take it seriously—it is usually dismissed as unimportant background info. However, the fact that the Bible is made up of a wide array of documents from different times and authors has incredible, even revolutionary, implications for how these authors may have interrelated with others, or even stood in tension with others. (E.g., from the OT: Chronicles with Samuel / Kings; and then Job / Proverbs / Ecclesiastes with each other; and from the NT: the Gospels. I will resist my very strong urge to write further about this for now.). To pretend that these all say the same things is to read the Bible with our eyes closed. Within and among all of these texts, there are conversations going on about life and its meaning, about God and ultimate reality. Again, I'm not talking at all about "contradictions that disprove the Bible"; I'm talking about embedded biblical conversations that are going on right in front of us in the Bible, but that much of popular Christian theology, preaching, and teaching (with all good intent) have sanitized or washed out—all resulting in a kind of domestication, whether intended or not.
Now certainly, there is nothing wrong with calling on verses here or there, as long as they are kept in context and in true conversation with other biblical writers. And by this I don't mean just adding them altogether in a big new lump (like readers almost always do with the Gospels): sometimes they stand in tension with each other, and that tension is what is so very important in evaluating conversational value.
A Whole Lot More
The Bible is a whole lot more than popular Christianity seems to represent, focus on, realize, or even care about. I say "care about" with a great deal of sadness and humility. Yet, this is my predominant experience almost everywhere I go. Start talking about the very real differences, or even tensions, within and between biblical texts, and you can expect to run immediately into emotional responses that range from apathy to irritation to anger. But the reason for talking about the differences is not to attack the Bible; it is rather to gain a more accurate perspective about and appreciation of the historical collection of documents of "the Bible" as we have actually received it. When Christians almost blindly focus on the so-called perfection of the Bible, and how everything agrees with everything else, they end up covering over and concealing the marvelous conversations that bring such depth and relevance to biblical texts. The result is that the Bible is made less relevant for current application.
This is something to be celebrated! The Bible is quite literally a very old collection of many ancient documents written over a span of close to a thousand years, by people just like us who were addressing all of their deepest human questions—questions that look very much like ours: How should we live? How do we face pestilence, disease, hunger, worry, war, disaster; how do we deal with prosperity and poverty, with anguish and human suffering? Is this all there is? And other such.
These things are not merely found in the Bible, they are the driving force which got it started, which kept the writing going, and which keep those writings alive to this very day.
To focus on "conversation" is to focus on the give-and-take—the interaction—between God and people.
Am I saying that God had no role in the writing of the Bible? Of course I'm not saying that! Anybody who wants to jump to that conclusion is not paying attention. To understand God as thoroughly active in such a process is a tremendously freeing and exciting realization. Even to speak of biblical writers as searching for a "conversation with God" is to focus on the give-and-take—the interaction—between God and people. This is why it is a mistake to regard the Bible in the usual popularized "Christian" terms which describe inspiration as a pristine-pure top down event: God did it, it's perfect, don't question it! This simplistic, bumper-sticker approach to the Bible
- is not accurate. (It is not representative of the whole of biblical texts as we have them, ignoring or downplaying massive amounts of information within biblical texts);
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- is not helpful. (It sets up the Christian community in a weak position. Although certainly not intended, it turns the Bible into an amulet to wear around one's neck—a good luck charm, a juju—to ward off evil spirits. But such an approach actually invites those same spirits.)
Welcome to the Conversation!
The question whether the Bible should be included in the conversation is actually backwards: in fact, WE are the late-comers. This conversation has been going on for centuries and WE are being invited into it. Certainly, there is more to consider, more to say. But we begin by looking at how the Bible has come to us. It is not frivolous that the Bible was individually written, and then gradually collected, and then slowly "canonized" in various states-of-being over the course of two millennia. This whole process is best described as an act of faith, by people of faith, in search of a conversation with God—an ongoing conversation about the human condition, including the many questions that have already been asked and that we are still asking about living in a place that is sometimes tremendously scary.
The more we engage in serious, ongoing, deep-conversation with and among biblical texts to see how God and people have interacted through history, the more we find ways to live in such a world.
The question whether the Bible should be included in the conversation is actually backwards: in fact, WE are the late-comers. This conversation has been going on for centuries and WE are being invited into it.
Who Will Do This?
Biblical conversation will be entered into by people who want to go beyond simplistic statements and ready remedies. They will be concerned with responsible and contextual issues. Steady prayer and wonderful devotionals may result from deep conversation, but they are never substitutes for it, and they are certainly not the same things. It is in deep conversations with biblical texts and their authors (who were already in conversation with each other, together searching for God), that we become part of God's ongoing conversation with human beings to this very day.
It is certainly understandable to depict Mother Nature (a defective and fallen world) as seeking to destroy the human race by pestilence, disaster, and disease. It is a fact that Covid-19 and all other threats to life are serious things. We need serious approaches from all walks of life to address the myriads of questions that get raised: we need scientists, medical professionals, politicians, philosophers, teachers, technicians, large and small businesses, and a whole lot more.
But we also need responsible theological dialog. The Bible not only belongs in this discussion, the conversations embedded within that book have paved the way for us to join in. This is a marvelous legacy handed down to us. The Bible does not offer every answer to every question. But deep conversation with biblical authors certainly helps us orient ourselves and properly frame our deepest questions so as to address them in meaningful ways.
Deep conversation with biblical authors certainly helps us orient ourselves and properly frame our deepest questions so as to address them in meaningful ways.
This is what we are doing every week.
