I’m not surprised by the results of a study at Baylor University: while those with a high view of the Bible’s inspiration tend to be politically conservative, actually reading the Bible makes people more liberal!
Among other things, frequent Bible-readers are more suspicious of the Patriot Act, more compassionate towards criminals, more concerned with social justice, and more interested in conserving the earth’s resources. (Reading the Bible has little effect, however, on attitudes towards abortion or homosexuality.)
This is my first blog post as part of this exciting community of young religious leaders and scholars, State of Formation. The Baylor study provides an apt occasion for introducing myself, since reading the Bible has been at the center of my own spiritual journey. As the study implies and my own experience confirms, it is one thing to say the Bible is inspired; it is quite another actually to read it.
When I was told by my pastors growing up that I should read the Bible, I did as they said. But very early on it became clear to me that the Bible didn’t sound very much like what I heard from the pulpit: “Woe to you who are rich!” “Sell your belongings and give to the poor!” I was often an arrogant, smart-ass teenager, and I took a perverse pleasure in being able to stymie teachers with awkward verses. But my piety was sincere and eager, and I began to make discoveries that were wonderful for their own sake: the existential angst of Ecclesiastes, sex in the Song of Songs, and then the bitter pain of the book of Job, the challenge of the prophets, Jesus’ ever-disturbing words. This book was far more profound than its teachers: so I kept reading.
In my twenties, more familiar with the Bible’s contents and less concerned with being obnoxious, I myself began to take offense at certain portions of the Bible. For a while, it was James’s emphasis on works; then Paul’s teachings about women; then the apparent obtuseness of John’s Jesus; then Jesus’ unrelenting talk of hell; then Job’s unsatisfying ending. I criticized them, denounced them, declared them banished from my own canon. Yet I kept reading them.
Somewhere along the way, I came to love the Bible — really, to love it, and therefore to love its Author. The Bible is the center of both my academic work and of my spiritual life. It will, no doubt, be a constant presence in these blog posts. None of which means I always agree with it. Indeed, I have never met someone who always agrees with it — see my stymied teachers — which is why evangelical doctrines of inspiration, particularly “inerrancy,” are totally inadequate to the actual Bible and its actual readers.
“Inerrancy” amounts to “the absolute truth of my cherished concepts.” Since the Bible is a living, divine, work and concepts are the static constructions of finite creatures, to exalt concepts as absolute inevitably generates a deep anxiety. This anxiety is evident throughout evangelical practice. The “inerrant” Bible must constantly be protected from itself: through Bible studies that guide us safely to the edifying content, through three-point sermons and clever illustrations, through piety focused on inner experience, through “apologetics” and the whole edifice of creation science. Evangelicals even print the Bible with instructions on how to “accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior” — if only God had thought to include that advice himself and save us the trouble!
But evangelicals are right, profoundly right, to exhort us to go on reading the Bible. I wish they would trust this insight more. And I am grateful to those evangelicals without whom I would not have discovered the Bible’s delights.
Mark, thank you for this! I suspect that the exhortation to actually read (and thus engage, and thus, on some level, fight!) with the Bible (or broadly, one’s Scriptures in general) can be a powerful corrective not only to the “anxiety of inerrancy” that you describe, but also, conversely, to the sort of feel-good attitude towards the Bible — i.e, the Bible is purely a social justice tract, and we’ll just ignore the really nasty parts–common among liberal mainline protestants– and, I would argue, a fair number of Reform and Conservative Jews.
Thanks, Rebecca!
Rebecca: I totally agree. In fact, I think the formal agreement between liberals and conservatives on this is highly illuminating: a future post.
Your own recent post
https://stateofformation.org/author/rebecca-levi/
is really helpful in this context, and I will be discussing it in a future post.
You’ve got to be kidding me-it’s so trnaspraetlny clear now!
Mark, I look forward to reading more of your contributions on this site! I want to believe that what you say is right, but I’m not sure that, simply given the good book and the time to read it, folks will necessarily see what you see. I want them to! And I believe that God can speak through the words of the Bible despite (and even through) bad teaching. But don’t we also need some notion of training and/or tradition in order to guide the lone reader? I’m reminded of that early Hauerwas article about the danger of putting the Bible in the hands of the American people (= any people!) and imagining that people can engage with it and understand it in a healthy way without any help. I don’t know how to synthesize that without sounding authoritarian, I just think the notion of the inspiring power of the Bible needs to be balanced with a recognition that even your teen/twenty-something reading of it was shaped and traditioned.
Thanks for your thoughts, Gillian. We’re largely on the same page here, despite the impression I left you!
I don’t mean to deny the importance and reality of tradition — quite the contrary. First, ‘reading’ is itself a practice, and whether it happens in one’s study alone or in a communal study, the practice itself has to be nurtured by the community. Evangelicals sometimes succeed at this, and good for them.
Second, the point I’m making here is largely one about tradition, although I left that as a subtext. My experience has been that the practice of reading can be (but not necessarily is) highly disruptive of traditional understandings of the Bible, particularly those that represent themselves as the ‘obvious’ meaning of the text. So my post is not a denial of tradition: rather, it is an prolegomena to which tradition has to be an important part of the answer. For the ‘disruption’ of tradition need not be its ‘destruction,’ if the tradition is a vital one!
Evangelicals always succeed at “traditioning” their constituents in how to read scripture. The problem is that this is rarely acknowledged, and this refusal to acknowledge the traditioning is itself part of the tradition.
If we could agree that all conceptual edifices could tolerate some disrupting…my follow-up question would be whether something like inerrancy (fie upon this term, I prefer “the absolute faithfulness of God’s Word”, as someone has put it) can be maintained within a self-aware tradition of reading. That is, can something like inerrancy be held as a presupposition with logical priority to the tradition? Thus being methodologically elevated as more primal than any of my “cherished concepts”, thereby maintaining the power or even task of subverting and redefining them. It seems to me that something like this must be the case in order for Scripture to maintain its power to disrupt the traditional reading.
Of course, incoherence or disunity could similarly serve as operatives logically prior the tradition, or certain elements of it. This too would perform the disruptive task.
Is there a third option I am missing?
“. . . this refusal to acknowledge the traditioning is itself part of the tradition.” Aptly put!
As to your other questions: I don’t think disruption of a tradition requires standing some place ‘logically prior’ to it. Both the doctrine of inspiration and our own thinking — to say nothing of Scripture itself — are part of the flux of tradition.
Identifying and putting into practice your ‘third option’ is a crucial part of my own scholarly vocation. Hopefully these blog posts can be a part of that process . . .
Mark, I would love to pick your brain more on this. I would also love to hear more about your journey and your varying perspectives on the Bible throughout the different stages of your journey so far. It sounds fascinating and illuminating.
I would enjoy that, Emily. Let’s talk!
Hey there “arrogant, smart-ass teenager” – and you were so sweet as a boy!
The Baylor study smells a little funny to this scientist, so I would be a little cautious before fully accepting it.
Plus I see a different key issue. I am continually amazed at how the vast majority of people who follow Christ, even those who appear to be very serious in their faith commitment, spend so little of their relational life actually engaging with the issues that Christ presents to them. Try engaging in a discussion of any aspect of American trivia – movies, video games, dogs (sorry), BBQ techniques, Hawaii vacations, and the discussion is lively. But bring up compassion toward criminals, or helping the developmentally disabled, or the plight of the Christian church in the Middle East, and there will be silence. Why doesn’t passion for Christ result in passion for his issues?
I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
rkent
The study was mainly a jumping off point for my own more qualitative take on the issue. If nothing else, though, it seems plausible, so I hope someone like Pew will investigate the issue.
Your question is a good one, and I doubt I have a very good answer. I will say, though, that your phenomenon and mine are not as unrelated as you imply. Evangelical Christianity has many cultural structures in place that enable it too-often to resist what you call “Christ’s issues.” One set of structures involves the traditions around Scripture-reading and preaching, which make it difficult for the reader/hearer to encounter anything but an a priori concept. I hope that a more dynamic approach to Scripture would, in fact, help Christians attend to ‘Christ’s issues.’
In fairness, I think more and more evangelicals and post-evangelicals DO have passion for just these sorts of issues.