Friday, October 31, 2003
Poor Scripture Knowledge
The issue of the authority of the bible has become so polarizing that it seems people line up on two sides: Either it's the perfect, infallible, authoritative Word of God, or it's not worth reading. The latter is a grave mistake on the part of liberal churches.
There is a danger among liberal Christians that we will forget that the bible is the primary source and foundation of our faith in Christ and God. In contrast to "bible-thumpers", some of us may adopt a view that rejects the bible as being of little value, full of racism, sexism, close-minded authors, and a very narrow world view.
By doing this, we shut ourselves off to the main source of Christian and Jewish inspiration over the centuries, as well as the deeper meanings of our faith. The symptoms include general lack of bible studies in some liberal churches and occasional lack of bible teaching.
This is bad for several reasons. First, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable teaching, reproof, correction, and training righteousness. That doesn't mean that we have to believe that every word was written by God, but it does mean that we need to keep the scriptures by the center of our Christian experience. It is, in many ways, our "daily bread" in a spiritual sense. Even the parts we don't understand or agree with can help us grow in our walk.
Secondly, it makes it real hard for us to converse with (or argue with) our conservative brethren in Christ. If we can't have a common foundation on the authority of scripture, at least we can try to keep up with them and our understanding and knowledge of this book which we hold dear regardless of which branch of the faith tradition is followed. The bible really should be used to bring Christians together, not drive them apart....
...By and large, it turns out that liberal Christianity is a great home to second-time Christians like myself. People who grew up within the Christian tradition, fell away, and then came back to a liberal branch of the faith. This lets them keep both their Christian heritage and their liberal values, and eliminates the (false) feeling that there's a conflict between the two. But it doesn't provide much of anything to the "unsaved," those people who have never been Christians before. Why would an atheist or agnostic bother?
Anyway, those are my three big ones. There are smaller ones, but these represent, as I see them, the weakest parts of the progressive Christian experience. There are a number of positives as well, and there are weaknesses in the conservative traditions too, but for now I am not going to just cheerlead for "my side."