Bible Thumping Christians

I have heard a number of people I respect told recently that they don't hold the bible in the proper esteem or that they completely ignore it.  I know better than to fight their fights, but I do know that I want to state my own view on the subject.


I am the very model of a modern major general . . . oops.

I take great pride in calling myself a Bible Thumping Christian today.  I take scripture VERY seriously.  It is at the core of what I believe and what I desire for life and all of creation.  I don't think there is any of scripture that is not useful for teaching and learning and talking about.  I don't think there's anything in there that's just a waste of words. Actually my feelings on those words is what I think makes me able to claim that title of "Bible Thumper."

I love language.  I took Chinese, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and German in school.  And then when I made it to seminary I was so addicted to Greek that I was named our schools language scholar and got into regular long winded discussions with my language professors.  I started trying to find as many ancient Greek texts as I could from all areas.  Trying to find how words may have been used outside of scripture.  I started looking at the little nuances of words and phrases, not taking even the "best" English translations at face value.  I picked apart words, trying to make it all make more sense, trying to see what it is that scripture could teach me about this God who I knew existed.

I knew tons about the world, I wrote my proof of God based on things I found in String Theory.  I saw a spirit moving in people and throughout the world, but it is scripture that brings me back to God.  Scripture brings me to a place where I face the struggle, the epic struggle of humanity to be who we were created to be.  The struggle that makes us question how someone like David could be "after God's own heart."  The struggle that makes us wonder why God made a world so diverse that we actually have to work to be in community even when we're around people very much like ourselves.  The struggle that brings people into a church crying because they are desperate for God.  The struggle that makes us look at what is written in scripture and wonder what pieces are contextual, and what is really truly a universal truth.

Yes, I know this is the sensitive subject.  Yet we all claim some things are universal and others aren't.  We know that scripture is written in a certain time, and in many cases there is no debate also for a certain community.  We all teach about the specific problems in Judah, or Egypt, or Ephesus, or Corinth.  We know that was the context that these are created for originally.  We also know that the words that are chosen are specific and nuanced for those communities and even the best of us who translate betray the actual text to some extent.

This is especially true when you get into word studies.  Some words are used differently in law texts, social texts, religious texts.  Other words are only found in one type outside of scripture.  Some aren't found at all and we really start playing games to try to define them.  Do I think there is one meaning that HAS to be the meaning? Well in some ways yes, because there was an original context. Yet in other ways no, because it's really not that simple.  I will argue till I die that Pistis is best translated as Faithfulness, and that will influence everything I teach and lead because it changes how I interpret scripture.  That is the key for those of us who are claiming a title others want to keep away from us.  We are Bible Thumping because we value that text as something special, something that informs all we do, and is a key to our faith.  It is not the only key, but without it we do fall down, or at least I do. God Bless the Bible Thumpers.

What makes a good neighbour?

“Which one of these was a neighbour to the man in need?” This question is the conclusion to Jesus' answer to another question “Who is my neighbour?” Note that Jesus doesn't answer the question asked, Jesus doesn't say “Those in need are your neighbor.” Jesus asks who acted as a neighbor, he really answers the question “Why be a neighbor?” with “Be a neighbor because you see ones in need.” Everyone is our neighbor in this world, it honestly may be the best term we can use for others. The Greek term used here literally means “the one nearby” and has the implication of “a person I know of.” We all know people in need, either specific people who we know by name, or people who we know exist even if we don't happen to see them everyday because of how our world is sometimes divided. We can all talk about places where there are struggles and people who are in need, and because of that we should call them neighbor.

One of the ministries we worked with this past summer was the Urban Ministry center in Charlotte. They call all who come to see them neighbors, and often over time by name. They care about the homeless who have need of medical care, food, clothing, shelter, help getting paperwork so that they can be employed, and just love from another person who has the ability to help. Our youth were touched by one of these neighbors, Gary. As Gary told his story, you could see the stories of others we had met over the week flood through the minds and hearts of our youth. They saw someone who they could help and could love, and made a decision that they weren't leaving without finding him again and giving him a gift. This isn't because it was the right thing to do, but because he was a neighbor. One in need.

It doesn't matter who our neighbors are, we will know them when we see them, because the Spirit that lives within us sees others spirits and feels their needs. This is God at work in this world, caring for others and fighting for justice. But more than that it is building a relationship and being that neighbor, a neighbor who doesn't separate from others, whose concern, like the Samaritan in scripture is for the “other” the “neighbor.” There are no walls, no rules, no laws, no expectations that keep him from being a neighbor. Likewise we must question the things that divide us, do they likewise keep us from seeing each other and our needs, from letting the Spirit of God act among us as it wishes, bringing all together in God's love. In The Mending Wall by Robert Frost we see a narrator who questions the walls that are built between neighbors, and a neighbor who seems to the narrator to walk in a sort of darkness, protecting self interest and not sharing love, even as he is unable to understand the need for such a divide and just clings to it because it's always been there. May we be ones who question the walls in our lives and in the world. Thus may we become the neighbors to all that we are called to be.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The God of America

I spent a good bit of time in my childhood/teens in SBC churches.  I even remember a seminary board member who was part of one of these churches telling me they were always there to make sure I had every opportunity to live up to my potential (at least until I got divorced).  I have a fairly good working knowledge of the conservative christian world because of this I think.  Today's event in Texas and the politicizing of faith is not what I remember anyone in that world really standing for.  The political ideologies played some part in things sure, but what we taught and were taught was all about helping others regardless of the cost.  Now I admit that it often glossed over some of the national social issues, but I remember many nights carrying blankets for the homeless, driving them to shelters, and giving money towards medical missions at home and abroad.  These were the things people talked about and did.  Yes, there was an annoying amount of morality based theology, but the "literal" reading of scripture didn't read like "America the Chosen nation."  It often read very differently than that.

I don't know exactly how this side of Christianity got co-oped by those wanting to create fear and promote nationalism, but it certainly seems to have happened.  Maybe it's because instead of being a community where various ideologies had a voice, all the dissenting views left or were pushed out (and some of both happened).  Without dissenting voices it is much easier to broker fear, without those who push our buttons and make our blood boil that we truly love, it is easier to call them enemies, to push them into a group known as "other."  I say this with a sense of fear of what could still happen in the PC(USA), where the sides divide, glad to let go of struggles and settle into a comfortable place.  I don't think that's what we're called to.  I think we're called to struggle.  To struggle along with those we disagree with vehemently, to struggle about the meaning of scripture, to struggle with questions of power, privilege, equality, and love.  We need to see that none of us have the only way, and that we must go together if we are to do anything good in this world.

Today there are people praying for the economy, for our nation, for moral values, and for other things that I personally find to be misguided prayers.  I would rather us pray for equality of humanity, care for creation, love for all, and continued struggling together, but those praying for these other things can only journey with us if we're willing to treat them as equals and not as others.  I do not agree with the co-opting of God for national, personal, or ideological gain, but I do nothing better if I'm not willing to engage in the conversations and act in love.

That being said, I must say why I am pained by the subjects of these prayers:
1. The Economy - Those who have lost before know that these prayers are ones of protect what I have.  Yet, God is clear that nothing is our own.  Should we lose everything, we gain a freedom that we do not have when we possess things of our own.  We should not pray that God fixes the economy, but that we will learn what many who have been or are homeless know: There is a real difference between want and need.
My prayer: http://youtu.be/a-O88_hZD5o
2. Our Nation - I do not hate the US, but I do not think we deserve any special blessings, or even deserve all we have.  We are truly a nation of privileged and power, and any prayers for our nation should begin with a greater realization of what protecting our own does to damage the rest of the world.  God is not interested in making our nation great, rather God is interested in the greatness of all of creation and that begins with us all realizing our shared humanity, our shared divine spark, and our shared call to be stewards of all of Creation.
3. Morality - I don't think we should go about killing each other or just doing whatever whenever, but really it is not what people do in scripture that makes them faithful or not, why do we think that's the key for us?  The key for those called faithful within our Christian (and by extension Jewish) tradition is a willingness to listen and discern that which God wants from them.  Jonah is reluctant, Moses is both reluctant and immoral, Peter falls far from belief or morality (cutting off ears, easily forgiven?) . . . these are heroes, and they should be because they never stop struggling and discerning.  They are faithful, not moral.  The why is of greater importance than the what.  This also means that we are not to decide for others what is most faithful in any specific instance, but again walk along side them in their journey, for we do not know which paths are narrow or wide while we are on them.

There is much more I could say, but really you've probably read all you want to by now.  Again, I wonder how many others really think that God is America's God?  How many feel that God is more interested in us than any other nation?  How many think that God feels that the things we call important to God are really the things that are important?  How many want a God that is a God that is going to say "You didn't feed me when you saw me on the street corner that one time, you're a goat, go to hell."?  How many think that God just wants you to believe, be fairly moral to those you care about, and ask for lots of forgiveness, all while trying to protect that which you think of as yours? 

Or do we really realize that God created us for something more, for greater works of faithfulness, for an actual relationship with God, each other, and all of creation that calls us to give all of ourselves up and being uncomfortable and struggling, but to do so together in love with one another for there we will find peace?