WORD

I am continuing to expand on a few of the 5 spiritual "KEEPERS", or spiritual by-products I inherited from the institutional church of my past. These are specific truths I feel I can claim as having legitimate life giving and eternal value...even now, living as a sort of self-imposed exile on the ‘outside'. Each foundational truth has weathered a rather bitter divorce from my ‘traditional church’ days yet has resurfaced a little tattered and torn...but maybe more mature, humble and even more multidimensional as well...or at least I'd like to think so!

Previously in the blog “Re-Jesus”, I identified the most valuable truth I gained via the institution as "Jesus" Himself...but at the same time, I had to admit that the Jesus I came to know over the years seemed a little flat and one dimensional, nothing like the radical subversive Jesus I am becoming acquainted with today. And, to be authentic...I felt I had to expose some of the accompanying fluff that He previously came packaged with that I could no longer ascribe to. Some of those ideologies even became road-blocks that I believe kept me from truly knowing and following Jesus where he seemed to be going...beyond the walls of the church.

Next, in Community-Communitas...I shared the deep on-going feelings I have regarding community life within the context of the I.C. and beyond. I emphatically confess that my desire to be connected and committed to the people of God was first developed and nurtured in the Mega church I attended for 23 years...and for that I am forever grateful. My perspective about what community is and is not...has expanded and evolved into something similar but also entirely ‘other’ than before. This phenomenon is better understood by me today as "Communitas" which can be loosely defined as a conjoined life of mission going beyond creating community for community sake and is truly far more difficult and infinitely more rewarding.

In this blog titled WORD...I want to explore the Bible. However, this is where my journey becomes more precarious and the deconstruction of my past starts to get really messy and makes my head spin. Because of that, and the fact that I fear the fall-out of what I am about to say, I have been procrastinating. I have tried to just ignore the topic, pushing it out of my mind. But, I keep being drawn back, I start to write and then...I stop. Perplexed. Scared. Indifferent. Before I began this internal assignment, I surmised that what I would eventually produce here, wouldn’t amount to any more than incoherent yammerings which would probably not accurately represent my understanding or feelings on the same topic, even 6 months from now.

It's become obvious to me that one of the greatest obstacles for me to overcome while writing this piece in particular, is that nothing is really settled for me right now. I am still in a free fall of sorts even a whole year later. Lots of things are up for debate and redefining...nothing is totally concrete...not even my grasp of the BIBLE.At the moment, my entire life is a paradigm shift! I think it’s worthwhile to mention, the current religious and political climate pervasive in our country right now, adds to my disconnect and overall lack of desire to maintain or protect what I once thought I knew for sure and treasured above all, my certainty about my Christian faith and my “Biblical World view.”

For some, that kind of ambiguity, confusion and flat out blasphemy is probably setting off all kinds of internal evangelical heresy alarms... believe me, I know! I grimace, remembering what I used to think and say about ‘people like me’ too. I remember the judgements and allegations I handed out with such conviction and superiority. However, the truth is, today...right this minute... I am deeply bothered by the Bible on so many levels. Bothered by how easy it is for debased people (wolves in sheep’s clothing I suppose)to arrive at zealous and dangerous Biblical interpretations and applications like this jackass(http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/page5.html) I’m bothered when I am emphatically told that The Word of God ‘clearly says’ this or that...when it isn’t especially clear to me at all (at least in ways it once was) I’m bothered by the contextual complexities, bothered by the problem of trying to read the Bible for personal revelation without having a tremendous amount of back knowledge to allow for “rightly dividing the truth’...and more than ever...I am bothered by being expected to receive as inerrant and infallible, the popular ‘orthodox theology’ of boisterous ultra conservative Christianity as it pertains to the Holy Bible Ironically none of this bothered me when I was a self-imposed expert on all things “Biblical” but...that has all since changed out here on the slippery slope.

At some point in my life, the Bible became a bunch of tidy and trite cliches,...a text book, a blue print, a 'prescription’ for moral living, an owner’s manual, a road map and the Holy CC&R's if you will, easily providing me with just the 'right' answers for any given situation. Beyond being used for personal guidance and enrichment...it often became something that I could use to serve myself, proving my theological estuteness and undermining the ideas and convictions of others. It kills me to admit now that during my most unbending conservative season of life inside the I.C...I used the Bible to fuel heated debates as well as a weapon to help me win arguments regarding complex moral and theological quandaries. SIDE NOTE: I absolve the church of imputing to me such a disdainful character flaw; I confess that I quite likely found my way into that pit on my very own volition...call it a symptom of modernism...dualistic thinking ...or just plain ol’sin...I cannot hold the church accountable for any of that crap ...for sure!

Right this moment...the idea of the Bible as infallible and inerrant, especially as interpreted by fragile humans with finite minds like my own or by those in positions of power...has suffered the greatest degree of scrutiny in my struggle to properly reposition the Bible in my life. Again...I digress, I am fully aware of how bad this all sounds...and frankly...I am pretty sure it is as bad as it sounds. But, despite no longer being confident in a particular set of standardized statements that have been slated to define scriptural absolutes for all time...(ironically set forth by men who believed the earth was the center of the universe and flat as a flannel-board)...the Bible remains for me foundationally unique...and inescapably necessary...although much more mysterious and frustrating than ever before.


"It could be said that each reader of the Bible reads with personal blinders...Too often the Bible is simpley a tool we use to confirm ideas we already hold. There's scarcely a more theologically distructive habit." ~Brian Sanders, Life After Church


Believing the above statement to be fundamentally true does make me more cynical and perhaps more skeptical over all. But...it has also liberated me and provided me freedom to wrestle with my Biblical uncertainties in ways I was never encouraged to before, without pressure to arrive at the exact same conclusions as the masses . Irefutable ideologies crafted by seminarians that I would at one time swallow whole...I am now chewing on for a hell of a lot longer and spitting out a lot more bones. I have had no shortage of people warning me that I will eventually find the Bible of little value and view it as a mere fairytale. Yet interestingly, unlike the warnings I received, I'm noticing that rather than conclude the Bible to be irrelivant and unimportant, I have developed a new passion for many aspects of it that went largely undeveloped or minimized before...like the Gospels of Jesus and the writings of some of the more obscure minor prophets.

Reading the Bible today is an etirely differnt experience for me. My motivation is not the same. Rather than using it to prove to myself and others that I am ultimately correct in my understanding of it, I find myself more willing to go to scripture for personal inspiration, in a posture to learn and with a lot more humility. I have delighted in reading old stories, especially the Jesus stories in brand new and fresh ways...made alive by their cultural and historical contexts and much less baggage. And, I am fortunate to be a part of a collective of people who are embarking on a similar journey. Together we are reorienting ourselves to the WORD of God and rediscovering the timeless wisdom, inspired truth and the mystery that deepens our individual and collective faith.