I attempted to write a 5 part series on the Word of God, and failed. There was too much that I wanted to discuss, and the structure of the series didn't allow me to unpack everything before imploding under it's own weight. There were four rather separate points that rather all needed to be articulated at once. In this post I'm going to try to devote just one paragraph to each so that they can at least have some time on a page.
1.) Everything we believe (including doctrines concerning the Word of God) has a negative shadow. What I mean is that by believing X instead of Y we necessarily (and many times unconsciously) impose the constraints of our belief on those who don't share that belief. I'm not saying we shouldn't believe anything, I am saying that if I want to be a conversation partner in a dialogue that actually leads to reconciliation between us, I have to be willing to admit the ways in which my belief imposes itself upon your life. I have to become eager to listen to you as you describe that imposition as well.
2.) Obviously, this negative shadow is longest in issues regarding arguments from religious communities regarding ethical value judgments -- both communally and personally. The temptation for many of the religious communities is to mistake the ethical value judgment for the religion itself. Because of my belief I may build a hospital or a hospice center, but my belief is not the hospital or the hospice center. Similarly, because of their belief, many oppose abortion or gay marriage -- but the belief of the religion is not opposition to abortion or gay marriage as such. The human and communal cost of not recognizing this distinction can be catastrophic.
3.) there is a distance between God as God, and human words about God. When we reduce this distance, we fail to do Christian Theology as such. This distance is expressed by the tradition as the following analogy: For every similarity between God and creation, there exists an even greater dissimilarity. The more the similarity increases, the more the dissimilarity also increases. Practically, this means that we need a way of looking at sacred text that is more robust than simply saying, "this text that God wrote told me that you can't do that." The fact that the text is written by God and Human, means that this analogy exists inherently in the text itself. We need to recover much of what was lost during the reformation in terms of analogically allowing the text to interpret itself within a larger tradition for our culture and time.
4.) The fourth point is really the reverse of the proceeding three, but it deserves it's own bullet because it's conclusions are truly massive. An interpretation, dogmatically asserted from a literal interpretation of texts selected owing to their desired vocabulary is not responsible Christian interpretation. As an example, if I want to see what Scripture says about slavery, and look up the texts that have the word "slave" used in a social kind of way, I see, among other texts, "slaves, obey your earthly masters with trembling and fear" (Ephesians 6:5) and "slaves, your earthly masters in everything, and do it, not only when their eye is upon you, to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord" (Colossians 3:22), and "slaves, in reverent fear submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate but to those who are harsh" (1 Peter 2:18). Among other verses, especially if I gained economically from the pronouncement, I could claim Scripture supports slavery. Obviously, this is a false claim, but many of the denominations we have in America today exist because they split over precisely this issue. Many Baptist traditions and the United Methodist supported slavery off of precisely this kind of literal and dogmatic non analogical reading of the text.
In conclusion, I think am making the argument I am because I see a pattern. Within Christian circles I see nuanced and clever literal interpretation of Scripture which leads to dogmatic and divisive ethical judgments in society. In non Christian circles, I see these pronouncements treated with derision and contempt because they appear close minded and harsh. Inside of Christian circles, this contempt is perceived as contempt for Jesus Christ, and we are perceived as "suffering for Christ" when in reality we are suffering the contempt of of our culture because we confuse how we approach Scripture with what we believe Scripture teaches.
