I’ve been a part of the Christian Church all of
my life. I’ve watched how things work within the faith, and I’ve been
particularly fascinated by the ways we Christians use and abuse the New
Testament.
The New Testament - the uniquely Christian part
of the Bible - is a messy collection of books and letters. No one can be
absolutely sure what parts are important and what parts are the cultural
containers that hold the important parts. In First Timothy, Paul instructs
Timothy to drink wine regularly to help with his stomach problems. It seems
unlikely that this should be understood as a universal command for all
Christians throughout the centuries. And I’m not aware of any church that treats
that passage in such a way.
Not that a glass of wine at night isn’t
a splendid idea and something I might like to suggest for some of my more
“intense” brothers and sisters.
So from the start, we have a collection of
documents that is unclear and can be difficult to interpret and understand.
That’s a good thing to know before we go any further.
From what I’ve seen, only very serious
Christians take the time to actually read the New Testament for themselves. This
collection of sacred writings taxes scholars, so it is certainly a challenge for
everyday people. We do the best we can, but no one can understand all of the New
Testament. And even those who have read the whole thing will have forgotten most
of it by the following Tuesday. The New Testament is too much to hold in your
mind.
What most Christians do is read selections of
the New Testament, usually in a haphazard manner over a period of years. They
pick out the parts that seem important or relevant to them and focus mainly on
those selected scriptures. Most people get guidance in this selection process
from whatever Christian tradition they follow. Pentecostals from Georgia find
some parts of the New Testament particularly compelling. Episcopalians in Boston
might focus on other parts.
But we all share this in common:
we pick and choose scriptures, cobbling together something we call a theology.
The word theology literally means “God words,” and a theology is a series of
belief statements about God and Jesus and how Christians ought to live.
Now it is true that a few extraordinary
Christians over the years have tried to understand and organize everything in
the New Testament. Some have created great, hulking volumes of systematic
theology that no normal person could ever read or understand. But trying to
create a systematic theology is rather like a physicist trying to come up with a
unified theory of everything. It’s a great idea, but so far no one has been able
to pull it off in a way that satisfies everyone
If what I’ve written makes you angry,
please note that I’m being descriptive. I’m simply describing what I have
seen. If you know of a monk-like person who sat on a pillar for 40 years,
can quote the entire New Testament from memory, and has now perfectly
integrated all of it into his theology and life, then your exception is duly
noted. Good for you, and good for your monk friend.
So our little slanted, incomplete, biased, and
selective theologies are the best we can do. Given how our theologies are
formed, it’s a constant wonder to me that people are surprised and even angered
when they meet someone whose ideas about God differ from their own. I’d be more
surprised if I met someone who shared my own beliefs, point by point, all the
way to the end. Now that would be strange.
Oh, and there is one other thing. There are
parts of the New Testament that are just embarrassing and otherwise inconvenient
to our modern lives. We just ignore those parts and go on about the business of
creating little theological systems that suit us.
That last paragraph is going to get me
at least 20 scorching emails. Tut, tut, please settle down.
I’m only telling you what I’ve observed. In
my experience, people either ignore or conveniently avoid reading parts of
the New Testament that are inconvenient for them.
Again, the exception of your monk friend
is duly noted.
Now this is important to remember:
all that I’ve described so far is what the best and most serious Christians
do. Your average Christian might never read the New Testament at all. He or she
likely doesn’t even know the names of the 27 writings that comprise our canon of
scripture. These people show up at church now and again. They listen to what the
minister behind the pulpit is saying and take that as gospel truth without
asking any significant questions. Ironically, these are the people who are often
the most dogmatic and outspoken about Christianity. Oftentimes it is these
people you see waving Bibles around, shouting and screaming about how every
blessed word of the Bible sprang straight from the lips of the Almighty.
Anyone who has actually slugged it out with the
New Testament, reading it carefully and trying to piece together the truth about
God, Jesus, and how we should live, will be so filled with humility and grace
that they will probably never yell at anyone about anything, much less the
Bible.
Now I’m fine with this whole process. I mean,
it’s not like we have a choice. This is the best we can do. So I’ve made my
peace with the reality of the situation. And that’s probably why I’m less
dogmatic and picky about the details than some.
But what truly amazes me is what happens when
two Christians find themselves in a dispute over some doctrinal issue or passage
of scripture. Suddenly they forget how messy the New Testament is, how
contradictory and convoluted parts of it can be. They forget that their own
theology is a product of very selective reading.
Forgetting these things, they run back to their
studies in search of verses of scripture that support their position. They pull
out books and commentaries; they scan denominational pamphlets or find help
online in locating these verses.
Suddenly, single verses are seen to support
whole theologies. Some verse from First John now has the power to shore up an
entire worldview. Some obscure phrase from Jude is thought to have the final
answer on how men and women should relate to each other. And some phrase that
Jesus used in a parable now means that people who disagree with you and your
ideas about God will roast slowly over an open fire in the pits of hell
throughout all of eternity.
These furious exchanges of quotations are like
people lobbing mortar shots at each other from trenches. Those involved only get
angrier and more entrenched. I guess eventually they get tired and stop. One or
perhaps both camps claim victory. No one generally learns anything constructive
from these battles.
How do I know so much about this? Because I
used to be right in the middle of those fights. In college and seminary, I stood
on street corners, arguing and fighting with fundamentalist street preachers. I
remember once dragging the Greek New Testament (I had all of one semester of
Greek under my belt) down to the street corner to show a sweating, shouting
evangelist an aorist verb.
He stared at the Bible for a moment, then
looked back at me. Then he shouted, “Your pride will be your downfall, and you
will burn forever in the LAKE OF FIIIIIRE!!!!!
I mean, what can you say to that? "Nu-uh!"
So now I’m gently sliding into middle age. I’m
tired of fighting over the Bible. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about most fine
points of theology. I know a little too much about how the New Testament was
formed, and I know a little too much about what’s in there and how hard it is to
keep it straight.
I have much simpler questions for people now.
“You reading the New Testament? Trying your
best to understand it?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you trying to follow Jesus as a
disciple, trying to understand what he said and live the way he did, where
possible?”
“Yeah, I’m trying.”
“MY BROTHER!”
rlp
