The title of this post is not a complaint; it is merely an observation. No one confronts the representatives of another tradition with a contest to see which one's deity will send fire from heaven as Elijah did. No Christian blogger claims that those who comment negatively will be struck with blindness for doing so, as apostles did. God is depicted in many parts of the Bible as knocking down city walls, parting seas and so on. Yet no Christian dominionists are likely to march around Washington D.C. and see it fall into their hands.
Those who claim they "believe the whole Bible" and "take it literally" are being dishonest. Their pastor may have preached recently on the story of the fall of Jericho, but it was applied to God "making the strongholds of sin in your come life crumbling down", not to a battle plan to take a city.
To be fair, not all Biblical authors view God in the same way. And so there is no single "Biblical view of God". But certainly God as depicted in some parts of the Bible is not the concept of the deity served by Christians today.
The question a Christian needs to ask is whether they have the courage to admit that their view of God is not the same as that of many depicitions in the Bible. Do you have the courage to take the Bible's actual words completely seriously, even when the result is that you are forced to acknowledge that you do not accept their literal truthfulness?
Let me end with a couple of thought-provoking quotes from Don Cupitt's book, which I just finished reading:
"The Virgin Mary may cure many people in Portugal but she is much less active in Libya, whereas vaccination and inoculation are observably beneficial - and equally beneficial - in both cultures, the local religion in the end making no difference at all" (Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God, p.123).
"To put it bluntly, classical Christianity is itself now our Old Testament...We have to use traditional Christianity in the same way as Christianity itself has always used the Old Testament. In both cases there is a great gulf but there is also continuity of spirit and religious values...When a Christian sings a psalm he knows there is a religion-gap and a culture-gap, but it does not worry him because he believes his faith to be the legitimate successor of the faith of the psalmist. Similarly, since the Enlightenment there has developed a religion-gap and a culture-gap between us and traditional Christianity, but we may still be justified in using the old words if we can plausibly argue that our present faith and spiritual values are the legitimate heirs of the old" (Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God, p.135).
Friday, May 9, 2008
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9 comments:
Great post.
Hmmm. Great title for a post perhaps but you're not about to go all Cupitt on us are you? The dilemma established only really applies if you have a more or less fundamentalist hermeneutic; anything more creative (ie anything less literalistic) and this isn't an issue.
The biggest trouble with Cupitt is that he completely fails to 'get' the apophatic tradition. Meister Eckhart was exploring this rather a long time ago.
I don't think I'm going to "go all Cupitt", but I think there is far less distance between Cupitt and the apophatic tradition than might first seem to be the case. The title of his book, unless I'm mistaken, is an allusion to a phrase from Eckhart.
Cupitt describes himself as a "Christian Buddhist", and I think the key place where he differs from the apophatic tradition is that he cuts the link between the ineffable ultimate reality he affirms exists, and the religious language we use.
I need to think more about how close or far apart the two really are. At times I felt Cupitt was drawing conclusions that I wouldn't. But when I share quotes it is because I find that particular quote interesting or provocative or inspiring, not because I agree with everything that particular author says.
But I absolutely agree with your point about fundamentalist hermeneutics, and my criticism was only of those who claim to be "Biblical Christians" because they "take the Bible literally" - and then don't. And of course, I used to actually be one of those... :)
Maybe I was wrong when I said "no one"...
http://mattcbr.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/living-with-a-corpse-for-religious-beliefs/
Mark, I agree with you that in the absence of miracles, many Christians today use miraculous stories such as the fall of Jericho as an allegory, but I think you discount a large number of conservative Christians in America. Part of President Bush's rationale for invading Iraq involved divine sanction, and who can forget Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell damning America after 9/11 and claiming that it was God's vengeance for the sins of America. Even in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, many conservative Christians saw it as God's destruction of a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. I agree with you that most people have taken the wrathful stories of the God of the Bible as allegory for their life within a particular hermeneutic that champions self-improvement and peaceful relations, but there is a significant portion of Christians that still believe the God of the Bible is alive and kicking.
I think many so-called fundamentalists haven't come to terms with the fact that their religion, like most things, has evolved.
Tradition is important for shaping one's theology, even when one identifies with biblical literalism.
Hi Grace! Who's Mark? Anyway, I think you overestimate the extent to which the fundamentalists actually take the Bible literally. As someone who was one, I would argue that they do so (and that I did so) at best selectively.
"Believing the whole Bible and taking it all literally" is not a statement of fact. It is a claim for a moral, Biblical high ground one's standpoint doesn't in fact occupy. And that makes it worse, not better, than that of others who admit that they aren't believing the whole Bible and taking it all literally.
Fundamentalism can only thrive as long as people continue to take its PR claims at face value. I believe it is extremely important to see through the rhetoric of the fundamentalists to the reality behind it.
This entry is amazing. You, sir, are my hero.
Thank you for your thoughts,the questions contained in this blog post are interesting indeed.I agree that there are anomalies in our view of God and that there are problems in taking the bible literally.
As Christians we need to ask ourselves the question of how we interpret the scripture for a modern generation.
I also appreciated your quote from Don Cupitt and believe it holds a key to applying the scripture to a modern setting. Much of what is written in the bible was appropriate for the culture it was written in, and therefore we have to discern the underlying principles and apply them to our own culture.
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