Faith.In.Life

#Deconstruction

The Bible and Toxic Theology

When I went to seminary I found out pretty quickly that many of my peers and I were asking a ton of questions about the Bible and theology.  We all then came to seminary to try to find the answers.  I started this endeavor by talking about deconstruction based on blogger and author Alicia Childers’ book “The Deconstruction of Christianity.”  Even she talks about her faith journey where she found herself in a Progressive Christian church that started her thinking about questions that even someone who was raised in the faith didn’t have answers for.  We should be asking questions about the Bible and the theology we form (which we can hope is based on a proper understanding of the Bible).  The problem is we can look to the wide world of the internet to find the answers we want to hear and in doing so we don’t do the hard work of studying the Bible and theology from credible sources.

One doesn’t have to look very hard, either.  I see strange claims all the time that are all very similar to each other when they question the historicity of the Bible to then equally question its credibility.  The most popular claim you will hear about the Old Testament is when a person questions the ethics of the Old Testament to claim that the God of the Bible is immoral.  I find this claim to be strange for two different reasons:  

First, if we question God’s justice or action we effectively place ourselves in the position of God to say that we somehow know better than God.  People largely question the ideas of God’s judgment or an eternal Hell suggesting that there is no moral action or lack thereof that deserves eternal punishment.  This train of thought then continues to question even God's movement throughout the Old Testament suggesting that he is some bully in the sky randomly offing different people or even cultures.  In doing so, these people claim the moral high ground.  However, God sets a moral standard that every culture in some way shape, or form has built upon.  Every culture has basic laws that are ultimately based on the Ten Commandments forbidding murder, and stealing.  While there may not be laws about lying and adultery, they are generally frowned upon.  Any culture that allows any of these commandments to be broken will at the very least slowly, but very surely fail (and at times very quickly disappear off the face of the earth).  Over and over again God’s moral standard is found to be justified.  Many times it is we who want to be justified in our sinful nature and simply do not like the ideas of a moral standard - so we call it immoral so that we can do what we want to do.  Yet, sooner or later, we will find ourselves in a hole that we have dug ourselves.  

The second reason I find this claim against God to be strange is we will pick a place in Scripture and say that it was immoral while equally suggesting that God told the people to do whatever it was.  I have heard people argue at times when people break God’s standard to justify a particular ethical practice.  In either case, we take a snapshot and suggest that this is wrong or morally questionable.  One of the easiest examples would be if someone said that the Bible teaches that a Monarchy is the best form of government, and then the person goes about showing why a monarchy is not an ethical choice.  The problem with this train of thought is God did not want a monarchy, but the people lobbied for it and God allowed it to happen.  God knew the pitfalls of a monarchy, but the people did not.  This is a misunderstanding of Scripture, not a reason to leave the faith.  I believe any perceived contradiction or what might be perceived as ethically immoral is typically found in either a misunderstanding or simply too small of a snapshot of the narrative they are looking at.  Contradictions can be explained and context within the broader narrative is essential - yet each is looked to as reasons to discredit the Bible.

In the New Testament, it is popular to question authorship.  People will suggest that if we can question authorship, then they can discredit particular parts of the Canon.  If you follow this argument through I could make a very good argument that the entire New Testament is not trustworthy and should not be Canon.  This thought process is pretty easy to identify when a person starts poking holes in the trustworthiness of Scripture or if a person starts pitting Scripture against Scripture as if parts of the Bible are “more true” than others. Such a thought process starts to break down classical teachings to build up something entirely different in its place to ultimately justify a particular ideology.  I have found that a lot of damage in this area began with the movement called “Neo-Orthodoxy.”  Scholars like Karl Barth, John Stott, and Albert Schweizer started poking holes in Scripture and moving away from literal translations.  At first, the movement was built on what type of writing a particular book of the Bible was that would help with translation.  This step is very helpful to identify whether the book is a Gospel, or an Epistle, Poetry, Narrative, or Apocalyptic (like Revelation).  Yet, the step that was not helpful was when they started to suggest that certain types of writings were more important than others, suggesting that something like the Gospel of Matthew is more trustworthy or true than Revelation (as two examples).  If you follow this thought process through to the Jesus Seminar where scholars (both believers and nonbelievers) got together to vote on the sayings of Jesus to cast a colored bead if they were on the gambit of Jesus said this, but Jesus most certainly did not say this.  The Jesus Seminar effectively couldn’t agree on much of anything, and ultimately it seemed that the general vote was that Jesus didn’t say much of anything the Bible tells us he said.  So, let’s effectively through the whole thing out, right?

In the words of Paul, my response is “By no means!”  That is, we can do a lot of Biblical study in regard to the different manuscripts and have standards of what ought to be Canon (something like The Gospel of Matthew versus something outlandish like the Gospel of Thomas).  In that specific case, we see that the Gospel of Thomas (around 140AD) is written much later than even the latest book of the Canon, Revelation (around 70AD).  But, when it comes to authorship, we have effectively thrown inspiration out with the idea of authorship not to mention any emphasis on the Oral Tradition.  If in fact “All Scripture is God-breathed” and the writers of the New Testament believed that they were writing Scripture (which is true of books that are included in our Cano) then we must be able to understand Scripture in its fullness rather than poking holes in it or pitting it against itself.  We must be able to understand the broader themes of Scripture to have a consistent theology.

When we fail to take the Bible for what it is supposed to be, it very much can create toxic theology.  Toxic theology must be disposed of, and the broader Church needs to be constantly reforming.  Over the years the Bible has been used as a weapon to take the voice away from certain people groups.  The church needs to be able to admit when we messed up, and to repent of some of the atrocious things done in the name of God.  This call to repentance cannot be done based on what culture expects, but ought to be based on the very Word of God.  What I have noticed is that there are times in history when reformers (through the years, not just during the formal Reformation) were challenged by something going on in culture and did a solid dive into what Scripture has been taught.  There are two ways this can happen:  Either the reformers lead the charge, or they follow it.  I have found that when reformers lead the charge it is based on a conviction from the Word of God - so you see people like Martin Luther King lead the charge as a Christian based on the Word of God to challenge racial segregation.  When reformers follow the charge, though, can lead to us pushing culture onto Scripture to change us, rather than the other way around - and seems to have led many churches astray in regards to what Biblical sexuality is versus what culture says it should be.  There is no question that the church needs to reform around biblical sexuality, but if we simply forsake what the Bible teaches then we will truly lose our saltiness as Scripture says.  We must hold tightly to the Word of God with an emphasis on compassion so that we encounter God’s plan for us.  

I will admit that when we talk about confronting toxic theology one could write a whole separate book.  I tried to confront some of these ideas in my series that I called Hot Topics and Hard Questions.  I am convinced that a lot of good reforming has happened around hard topics like race, women and men in ministry, and biblical sexuality.  Culture has presented good questions that do not have easy answers, but I do believe the Bible offers productive and healthy answers that should guide our train of thought.  In this way, the church needs to be open to the challenges presented by the Deconstruction movement as well as Progressive Christianity.  I was challenged by my title for my second chapter for Deconstruction of Self calling it “Why It’s Important: Defining the Battle Lines” where the person said that he didn’t think Christianity is going to be completely done away with from the challenges that deconstructionists or progressives might offer.  I agree with this sentiment in realizing that the church needs to constantly reforming.  However, reforming has to be based on what is True, not on what culture says is true in terms of passing fads.  I still hold to the title of my second chapter because Orthodoxy is under attack as people question the Bible or claim something as toxic theology.  The very thought process alone has led people to deconstruct.  What I would offer instead, is that we would have open conversations, but they all would be guided by what the Bible says.  Too much of today’s ideas have been formed by the wolves who are trying to push what is true and then takes advantage of the vulnerable sheep.  We must continue to always be ready to give a defense of the hope that is within us through a knowledgeable faith so that when the wolves come, we are not lost sheep.