The Bible is a dangerous book.
Not all parts of the Bible are bad news, but enough are.
The Bible, by which I mean the collected Hebrew and Christian scriptures, is a powerfully dangerous book. If Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Porn, Ryan Walters, wants to keep inflammatory and violent and pornographically-laced reading material out of the hands of Oklahoma public school students, the Bible should be at the top of the ban list. The last book he should be trying to get into the hands of students is this one. The LAST.
Please stay with me a few more paragraphs, MAGAts and other pretend literal readers of the Bible.
I am well aware of the significant portions of both Hebrew and Christian scripture that are
engaging
brilliantly written by the host of women and men who got the mostly originally-spoken words shared verbally for long periods of time, even generations (the letters Paul dictated, with an amanuensis writing for him as his blindness wouldn’t let him write much more than his name, being some of the exceptions) written onto scrolls
morally- and practically-instructive
courageous and
gloriously inspirational.
But also contained therein are portions that are
petty
self-serving
violent
culturally unintelligible or nearly so
misogynistic
incestuous
cruel
blatantly sexual, in- and outside the bonds of monogamous, mostly polygamous marriage and
inaccurate
OK, MAGs, it’s fine to ignore me from this point on, because it’s only going to get worse for you, but it would be worthwhile, though you’ll never admit it, to get someone not as close-minded as you to read the rest of this for you and at least give you a summary. Please keep this in mind, though: my whole life has been focused on understanding the Bible; I mean that literally.
When I first began reading regularly as a first-grader (soooooo late compared to how young kids today begin reading, I know) the Bible is what I read most. My reasons were neither pious nor noble.
If I read my Bible daily, I could check a box on my Sunday School offering envelope every week that said: Read Bible Daily. Enough of those checkmarks got me a huge box of candy from my Sunday School teacher! If I were too sick to read, I asked my parents to read to me. I LOVED butterscotch lifesavers. Oh, and God. I must have loved God too! But I’m being honest here, which shows you I’m not a Republican; I read my Bible daily during my growing up years because I wanted LIFESAVERS.
Something about the Bible, nonetheless, must have clicked without my conscious awareness. The Bible was part of me—at least those verses and stories I’d internalized.
I excelled at sword drills. Do you know what sword drills are or were? Also called Bible drills, they were contests among kids to teens in roughly the same age group at a given drill. The object was to be the first to find a Bible passage announced by the featured verse caller outer. (I don’t know what their official designation was supposed to be, but the person who does something similar at a Bingo game is called a Bingo caller, Siri tells me, thus my title for those folks.)
Routine drills would probably have a Sunday School teacher as a caller. In the tournaments for the winners of less competitive drills up against each other, the pastor might be the verse caller outer. When the finalists vied for the big win (summer youth camp fees paid!!!) the caller outer might be a traveling evangelist or, GASP, a visiting missionary back in the US on furlough from a foreign mission field and living temporarily near your church.
There were three acts each participant was expected to perform every time a different scripture passage was presented.
Attention. When the caller outer said attention all the participants were supposed to stand up straight (tough for gay kids, terrible expression), arms down by their sides, a Bible closed and held in the less dominant hand.
Draw swords. When the calller outer gave that order, each participant brought the Bible up resting on the open palm of that less dominant hand, with the dominant hand positioned nearby, ready to bring it into action with the next command.
Charge. I swear to God, I’m not describing an episode of “F Troop”; that really was the command that caused the participants to spring into action. It must truly have been hilarious if not alarming to behold; worse, some unscrupulous participants cheated by pretending bumping nearby scripture seekers was accidental.
When I lived in New Orleans before Katrina (meaning the Hurricane, not a one-time girlfriend or my fav French Quarter drink) it was the most fun city in the world—even for a prude like me. Part of the great fun around our church was centered in one of our members.
It was a Baptist congregation, though her background had been Roman Catholic. Under those limiting circumstances, she had never heard of sword drills until she began hanging around with Baptists. Her first hearing about one, I think she said, was in a Sunday morning announcement made during the worship service. She said she sat shaken and wanting to deny what she was hearing in her newly-embraced faith community, but there it was.
The announcement asked all youth expected at that afternoon’s sword drill rehearsal to be back at church by 4 pm. She’d heard some incriminating descriptions of Baptists from her priests and teacher-nuns, but never anything as serious as training the youth to use swords! (Sadly, MAGAt reconstructionists today probably do that literally, having the maturing kids work their way up to assault weapons for the bravest of the fighters-to-be.)
Before our New Orleans years, I had earned three academic degrees including a Ph.D. in scriptural interpretation and pastoral theology. (I’m keenly aware that you MAGAt folks hate education and the educated, but not all of us do—for example, the aeronautical engineers who designed the planes on which you fly to get to touch the golden statue of Trump.). I was pastor of three outstanding congregations whose devotion to learn and serve challenged me never to get intellectually lax about anything especially biblical interpretation, and I was a professor of preaching on two continents.
It’s not arrogance when I tell you I’m not a lightweight on this subject. And my warning is from the heart. The number of people who have already had their lives ruined by scriptural misinterpretation, and the number of people who have had their lives taken from them by self-proclaimed Bible devotees is ghastly and utterly ungodly. No more. No more.
When I tell you, therefore, that the Bible is a danger book, I’m telling you the gospel truth, so to speak. More soon.