Peter Kazmaier

I recently had an opportunity to visit a friend of mine to listen with him to a lecture on the provocative topic of whether or not the Bible is beneficial and therefore should be kept or  deleted. Having listened to the lecture and wishing to write about it, I find myself in a quandary. On the one hand I owe the speaker good language since she traveled a fair distance to present her talk and she delivered her presentation with an amiable demeanor. Still I will have little good to say about the lecture, so taking a cue from C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, I propose to simply call the talk “The Lecture,” and I will call the speaker Docilla so that I can confine my comments to the content. So what was my reaction to the talk?

First let me deal with the provocative topic: should the Bible be kept or deleted? I suppose this statement may be provocative hyperbole for “is the Bible still relevant or is it irrelevant?” However I received no clear indication that the title was not meant literally so let me talk to the title from point of view that “delete” really means delete. There are many book ancient and modern which I do not think either edifying or helpful, but that does not mean I would like to see them deleted. Even a badly written book can serve as an example on how not to write. Books that I believe wrong-headed or advocate destructive behavior can still raise important questions. My love of books, my desire for freedom, and my personal commitment to try to find the truth about important questions make me hesitant to destroy any book. Given my perspective, it was a surprise to me that several in the audience (perhaps 3-4 out of 25) had voted for deletion of the Bible. It was a surprise because I had great difficulty reconciling their view that the Bible was such an extraordinarily dangerous book that it ought to be deleted with my own investigation of the contents.

So what about the lecture itself? Had I given the lecture, I would have discussed the history of the Biblical texts and the scholarship surrounding the early manuscripts, the use of the texts by the early Christians and the eventual collection of the sacred Christian writings into the New Testament canon. I would have then gone on to compare and contrast good and bad behaviors that have come out of the application of the principles in these writings from the earliest days to the present.

Docilla did very little of this. It was impossible for me to understand where she stood on these basic questions or even to glean the key facts about the archeological and textual evidence for the historicity of the Bible from her lecture. Furthermore she spent a disproportionate amount of time on extra-biblical writings such as the gospel of Thomas.

Much of the talk centered on the theme that one cannot interpret the Biblical text (or any text I suppose) unless one has the right metaphor to unlock the meaning. I don’t deny that metaphors can be useful in gaining understanding. A metaphor is useful because we can take something concrete and use it to help understand something that is abstract. Yet much of what she described extracted arcane conclusions out of New Testament writings while ignoring what seems plain and straight forward.

On reflection, The Lecture was not a lecture at all, but rather one long story. I’m not completely sure if the story was a work of fiction or non-fiction and perhaps in the mind of Docilla that distinction is not very clear. I suppose there are many benefits to Postmodern thinking that treats everything as a story. But if our passion for story makes us lose sight of what is true and false, I think we have lost a great deal.

Thanks for reading,

Peter

A friend of mine, Gregg wrote an interesting post lamenting how some clergy, while maintaining their office as a shepherd of other Christians in their church make statements that undermine and even dismiss not only teachings that have been held in common by Christian since Christ’s coming, but the writings behind the teaching themselves. I believe each person has a right to look at the evidence, weigh it, and then reach their own conclusion. When I have done that, this has led me on a course to being a Christian. What I cannot understand is clergy and other persons of influence in the religious community who apparently have come to the personal conclusion that Jesus is not who he said he is, who then nevertheless despite their aggressive agnosticism continue to hold office, continue to draw salaries, continue to influence other Christians who look to them for leadership while all the time speaking to these personal beliefs which repudiate the essence of Christianity. They are waging intellectual war against Christ-Followers from the inside. To me this seems intellectually dishonest. (continue reading…)

It is curious that while Christians are remembering the death of Jesus on the Cross and celebrating His resurrection, this solemn Christian celebration inevitably coincides with a series of book launches and popular magazine articles attacking the very heart of the Christian celebration. Setting aside the observation that this calculated timing conflicts with our views of tolerance and respect that we as a society espouse toward people’s religious beliefs (Christian have long known that in western society these principles apply to other religious beliefs but not to Christianity) one still can’t help wondering at the irony inherent in the timing. While denigrating the world view of millions, this very timing depends on the Christian world view for its impact. This year was no exception. Brian Bethune wrote an article entitled The Jesus Problem in the Easter edition of MacLeans. (continue reading…)