An argument for reading the parts of the Bible you don't like

“That’s not the God I believe in.” I’ve heard this phrase countless times in many different contexts. Sometimes it’s helpful. I remember our former presiding bishop Mark Hanson talking about meeting with people who don’t believe in God, listening to their stories of why they don’t believe, and then relating that the god they are describing is not the God he believes in either. Our conflicts over religion have a great deal to do with misunderstanding the kind of God that one another believe in. In that way this phrase is useful.

But in other ways I find it a cop out. For example: when it’s used by educated Christians who read the Bible until they find an attribute of God they don’t like, and then they explain that they don’t agree with that scripture because that’s not the God I believe in. This has always seemed backwards to me—I mean, how can you say that’s not the God you believe in when the God you believe in is revealed primarily through scripture? Aren’t you admitting that the God you believe in is only a reflection of the traits you define as “good”? Then, isn't God really only a reflection of you? It’s a pretty short jaunt from ignoring scripture we don’t like to making God in our image.

It bothers me even more when this comes from pastors, because most of them, like me, had to take vows in their ordination that contain a line that reads something like this: “The church in which you are to be ordained confesses that the holy scriptures are the word of God and are the norm of its faith and life…. Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the holy scriptures…?” Can we really take that vow seriously if we discount certain bits of scripture out of hand because of our preconceived notions of who or what God is?

I believe strongly in an open-minded approach to scripture, because I believe that all scripture exists to reveal God to us, and if that’s the case then what have we to fear from reading something that rubs us the wrong way? That doesn’t always mean that the Bible is clear or that we will like it; in fact, it pretty much guarantees the opposite; but it promises us that the Bible as we have it is sufficient for faith in the true God. Scripture might contain allegories and parables, events that are described as if historical even if they may not have ever happened, and even words of human people that conceal as much as they reveal, but God is found everywhere in the midst of it all.

In fact, I tend to believe that God is found particularly in the places we are challenged.

It’s funny to me that so many mainline theologians have this double-standard when it comes to reading the Bible. We more or less gloat at those who are challenged by radical grace. We tend to read Paul without any sense of moral superiority, brazenly throwing away our need to possess right doctrine, suggesting instead that it is not what we do or any goodness of heart that saves us. We read Paul radically, universally, and take seriously that God is going to save all of creation. Not some, not many, but all. Then we become the most terrible of hypocrites when we open up our Bibles—usually to the Old Testament—and detest this god who destroys empires, sends plagues, and does other things we find unsavory.

I’m not saying we have to hold wrathfulness as one of our primary identifiers of a Christian God—not least of all after Jesus. I’m merely saying that presuming that certain traits cannot be ascribed to God is just as irresponsible as assuming that grace is dependent on our choices or that Jesus is merely a good teacher--no matter what scripture says. The moment we start ignoring scripture simply because we don’t like it is the moment we lose both the authority of scripture and our own authority as preachers of the word. This is not to say that the Bible is infallible or that every iota of scripture is of the same importance. Instead, I’m only saying that the Holy Spirit speaks both through the things we find tasteful and tasteless, right and wrong, because the Holy Spirit is not dependent on the ethical standards that we bring to the text.

In short, I believe that scripture we don’t like is a useful testing ground for whether our reading of scripture is self-centered or God-centered—whether we come to the Bible looking for the answers that we want to find, or whether we come honestly, faithfully looking for God. You can ultimately come to the conclusion that certain scripture does not capture the essence of the true God, and you can even say that this conception of God is no longer helpful after Jesus, but you had better wrestle with it to get there. And then, most importantly, you better come back to it—again and again—because the places where we are challenged contain the most verdant soil for our faith.