As you go… Therefore go… And interpret the Scriptures

Over the Christmas holidays I read Christian Smith’s new book, “The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture” (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). I have followed Christian’s work for many years – he is a well known and insightful sociologist who has spent many years researching the state of the church, youth ministry and Christian culture, especially in the USA.

But in this book, he has turned his attention to how evangelical Christians in America interpret the Bible. It’s an interesting book, as he states often that he is not a ‘professional’ theologian, and is approaching the topic more from a sociological perspective. Yet, his insights are excellent and striking. I think the first half of the book is much better than the second. He starts by defining the type of Biblical readers he has in mind: conservative evangelicals who claim (among other things) that the Bible should be interpreted literally, contains absolutely no errors of any sort (inerrant), was written by God (inspired), represents the full extent of God’s communication with humanity and is sufficient for all matters of life, for all Christians of all ages. He shows that their version of Biblical interpretation is impossible.

Note that he shows it to be impossible. Logically impossible, theologically impossible and practically impossible. The book is a bit long winded, but that’s mainly because I think Smith is hoping that many of the people he is critiquing might read the book. He is therefore meticulous in ensuring his argument is well understood and covers all possible bases.

I find his argument very compelling.

And then on Sunday, the preacher at our church preached from Matthew 28 – the section often referred to as The Great Commission. And right there, I realised was an almost perfect example of the issue Smith’s book focuses in on.

Matthew 28:19 is translated in almost all of our English Bibles as “Therefore, go and make disciples…”. But almost everyone knows that the original Greek construction of the sentence is: “As you go, make disciples…”. Our preacher took this so for granted that he didn’t even mention the discrepancy between what we were reading, and what he was quoting. He simply said, “As you go, you are to make disciples”. This is the correct emphasis of the passage. The “going” is implied, and is not a command. The command is to make disciples, wherever it is that you go. There can be very few people who don’t know this.

So why have even the most modern of translations not updated the text?

I honestly couldn’t tell you. But the point is this: our whole theology does not come tumbling down because we identify this error (for error it is!) and correct it. The community of Christians working together comes to an understanding about what the verses are supposed to mean, and we adjust our thinking accordingly. If needed, we’d adjust our practice too.

We’ve done this so often throughout history, changing our interpretations and understanding of Scripture, and our practices, that it almost doesn’t feel like the point needs to be made. But, sadly it does.

A literalist interpretation of Scripture is not a good reading of Scripture. It believes that there is only one possible interpretation of each Scriptural passage, and that by diligent study we will come to agree on this. And anyone who doesn’t agree is an enemy of God.

So those who read the Bible literally often accuse those who do not of being “liberal”. This is a catch all label which is almost always used dismissively – and pejoratively – and as if it concludes all debate. But it’s just not true. Those who work hard to understand the Bible by looking for dynamic equivalents in order to translate and interpret culturally conditioned passages, and those who try and look beyond factual errors, internal inconsistencies and cultural issues to find the meaning and intent of the passages (without diminishing their belief that they are God’s Words), are not being “seduced by the world” or taking the easy interpretative route. In fact, in most cases, they do this work precisely because they are taking the Bible MORE seriously than they ever have.

You might find it valuable to read one of our archive posts: Confessions of a Bible Deist. If you’d like to read a book about this issue of how to interpret the Bible, then the best one written recently is Scott McKnight’s “The Blue Parakeet” (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). The best textbook I can recommend is Fee and Stuart’s “How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth” (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).

If we’re going to deal correctly with issues such as creation versus evolution, science versus faith, the role of women, and homosexuality successfully, we have to start where Christian Smith starts: and look to show literalist Biblicists the error – and impossibility – of their approach to Biblical interpretation. Without that, all other attempts at engagement are futile.

As you go, do your best to take God’s Word seriously. Now go!

Rachel Held Evans: Your daughters will prophesy

I was introduced to Rachel Held Evans in 2011, and have become a regular reader – and admirer – of her writing. She’s a young blogger and author who started life as fundamentalist, Republican, conservative evangelical, but has lived through doubt and found faith in a kinder, calmer form of Christianity. She is particularly interested in dealing with how the conservative church treats women.

In a recent blog entry, she focuses her attention on a very specific argument about the role of women in the church. Some churches don’t believe women should preach, and some don’t believe they should lead. But whatever they believe, it would be hard for them to argue that women cannot prophesy.

It’s a great read, which you can read on her blog, or see an extract of it below:

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How (not) to speak of Christmas

Sometimes I really do despair of evangelical Christians. I claim to be one, on the basis that I believe the Bible when it teaches us about God and how He is reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus, and that we as humans need to respond to that fact. As such, I do understand that there is an imperative to share what I believe with the world. I try to do this humbly, acknowledging that truth exists throughout the world and that I do not know it all. But I also do it boldly, believing that God is knowable, personal and involved in the world, and has revealed Himself to us. I believe this is good news for everyone.

But I do sometimes cringe at those who also call themselves evangelicals and take a very different approach to telling others of the “Good News”. For many, more fundamentalist evangelicals, the only version of the good news they ever tell is that “if you trust in Jesus you won’t go to hell when you die”. This might be true, but it is nowhere near the whole truth.

Last Friday night (23 December), my 12 year old daughter excitedly invited two of her unchurched school friends to join her at a special pre-Christmas youth group evening event, with a group of about 30 other young teenagers. They were expecting an evening of fun activities and a brief Christmas themed talk to wrap things up – a fairly standard evening at the youth group. What they got instead was a long “Gospel” message from one of the church’s pastors that went something like this:

You might be a young teenager, but you still need to think about death. When I was at high school, two of my friends died: a motor cycle accident and falling off a cliff. It could happen to you. If you die without knowing Jesus you’ll go to hell. So, make sure you take this seriously and accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour so that if you die you’ll go to heaven. You’re never too young to think about this.

Although I might argue with the theology of this, let’s leave that aside for now. This is not an appropriate message 36 hours before Christmas. This is not the message the angels brought to the world. It’s not what Mary thought of as she gave birth to the Saviour. How can this be “good news”? The good news was good news for everyone. It was news that a King had been born. Yes, this king would die – and rise again. Yes, this king would be a Saviour. But the good news was not that “you can avoid eternal conscious torment when you die.” The message had to do with the king and his kingdom.

Surely a more appropriate Christmas message is that God, the Creator and Sustainer of this universe and our world, is so committed to restoring His Creation to its original glory that He was prepared to humble Himself and come into His Creation to be born as a humble child into a humble family in a nation that had been humbled by history. He came to show us that God’s Kingdom is breaking into the kingdoms of this world, and that what is wrong will be made right; what is broken will be fixed; what is shattered will be restored. Jesus did not come to solve your personal sin problem: He came, as promised, to be the culmination of God’s story unfolding across time, and to reconcile the world to God through His life, death and resurrection.

Our response is not to accept His message because we fear the consequences of what might happen if we don’t. The correct response to the good news of Christmas is to realise that the One who created the world has also supplied us with a model of how life is supposed to be lived in the world He created. That model comes in multiple forms: there is the model of a family, of a nation, of a temple, of leaders and rulers, and the ultimate model of the God-man, Jesus. Our task is to learn what it means to live a life worthy of the calling we have received in Christ, and to do our part in “making earth as it is in heaven” as we await the final transformation of this world into the paradise God-connected place it was always meant to be.

There may be place in this story for a bit of fear and dread. But that time is not a few hours before Christmas. And I’d suggest that this approach to evangelism, especially of young teenagers, is precisely why so many of them abandon what faith they might have when they leave school. It is not a good foundation on which to build a life of discipleship.

To put it more plainly: it’s wrong!

Christmas reminds us very clearly and very precisely that the coming of a Saviour to the world was – and is – first and foremost: good news! It would be a very strange definition of “good news” if it is nothing more than escape from hell after you’re dead.

Is it really Christ-mas in Britain this year?

Last week, David Cameron made an interesting speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The item that received most press coverage in the speech was Mr Cameron asserting that “We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.” He admitted personally to be a committed but only vaguely practising Christian with some deep doubts about some theological issues.

He continued: “I know and fully respect that many people in this country do not have a religion. And I am also incredibly proud that Britain is home to many different faith communities, who do so much to make our country stronger. But what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today.”

Some would argue that a time of national crisis and difficulty is precisely when the church can shine in society. The Economist from the previous week had made just such a point in an insightful piece (read it in full here, or an extract below).

Postscript added on 25 December: The Queen’s speech today was filled with Christian messages, and a strong almost evangelistic message. It’s probably the strongest specifically Christian message I have ever heard from a member of the Royal family in the UK. Is this a sign that the leaders of the country have made a decision to use the Christian faith as a means to developing the nation? If so, the church needs to jump at the opportunity. But it must do so realising that people are seeking God, not the church. They want faith, not a religion.

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Rob Bell on the agony of explanation – and what he believes

Rob Bell is a preacher, pastor, author and leading thinker on theological issues. Earlier this year, he wrote a book called “Love Wins” which caused a huge controversy (buy it at Amazon or Amazon.co.uk). One of the upsetting things was the number of detractors who were prepared to “critique” his book without even reading it. Insane, but true. I was sent one which was even printed in the best selling Christian magazine in South Africa where the reviewer freely admitted he hadn’t read the book.

Apparently, people who attend Rob’s church in Grand Rapids were put upon by all and sundry and had a torrid time trying to defend their pastor. On 27 March 2011, Rob started the service with a statement which he labelled “The Agony of Explanation” in their official podcast. I think it is a remarkable few minutes.

He states his beliefs. And there is nothing in any of his books which would contradict this very traditional set of beliefs. He then talks a bit about what he was trying to convey in the book. If you’re not going to read the book, you might as well listen to what he says the message is. He also talks a lot about the attitude one should have. An attitude like Jesus’, I believe.

Anyway, for many reasons, it’s worth listening to Rob in his own words, as he interacts with one of the leadership team of the church:

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You can find the full podcasts from the church in their free iTunes channel: Mars Hill Bible Church

Christianity as Country Club – by Scot McKinight

Author and commentator, Scot McKnight, recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post. I think he is spot on. You can read the original here, or an extract below:

Christianity as Country Club

by Scot McKnight, Huffington Post, 6 Sep 2011

Christianity sometimes presents itself as a country club. It presents itself this way even when it doesn’t want to, and sometimes it doesn’t even know it. I grew up loving to play golf but I played on the public course. I had friends who played at the local country club. When I visited the country club I felt like a visitor even though the members were wonderfully hospitable. Members felt like members and visitors felt like visitors, and knowing that you could “visit” only by invitation made the difference clear.

Many experience the church this way. Members know they belong, and visitors know they don’t. Well, after all, we might reason, the Christian faith is a religion of salvation, and Stephen Prothero’s recent book, “God is Not One,” depicted Christianity as a faith concerned with the “way of salvation.” And if you are saved, you are a member; if you are not saved, you are not. You might visit, but until you get saved you will know you are not in the club.

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God is not a Christian

Desmond Tutu, the irrepressible retired Anglican Bishop from South Africa, is one of my favourite people of all time. His speeches are some of the best in history, and always delivered with verve, humour and passion. He is a remarkable man, and I have had the privilege of meeting him a few times and listening to him speak live.

A collection of his speeches and writings – especially his most controversial ones – has just been published (with two different sub titles, confusingly): “and other provocations” or “speaking truths in times of crisis” (Buy it at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).

The Huffington Post provided an extended extract. You can read it here, or below. I have highlighted my favourite bit. It’s from the speech that book is named for: God is not a Christian. What a profound thought.

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What is an ‘easy Gospel’? Rob Bell, Love Wins, Galatians and Good News

Maybe you haven’t noticed yet, but there is a storm of controversy and debate about Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins (buy it Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). It’s about heaven, hell and the Gospel. I’ve read it and will write more about it in a few weeks when I have some spare time. It deserves a good response and review – I think he makes some superb points. But more of that later.

Bell’s book has garnered huge response from evangelicals who feel that Bell is subverting the Gospel. One of their common criticisms is that he is preaching an easy Gospel. Most go on to add that this is “obviously” because he wants to draw a crowd (they normally then reference his large and growing congregation) and become famous. Whatever else might be said about what Bell is doing, I think this criticism does not wash. The Gospel that many emerging church Christians are pursuing is not an “easy” Gospel, designed to make life less difficult. In fact, Bell’s view of Scripture makes Christian living even harder.

Basically he says (and this is a VERY simple summary): Everyone who gets in heaven gets there because God credits to them what Jesus accomplished on the Cross (no problems there, I think). Everyone will be given a fair chance by God to fully understand what Jesus did and accept the gift of salvation (some problems start there, but generally most are still fine with this). Our opportunities to understand and accept Jesus’ salvation plan do not end at death – those who did not accept Jesus while alive will have opportunity to do so when they meet Him (maybe you see the problem some people have). Meeting God and Jesus face to face will be so overwhelming that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord” – and even if they don’t do instantly and immediately, God has all eternity to convince them to do so (conservative evangelicals who might have been OK probably have a problem here). Hell, therefore, is not a separate place of eternal torment, but rather it is the state of living in denial of God’s sovereignty and salvation – in other words, not living as God intended us to live. By the way, heaven is not a place in the clouds, it exists here on this earth when God ends time and comes down to “make the kingdoms of this earth the Kingdom of His Christ” (most thinking evangelicals should actually be fine with this point, if their heads haven’t exploded yet).

That’s where most summaries of the book end. But that’s not where Bell stops. He then explains that the goal of life on earth now is to “make it on earth as it is in heaven”. We have eternal life (“life of the ages” to be strict about the translation of the Johanine phrase) right now, and are to live in such a way that we show evidence of God’s work among us. “The Kingdom is at hand, it is among us” – you should be able to reach out and touch it. Hell starts now if we don’t do so. Our lives become hell when we live them in opposition to the Designer’s plan.

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Should we celebrate Osama bin Laden’s death?

I don’t think we should. I think this is a moment to show the world how different Christian faith is – and what a difference Christ makes in the world. By the way, I don’t think the world is a safer place tonight. At least in the near future it’s just got a little bit scarier – especially since I am planning four trips to the USA in the next six weeks.

Two articles published today in Christianity Today helped me to think through this issue a bit more thoroughly, and I recommend them to you.

Firstly, Gideon Strauss, CEO of the Center for Public Justice, argues that “Yes, Justice Has Been Done in the Killing of Osama bin Laden”, but our response as Christians must be marked by knowledge of our own depravity. Read his article here.

His points are Biblical and theological. Proverbs 24:17 says: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.” And Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”

He understands that we have a desire for retribution, and acknowledges that God understands this (see Psalm 137). “But beyond this immediate response, understandable as it is, I believe it is necessary for Christians to pause, and to consider the death of Osama bin Laden within the deeper perspective of human sin and divine grace. In the end, no death should give us pleasure…. Our best next response, I believe, to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, after we have sought our own hearts for the wickedness that resides in all of us, and have thanked God for his amazing grace that has rescued us from our own evil, is to join President Obama on May 5, this year’s National Day of Prayer, ‘in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy’ and ‘in asking God for guidance, mercy, and protection for our nation.’ And perhaps we can add a prayer for our enemies, that God may win them to himself and in his own good time bring into the relations between this nation and those who now seek her destruction some foretaste of the just peace of his world to come.”

But an even more profound response was written by Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, CA. He titled it: “The Death of Osama bin Laden: What Kind of Justice Has Been Done?” The news should again remind us of the difference between the City of Man and the City of God. You can read it here, or an extended extract below.

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Dear God, who invented you?

Brian McLaren alerted me to a lovely little story in the British media over the weekend. A young girl sent a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury sent her a remarkable reply.

A six-year-old girl writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

By Damian Thompson, The Telegraph, April 22nd, 2011

There’s a charming article in today’s Times by Alex Renton, a non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school. Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?” The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father. He could have told Lulu that, in his opinion, there was no God; or he could have pretended that he was a believer. He chose to do neither, instead emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer). For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.
But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

I think this letter reveals a lot about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sort of theology – more, indeed, than many of his lectures or agonised Synod addresses. I’d be interested to know whether readers of this blog think he did a good job of answering Lulu’s question.

But what the letter also tells us is that the Archbishop took the trouble to write a really thoughtful message – unmistakably his work and not that of a secretary – to a little girl. “Well done, Rowan!” was the reaction of Alex Renton’s mother, and I agree.

Source: The Independent

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

A recent article in the Huffington Post has caused a bit of a stir amongst conservative evangelicals. It simply aimed to point out an objective fact: that more and more Christians are questioning the church’s traditional response to homosexuality. For some, this is another sign of the crumbling of the orthodoxy of Christianity. For others, it is a sign of hope that Christianity can continue to escape its prejudices and past (they cite examples of how the church treated non-whites, women, slaves and others).

Whatever your view on the church’s current response to homosexuality, this article is worth reading and reflecting on. You can read it at The Huffington Post, or an extract below:

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

by Cathleen Falsani, Huffington Post, 13 Jan 2011

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians.

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I’m supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I’ve been taught that it’s impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

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From Minority to Majority – a problem for Reformed Protestants

This post was originally written on 10 June 2009, on the previous version of my blog

I was recently sent an article from the Associated Baptist Press (ABP, USA), entitled: “Baptists urged to consider risks of ‘majoritarian faith’”, by David Wilkinson. It is a news article about a recent lecture by Baptist historian Doug Weaver, speaking at the Baptist History and Heritage Society annual meeting.

His main point was that Baptists (and by inference, other Reformed Protestants) were shaped and formed as persecuted, minority groups. Now, they are majority, mainstream groups, and are in danger (I’d say they have already) lost their distinctiveness and compromised their values. In particular, he is concerned that Baptists have abandoned their belief in religious liberty (and in liberty in general).

While Baptists proudly point to religious liberty and church-state separation as their distinctive contributions to American history, Weaver said, contemporary Baptist heirs to that tradition may find it difficult to relate to their 17th-century forebears, who were part of a persecuted minority of dissenters to official state-supported denominations.

“We are used to being a part of the majority. We are the Bible Belt, maybe even the buckle of that belt. We are Baptists, the largest body of Protestants in the United States,” Weaver, a religion professor at Baylor University, said. “We have climbed the ladder of success numerically, socially and intellectually. We have an air of respectability. We are the majority; hear us roar.”

In contrast, he noted, it was the persecuted minority groups – the Anabaptists, Baptists and Quakers – that “pushed the Christian world in the 16th and 17th centuries to face the music and hear cries for complete religious liberty.”

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Four “lanes” of the emerging church

This post was originally written on 7 March 2009, on the previous version of my blog

If you’ve done any reading on the emerging church, you’ll probably know the name Mark Driscoll. He has distanced himself from “Emergent”, the voice of emerging church in the USA. But he nevertheless still considers himself as “emerging”, although he prefers the label “Reformed Missional” or “Emerging Reformers”.

The video can be found at YouTube (click here). Or see below.

I think he is overly critical of the “fourth lane”, which he labels the “Emerging Liberals”. He is incorrect about Rob Bell, for example, who does NOT say that we can get rid of the virgin birth. It’s interesting. Driscoll says in this video below that “they are asking questions that no pastors should be asking”. Maybe that’s the big difference here. Reformed guys think that some issues should not be discussed, and that all Truth (with a capital T) has already been discovered (i.e. we are not wrong on any major issues right now in the history of the church). Anyone who is open to having conversations about this is labelled a liberal, and is seen as dangerous.

You decide.

But, here, at least is Driscoll’s video. I don’t buy into his analysis of the “emerging liberals”, but it probably fairly represents the concern most people have with the “emerging church”.

The video can be found at YouTube (click here).

On the previous blog, the following useful comments were added to the original post:

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Engaging with Islam – with an agenda of peace, reconciliation and truth seeking

I wrote yesterday about the need to engage appropriately with skeptics of the Christian faith. It’s also important for Christians to engage with people of other faiths and religions. The most important route to lasting global peace right now is for the three major monotheistic religions to find ways to peacefully engage with each other.

It is amazing to me that the Christian right wing in the United States has so easily and quickly engaged – even integrated – with Judaism (and especially Zionistic Judaism). I don’t want to comment on that issue in this blog entry, but it does indicate that major religions are able to find ways to engage with each other when they share a common goal (like the protection of the State of Israel). What better goal for all religious leaders to have than world peace?

So, it was with interest that I read about Amr Khaled in the (very conservative) Spectator magazine Christmas edition. This is a Muslim cleric who seems to be gaining the kind of reputation in the Islamic world that Billy Graham or Bill Hybels have in the Protestant Christian world. Although there would be obviously be significant theological differences between us, I nevertheless support his efforts to bring about a calmer, more rational, more engaging Islam. That can only be a good thing, and should be supported by all Christian everywhere. Maybe this is a common space for all religious people (and those of no faith, too) to play.

But read the article for yourself (at The Spectator website, or an extract below) and make up your own mind.

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Dealing with skeptics – and with bad Bible readers

There is a definite hunger for truth in the world right now. The debate about where to find it, and what processes would be most beneficial, is heating up. Radical atheists are becoming ever more vocal, and raising doubts and concerns in people’s minds about what to believe. Yet, Christianity (and other major religions) are responding. A battle for the hearts – and minds – of people continues. At this time of year, it’s worth reflecting on how best to engage in that interaction.

Christmas is a not a good time for atheists and skeptics these days. “The war on Christmas” has largely failed – we call them Christmas trees, greet each other with “Happy Christmas”, include a baby Jesus in school Nativity plays and say ‘Christmas’ rather than ‘Xmas’ on our greeting cards without too much come back. Once upon a time religion was equated with ignorance and superstition (it still is for many), which would eventually give way for science, fact, evidence and reason. Secular elites and thinkers especially explained that the world would be better off without superstitious belief in God. The last hundred years have not been good for them, though. The last century has been the most anti-Christian and most secular in history, yet it’s hard not to notice that scientific rationalism has not delivered a peaceful world to us. Denouncing God (and Jesus specifically) has not made the world a better place – but it has led to an increased spiritual hunger in the Western world.

But this is no cause for gloating amongst Christians (or other religions). The problem is that people who are going on a spiritual quest do not see traditional Christianity as a viable place to go looking (the same is probably true for other traditional religions as well). One of the major reasons for this is that ordinary Christians seem so happy to believe stuff that is just patently absurd or contradictory. By this, I don’t mean belief in some of the difficult to accept concepts that are integral to the Christian faith (such as the incarnation, the death and resurrection of Christ, or a personal God who both loves and judges us), but rather I am referring to the way many Christians continue to insist that all parts of the Bible are literally true (in a modern scientific sense). And the way that many Christians continue to claim that the way they interpret the Bible must be true in spite of all the scientific evidence to the contrary (the best example of this is the continued insistence by so many Christians that there either were never dinosaurs or that any that did exist were wiped out by a global flood just a few thousand years ago).

Those are bold statements that could easily be misunderstood, so let me quickly explain. Too many readers of the Bible do not take into account some of the key factors that need to be understood when doing proper and detailed Biblical interpretation. This is partly because evangelicals and Protestants have long encouraged everyone to do daily Bible “study” and rely on pithy devotional notes as the basis of their Biblical interpretations. Most of these people do not have the background required to analyse the original language and critique the translation they’re using, or delve into the historical and ancient cultural references and background that colour the story, or dig deeply into the literary context and understanding of the usage and forms of the specific genre of the passage they’re reading, or compare the Biblical text to other ancient extant texts of the day, and so much more that would be required to do a complete Biblical exegesis.

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