Faith Journal With Ray Waddle

When I speak to church groups about religious trends, I notice that nothing gets people agitated like the Bible — that is, today's disputes about Bible and truth.

Scripture means something slightly different to everyone, and they bring passion to the conversation. The Bible is the God-breathed repository of unwavering truths in a crazy world.

Or a mathematical blueprint for Armageddon. Or a musty collection of myths and legends. Or America's founding text, more revered than read.

One of the peculiar marks of today's spiritual landscape is the colossal time and frustration believers spend dueling over biblical truth, showdowns that flare up everywhere from church house to cable TV. They take up space, get people excited, and accomplish nothing.

Much of the argument centers on "literalism" — usually the notion that the whole Bible is reliably true as historical and scientific fact. Unless all of scripture is trustworthy, they say,then none of it is. In America we get stuck on this question of literal truth every time. We are pragmatic, bottom-line problem-solvers all week long — just the facts, please — and read ancient scripture that way. I notice, however, that no one, including literalists, really takes everything in the Bible literally. Nashville author Harmon Wray says everyone is a "selective literalist" who embraces those parts of scripture that suit one's own political convenience. Liberals tend to take many of Jesus' words literally — blessed are the peacemakers, release to the captives — but not others. Many conservatives tend to sidestep Jesus' peacemaking, love-thy-enemy command, but insist the six days of creation in Genesis were literal days. Mainline churchgoers, rejecting both extreme right or left, ought to step in and enrich the public conversation about the Bible with their own wisdom and experience. But, speaking to mainline groups, I often notice a lack of eagerness to face questions of biblical truth. Many such churchgoers appear shy or uncomfortable talking about biblical authority or claiming the inspiration of scripture for themselves. They've heard fundamentalists use and abuse the Bible so much that they can no longer rescue it from fundamentalist rhetoric, and refuse to take scripture on similar terms.

As a result, mainliners let the rightwing professionals assert the public answers on behalf of Christian faith, giving the world the impression that fundamentalism is the only way to read scripture. (Many atheists fall for this. The religion they argue against is so often merely fundamentalist religion, not mainline Christian faith and practice.)

Can we call a truce? Both sides of the aisle, I'm convinced, ought to spend time just reading the stories of the Bible instead of arguing about them. Only when a person reads and rereads the stories do the words and images come to inhabit a believer and take root and become real and, yes, true.

Try the story of Jonah. The controversialists want to derail readers over the question of the existence of the fish and the ingestion of the reluctant prophet. But it's a bigger story than that, a surprising and funny story that stumbles upon a generous vision of God, the God who cares about the enemy people of Nineveh as well as the home team.

The big story, the big picture — that's what the Bible is about. Every embittered argument about the facts of Genesis or the timetables in Revelation is a defeat for the soul's progress in comprehending the miraculous story of this life.

Seven notions help me keep a focus on the Bible's big picture, biblical values that matter most in these noisy days of dispute over religious politics and spiritual truth. In the Bible:

1. People matter. God chooses to relate to human history, sometimes enigmatically, sometimes in sharp detail, from beginning to end.

2. Earth matters. God made it and said it was good. Let's act like it.

3. Calling matters. The Bible is full of stories of unlikely people who receive a stubborn, often inconvenient, sense of divine calling.

4. Ethics matter. The prophets speak up for the Ten Commandments and against arrogance and complacency.

5. Humility matters. The Psalm says, "Be still and know that I am God." The Bible makes clear that God is God; we are not.

6. Mercy matters. God cares for the underdog. We're invited to call upon divine mercy, and we're expected to show the same.

7. The story matters. The Bible is not a philosophical text but a gathering of episodes marking pivotal decisions and spiritual turning points. Jesus didn't lecture on doctrinal theology; he told parables, transforming the Reign of God from a metaphor into a mission.

Whenever another biblical slugfest threatens to swamp me, I try to remember these seven.

Ray Waddle is a freelance writer who can be reached at ray@raywaddle.com