Fundamentalism and The Bible

Based on my last post and some conversations I am having with friends, I want to try and attempt to think through approaching the biblical text. In one sense I am trying to re-trace my own path leaving fundamentalist territory. In another sense, I am trying to clear a path for others to find their own way out as well.

We have to admit where we are coming from. Inspiration means, on a most basic level, that God is responsible for each word in the holy Scripture. It originated from God, and was not the work of men primarily. Of course, some fully deny that men had anything to do with it whatsoever. As the text has come from God directly it is therefore authoritative and inerrant.

To put it at a more practical level, the Scriptures are perceived according to a story that runs something like this:

God delivered this book to his people so they would know him. It is delievered by God for the Church to tell them what to believe and how to live. God has given it to me so I can read it and know he loves me, and what he expects of me.

I am no spinner of tales but that is close. If you have got a better way to put it please let me know. The three terms working within that storyline frame the entire issue. There is no objective reason that inspiration, inerrant, or authoritative mean precisely what fundamentalists want them to mean. However, without dislodging the story you are fighting uphill to redefine the terms, and thus the battle.

That story is flawed. Those definitions are flawed. They are not supported by the Scripture itself, nor the variagated tradition of Christianity. That tends to become the battleground on which the war is fought. To peel back the layers and understanding of the Scriptures themselves is to use critical study. And to peel back the layers of history is to use historical study. From a fundamentalist point of view this is to concede the war before you’ve even started the battle, a Catch-22. How then have I found my way out of the fundamentlist mess I was previously in?

For starters, the group I came out of has some unorthodox beliefs. And if fundamentalists are always right, someone has got to be terribly wrong and we have got to tell them about it. Scholarly sources that agreed with our positions were studied, and thus critical methods were smuggled in the back door. The methods changed slowly, while the underlying narrative in which I placed the Scripture for the Christian life never changed.

I read about the stories that the Jewish people told about the Exodus. I understood that the prophets retold Israel’s history with their own perspectives and motives. The same goes with the gospels, and particularly Paul. Is it so foreign to think that we are telling our own stories about how we got here, and what we ought to do? Of course not! That is exactly what humanity has always done to understand their purpose. And this is why the very concept of narratives and story is so intriguing to me. It contains so much power.

Mark and Luke are telling their own stories about who Jesus is. It doesn’t matter that certain details aren’t congruous. It doesn’t matter that the stories depict Jesus differently. If I were to tell a story about my parents I am certain it would be different than the stories either of my sisters tell. And if you were to put us together in a room we would recognize we are still talking about our parents. We might disagree when it comes down to our perceptions about their intentions or what have you. That is to be expected. Isn’t it?

The Bible was ultimately and remains the anchor of my faith. What changed is the narrative I believe about the Bible. And that new narrative gives much richer rewards. I am at the very beginning of understanding what goes into narratives. What makes them compelling, and ultimately more attractive than other stories. Certainly resonance with one’s own experience is paramount. How then to tell a story which undoes fundamentalism’s own story. Any ideas?