How Christian fundamentalism leads to atheism

I have become more and more convinced that Christian fundamentalism has lead more people to turn away from Christ and His Church than any anti-Christian belief or group ever could. My conclusion is based on anecdotal evidence evidence of 27+ years in ministry, 15 years of teaching at Christian colleges, and reading dozens and dozens of works on the subject. I would like to explain my statement and propose a solution that is simple in concept but likely impossible in practice.

Christian fundamentalism arose in the late 19th & early 20th centuries in response to Darwinism, biblical literary criticism and liberal theology. With an increasing number of scholars casting doubt on the historical aspects of the Bible (especially the Genesis account of creation and the flood) as well as authorship of certain books (most notably Isaiah and Paul’s pastoral epistles), many who felt the authority of the Bible was in doubt rallied around a firm and “literal” interpretation of all aspects of the Bible and called on all Christians to do the same. This fundamentalism went so far as to cast doubt not only on Christians who disagreed with them, but also on Christians who continued relationships with Christians who disagreed with them. One famous example of this is Bob Jones’ rejection of his friendship with Billy Graham due to Graham’s continued friendships with “liberal” Christians, and Jones’ ending his relationship with John Brown for his friendship with Graham (this is an example of the 3 degrees of separation rule many fundamentalists employed).

In the 100 or so years since the beginning of Christian fundamentalism, certain key doctrines have reigned supreme, including the belief in literal 7, 24-hour day creation, a literal Adam & Eve, a literal world-wide flood, etc. Absolute belief in these and other aspects of Scripture is demanded due to the fear of the “slippery slope.” That is the idea that if any one of these stories is allegorical, fictional, or mythical at all, then we have no way to know what else in the Bible may not be literal, which potentially compromises the resurrection account. Give up one aspect of literal interpretation, and the whole Bible fails, in their way of thinking.

So how does this lead to atheism? For those raised in fundamentalist churches, doubt is wrong and possibly sinful. When kids from these churches go to college and take classes in biology, for example, and learn about evolution and the research supporting it, that raises doubts about literal 7 day creation. When they learn further that there is no geological evidence for a world-wide flood, that Genesis 1 disagrees with Genesis 2 in the creation account, that Cain had other people to deal with who were not brothers or sisters, etc., then this creates a crisis of faith.

They are told by their parents and pastors to just have faith in God’s Word and that the Bible always trumps science and scholarship. For people who cannot reconcile those obviously diverse ways of thinking, they feel like they have no choice but to reject God because they do not have a concept of Christianity, or religion, outside of fundamentalism. It’s been presented their whole lives as all or nothing, black or white. When Christian fundamentalism no longer fits with what they know, they must reject God and become atheists.

So what to do? There are hundreds and hundreds of evangelical, Bible believing scholars in all disciplines who are teaching, writing, preaching, and leading in various Christian and secular organizations who know that Christian fundamentalism is a failed movement doing more harm than good. If they would just come together and create a statement explaining what they know to be true and that one can be a faithful Bible beleiving Christian and still embrace the truth of evolution, the probablility that Adam & Eve are something other than the historical beginning of the human race, that it’s possible to see God’s Truth in segments of Scripture even if we can’t be sure of authorship, then struggling fundamentalists could have a cloud of witnesses who could show them that they can still hold strong to their faith.

The great scandal of contemporary evangelical Christianity is that we know better but that we insist on pretending that truth isn’t truth because we are afraid that some people can’t handle the truth. This might result in losing church members, readerrship, business, students, etc. It’s economically untenable.

If you believe like I do that all Truth is God’s Truth no matter where it is found, then we have nothing to be afraid of! Take a stand for truth, even truth discivered by scientists and liberal scholars, and show that out faith in the Christ of the Bible need not be shaken. In fact, my strength is made stronger as I read and learn and research more. The inconsistencies of the Bible make so much more sense to me now.

Let’s rally together, learn the Truth, speak the Truth, and live the Truth so that our searching and doubting fundamentalists brothers & sisters can find a welcomming home among fellow believers who are openly searching for God without fear.

The fallacy of “literal interpretation”

“I hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible.” I don’t know how many times I have heard that. Preachers, students, professors, and most lay people have said that or something close to it on several occasions. The problem is, no one really means it.

What they really mean is “I choose to interpret the Bible literally whenever it best fits my purpose.”

The fact is that biblical interpretation is often complex and multi-faceted. It’s just like interpreting any other form of communication. It takes work. Becky and I will celebrate 25 years of marriage in August. I would never say that I interpret everything she says literally. I would never say that about anyone. Nor would most people.

So why do we say this about the Bible? Here’s my theory, which is based on the historical development of Bible translations.

The first known attempt to translate Scripture into a language other than its original was not made by Christians, but by Jewish scholars all the way back in the first century. Hebrew was falling out of everyday usage by the common people, replaced by Aramaic and Greek. Jewish leaders recognized this and knew that if they didn’t act soon, most people would have no idea how to read, speak, or understand the Hebrew Scriptures. A group of 70 translated the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets into Greek (a project we now call the Septuagint, which means “The 70″).

As we know, the New Testament was written in Greek, but eventually Greek took 2nd place to Latin as the common language of the people. That led Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin, a work known as the Vulgate. (By the way, the church rejected Jerome’s effort and condemned him for it. Later, of course. they changed their minds and the Vulgate became the standard translation of choice for the Catholic Church for over 1000 years. Go Jerome!)

As Christianity spread north into Europe, it gained a foothold among a growing English speaking people. Eventually a Christian named Caedmon began the work of translating the Bible into English so that the common people could read or hear it in their own language. John Wycliffe later finished the task about 1380.

With Christianity becomming more popular, Johann Gutenburg invented the moveable-type printing press in the 1450s, largely motivated by the deire to find a less expensive way to get the Bible into the hands of the common people. This sped up the inevitable Reformation, with the emphasis on de-centralizing church leadership and Bible reading.  

Reformation leaders Luther, Erasmus, Tyndale, and Calvin all worked to translate Scripture for common useage. A few others also completed their own attempt at translating the Bible into English, leading to quite a bit of confusion, disagreement, and even dispair among Christians. About 1603, King James I called a conference of church leaders to bring the established church to some agreement. That aspect of the conference failed, but it began the wheels turning for the completion of what we now call The King James Version of the Bible, a work carried out by 47 of the best biblical scholars and theologians in Britain.

Eventually the KJV became the official English  language version. But as time marched on, English changed, as all languages do, and some of the vocabulary and grammer of the KJV became dated. That led to updates and alternate translations and paraphrases a plenty.

So what does this very brief history have to do with the misuse of the phrase “literal interpretation”? Well, with so many different people, some of whom could barely read, owning their own copy of the Bible and starting new Churches and holding Bible studies, there were not enough formally educated pastors and teachers to keep up with the demand. Less educated leaders stepped in to fill the voids, which led to a wide variety of interpretations, some of the very far-fetched. With no education in biblical languages or in hermaneutics, these leaders created a whole new way of reading the Bible at face value in whatever language they were familiar with.

What we now call fundamentalism was born in these gatherings because these very well meaning Christians so desperately wanted to learn from and about the Bible. They read a passage of Scripture, prayed about what it might mean, and formed conclusions based on their discussion.

Literal interpretation was born because it was the only known way for most Christians to understand the Bible. They had no knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, the ancient cultures, or ancient history. A great deal of Protestant Christianity grew from that earnest fervor for the Word, and much of what we commonly believe today is a result of that early Reformation-era growth.

Unfortunately, this also gave rise to the anti-intellectual fears of many Christians. When they were confronted by scholars who criticized their home-spun theology, the self-taught simply replied that educated corrupted the mind and discounted the work of the Holy Spirit. When German theologians engaged in “higher Bible criticism,” there work was dismissed by many lay people. When attempts were made to correct the poorly translated parts of the KJV, it was attributed to the work of the devil.

Even the most conservative of the biblicists, as those who claim to interpret the Bible literally are called, doesn’t follow their own claims, though. None holds perfectly to the Mosaic laws or even the New Testament guidelines. Have you ever heard of a church that totally forbade women from speaking?

The fact is that we all engage in our own brand of interpretation. I will discuss that more in coming days.

Redefining biblical inerrancy

Christianity is at a crossroads with secularism and we need to consider redefining some of our terms and ways of thinking. It is a 2nd Copernican Revolution in many ways. In order to be not just credible, but to be true to our faith and the Scriptures God has given us, I am suggesting critical dialog about some of our historical terms. Today I’ll consider inerrancy.

Inerrancy:For the past hundred years plus, we have assumed that biblical innerrancymeant that every thing we read in the Bible is without errors. That is, everything in Scripture is accurate. We have been taught to think that if the Bible said it, then it’s true. Everything should be taken at face value. But here’s the problem with that approach — it’s devoid of cultural context and analysis. Our epistemology (way of knowing something) is very different today than it was in ancient Palestine.

You and I read something and evaluate it using linear, logical, obvious thinking. But to the people who wrote and read what we now call the Bible, their way of knowing was very different. It was pre-scientific, so the idea of creating and testing a hypothesis was unknown. It was driven by what we might call superstition. The cause of something was not logical, like we might think today, but was mysterious and required a mysterious explanation.

For example, if you or I get a stomach ache, we believe it’s because we ate some bad food or maybe we picked up a bug of some kind. Ancient people would never have thought that. They may have believed that I did something to offend God and my stomach ache was punishment for that. It’s a very different way of knowing.

So, what does a stomach ache have to do with inerrancy? If people in “Bible times” as we are taught to call it, believed that stomach aches were punishment from God, then how much of what we read in the Bible should be attributed to a more mystical and pre-scientific worldview? Isaiah did not write with the 21st century physicist in mind. Matthew did not write with the modern Christian business owner in the back of his head. They both wrote in a style that reflects their own cultural realities and epistemology, not ours.

So, does the Bible have errors? In our face value, English language, 21st century reading of it, you bet it has errors. Did it have errors according to it’s original authors and readers? No, it was just their way of knowing and understanding the world around them. The Bible is not a science book, history book (as we define it), or ancient wikipedia. It conveys God’s story to whomever will hear it. It is inerrant in that sense.

Inspiration — the heart of the matter

I believe unshakeably that the Bible, all 66 books, were and are inspired by God, the Creator of everything. The older I get, though, and the more I teach, read, and research, the more I find that I have to adjust my understanding of what that inspiration (“all scripture is God-breathed,” 2 Tim 3:16) really means.

Here are some of the proposed theories of how God inspired the Bible authors:

The Trance Theory — God placed the authors in a trance and guided their hands in every letter and every word that they wrote.

The Dictation Theory –  God told the authors exactly what to write, and they each recorded it word-for-word.

The Intervention Theory — God allowed the authors to write as they willed, but intervened if they were about to make a mistake or to leave something important out.

The Guidance Theory –  The Holy Spirit allowed the authors to write in their own style and vocabulary, but He inspired the concepts that they were recording.

The Illumination Theory –  The authors wrote as normal, but the Holy Spirit heightened their awareness and gave them special illumination of events, dialog, meaning, etc. for accuracy.

The Indirect Theory –  The authors were men of outstanding spiritual insight, and God inspired them spiritually in the same way He inspires poets and painters aesthetically.

The No Inspiration Theory –  God did not inspire these authors in any way, if God exists at all. The authors simply wrote propaganda to further a religion and appease followers.

This is vitally important because our view of how God breathed out the Scriptures impacts everything about how we interpret and apply it. Take the story of Job for example. Ivf you hold to one of the first three or four theories, then you almost have to believe that Job was a real person and that all the events recorded in that book literally happened as written. If you hold to the Guidance or Illumination theories, then you may believe that the story of Job is an allegory or myth meant to teach a larger truth of faithfulness and sovereignty. If you hold the last theory, then you believe that Job may be an interesting story at best,  but holds not historical or spiritual importance at all.

So, the issue at hand is “Which theory of inspiration allows us to hold as closely as possible to the original intent of Scripture?” I believe that, for most of us, our view of inspiration has been more caught than taught. That is, we have assumed something based on what we have heard or gathered from our spiritual leaders (pastors, teachers, parents, etc.)  Few of us have spent serious time reading about and discussing this in order to come to a well-informed decision.

If I’m right about that, then almost everything most of us assume to be true about the Bible and our Christian faith is called into question because it is baseless.

One of the main purposes of this blog is to discuss these questions in an intelligent and grace-filled manor as we all seek the Truth.