“A very bad (and all too common) way to misread a newspaper: To see whatever supports your point of view as fact, and anything that contradicts your point of view as bias,” (Daniel Okrent, first ombudsman of The New York Times).
I fear a great many people read (or misread) the Bible this way, too. Oh, but that’s too easy. Of course they do. Allow me a more profound revelation and one I can personally assure you is true: I misread the Bible this way. All too often.
The Bible is unlike any other book in the world in that it is uniquely alive. I love books, so I would argue that there are other “living books”, books that find a way to reach through time and space and speak to the reader in a way that is real and relevant and resounding. Books that warrant a second and third read. Books like the ones Iris Murdoch or JD Salinger or CS Lewis or John Irving have written. Good books.
Sometimes the closest I feel to God actually speaking to me is in reading a book. Sometimes it’s the Bible, sometimes it’s something entirely not the Bible, like Forever Odd, a novel by Dean Koontz I am currently reading. (God speaking to me is a whole other issue, one that I struggle with greatly and one that I will soon write about.) I think God likes books, too. I think that’s why he served as editor for one, which is really the way to think of God’s role in the writing of the Bible. He didn’t actually write it, but neither did he ok anything he didn’t want in print for the final version.
But here’s the thing about the Bible: you can make it say just about anything. Really. Just about anything. That’s why you constantly run into nuts claiming that the Bible says all sorts of wacky things that God would never approve of. Like hating other people. Or standing in constant judgment over other people. Or even claiming that you actually understand everything there is to understand about God/faith/the Bible/life.
And yet, it is so very hard to come to the Bible without my biases. Hard because it’s scary. If I really let the Bible speak to me, reading it without a predisposition to a certain point of view, God might reveal something to me that makes me uncomfortable, which to hear evangelical Christians talk about is like the eighth deadly sin or salmonella. Or worse, I might realize that God is calling me to do something, to actually act, and that means I would have to, well, do something.
Doing things always takes work. And sometimes people don’t like it when I do things. Better to just not know that God might want me to do something. That way, when I get to heaven, I can just say, “Hey, God, I would have done that, you know I would have, if I had only known. I feel just awful about it. So sorry I left you hanging. I just didn’t know you needed me to do that.”
Like God is an annoying friend calling ask me to pet-sit his cat who always pisses on my shoes when I come over. So I just don’t answer the phone and then feign sorrow and sympathy when I find out he couldn’t do whatever it was he had plans to do because no one could watch Tiger, the pissing cat.
I just know he’s going to want me to change something or do something, that he’s going to challenge me. And sometimes I’m not ok with where I am, but I’m ok enough to not want to change.
So I read the Bible with bias. I hear what I want to hear and I ignore what doesn’t fit with my current life. Or I claim that I don’t understand or I hide behind an interpretation that makes me feel more comfortable. It’s crap, really, ignoring God that way, but I do it. I do it because I’m afraid and because being in relationship with God is hard work.
In fact, you could argue that the biggest part of the work is just listening to God. Letting him talk for once. Not constantly asking for stuff when you pray and maybe reading the Bible like there might be something new in it he wants you to know.
