The realization that these developments are relatively recent is important. The explicit description of the Bible as inerrant and infallible by fundamentalists and some conservative-evangelicals cannot claim to be the ancient and traditional voice of the church. Yet both fundamentalism and the notion of the Bible as “God’s truth” (and thus without error) have their roots in an older, conventional way of seeing the Bible widely shared by most Christians for a long time.
An Older Way of Seeing the Bible
Ordinary people did not read the Bible until relatively recently. Until about five hundred years ago, the Bible could be read only by the very few who knew Latin, Greek, or Hebrew and who had access to handwritten manuscripts, which were expensive to produce and therefore relatively scarce. Two developments changed this. In the middle of the 1400s, the printing press was invented. Less than a hundred years later, largely because of the Protestant Reformation, the Bible was translated from ancient “sacred” languages into contemporary languages.
The accessibility of the Bible to anybody who can read has been a mixed blessing. Positively, it has resulted in a democratization of Christianity. No longer are the riches of the Bible known only to an educated elite. But it has also had negative consequences. It has made possible individualistic interpretation of the Bible; and that, coupled with the elevated status given to the Bible by the Protestant Reformation, has led to the fragmentation of Christianity into a multitude of denominations and sectarian movements, each grounded in different interpretations of the Bible.
Moreover, prior to the invention of the printing press, virtually nobody had seen the books of the Bible bound together in a single volume. Rather, the Bible was most commonly experienced as a collection of separate manuscripts. Indeed, during antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Bible was most often referred to in the plural as “scriptures”—that is, as a collection of books. Once the Bible was routinely bound as a single volume, it became easier to think of it as a single book with a single author (namely, God).
Since then and until recently, the majority of Christians (especially Protestants) shared in common a set of lenses for seeing and reading the Bible. Indeed, this way of seeing was so widespread that most Christians were not even aware of the lenses.
This older way of seeing the Bible has been called “natural literalism.” In a state of natural literalism, the Bible is read and accepted literally without effort. Because someone in this state has no reason to think differently, a literal reading of the Bible poses no problems.
Natural literalism is quite different from “conscious literalism,” a modern form of literalism that has become aware of problems posed by a literal reading of the Bible but insists upon it nevertheless.10 Whereas natural literalism is effortless, conscious literalism is effortful. It requires “faith,” understood as believing things hard to believe. But natural literalism does not insist upon literal interpretation. Rather, it takes it for granted, and it does not require “faith” to do so.
Fundamentalists and many evangelicals are conscious literalists. But their way of seeing the Bible stands in considerable continuity with the natural literalism of past centuries. Seeing the Bible through the lenses of natural literalism leads readers to the following conclusions about the Bible’s origin, authority, and interpretation—conclusions that are similar to those of conscious literalism:
1. Origin. The Bible is a divine product. Such is the natural or immediate meaning of how the Bible has been spoken about by Christians through the centuries. The Bible is the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit; it is sacred scripture. The Bible is thus not a human product, but comes from God in a way no other book does.
2. Authority. The Bible is therefore true and authoritative. The truth and authority of the Bible are grounded in its origin. As a divine product, it has a divine guarantee to be true and must be taken seriously as the ultimate authority about what to believe and how to live.
3. Interpretation. The Bible is historically and factually true. In a state of natural literalism, it is taken for granted that what the Bible says happened really happened. The only exceptions are manifestly metaphorical language, such as “mountains clapping their hands with joy.” Natural literalists can recognize and appreciate metaphor. But when the Bible seems to be reporting something that happened, it happened. Moreover, believing in the factuality of the Bible takes no effort; in a state of natural literalism, there is no reason to believe otherwise.
Though most readers of this book will not see the Bible this way, the perspective is nevertheless familiar. Its familiarity flows in part from the conventional status it held until recently within Christianity. Most of our ancestors two or three generations back were natural literalists. For those of us who are older, perhaps even our parents were.
Many of us grew up immersed in this tradition. So it was for me. As a child growing up in a Lutheran church in the middle of the previous century, I heard the Bible spoken of as “the Word of God.” It was thus obvious that I should take it seriously.
In Sunday school, we were expected to memorize the Ten Commandments. They were important because they were in the Bible and were thus God’s laws. We sang “Jesus loves me, this I know”—and how did we know? Because “the Bible tells me so.”
In common with most Protestants, we Lutherans thought of the Bible as the sole authority for faith and morals. Though I did not know the Latin phrase then, sola scriptura—“scripture alone”—was one of the battle cries of the Protestant Reformation. To the same melody as the great hymn of the Reformation, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” we sang:
God’s Word is our great heritage,
And shall be ours forever;
To spread its light from age to age
Shall be our chief endeavor.
Through life it guides our way,
In death it is our stay;
Lord grant, while worlds endure,
We keep its teachings pure,
Throughout all generations.
My family and congregation were not fundamentalists. Rather, we were natural literalists, though we favored what we might call “soft literalism.” We did not, for example, insist upon reading the Genesis stories of creation literally. It was fine to see the six days of creation as six geological epochs. We did not have to deny the existence of dinosaurs or the fossil record.
But as “soft literalists,” we took it for granted that the most important events in the Bible happened pretty much as they are reported. That at the time of the exodus the sea really did part to allow the ancient Hebrews to pass through. That Jesus really was born of a virgin, really did walk on the water, really did multiply loaves, and so forth. This is what I mean by “soft literalism”: taking it for granted that the most central events reported in the Bible really happened.
This older way of seeing the Bible went with an older way of seeing Christianity. The reason for the connection is obvious: the Bible has been foundational for Christianity throughout the centuries. How one sees the Bible and how one sees Christianity go hand in hand.
An Older Way of Seeing Christianity
This older understanding of Christianity was conventional Christianity as recently as a century ago. It is still the common understanding among fundamentalist and many conservative Christians. I will describe it with six adjectives, explaining each briefly.
First, as already mentioned, this older way of seeing Christianity was literalistic (whether in harder or softer form).
Second, it was doctrinal. Being a Christian meant believing Christianity’s central doctrinal teachings. In churches that used either the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed regularly, you were a “real” Christian if you could say the creed without crossing your fingers or becoming silent during any of the phrases.
Third, it was quite moralistic. By this I mean two things. First, being a Christian meant trying to be good, and being good meant trying to live in accord with the ethical teachings of the Bible, understood as “God�
��s law” (whether understood as a narrow and highly specific code of righteousness or, more broadly, as general principles such as the golden rule or loving one’s neighbor as oneself).
The second aspect of moralism seen in the older way of looking at Christianity grew out of the fact that we are not very good at being good. This older way of being Christian was centered on the dynamic of sin, guilt, and forgiveness. Indeed, it is striking how central sin and forgiveness are to this older, conventional version of Christianity. Most Christian worship services include a confession of sin, and most celebrations of the eucharist (also known as the mass, the Lord’s supper, or communion) have sin, sacrifice, and forgiveness at their center. Even quite liberal churches emphasize sin and forgiveness. I was struck by this at a recent week-long conference in a liberal Christian setting. Each morning’s worship service began with a confession of sin. I thought to myself, “It’s nine o’clock in the morning, and we’ve already been bad.”
Fourth, this older way of seeing Christianity was patriarchal. It not only used predominantly masculine language for God and people, but also legitimated male-dominated hierarchies in church, society, and family.
Fifth, it was exclusivistic. In hard form, Christian exclusivism is the insistence that Jesus is the only way of salvation and Christianity the only true religion. There is also a softer form held by Christians who feel uncomfortable with this claim but fear that letting go of the traditional stance might be un-Christian.
Sixth and finally, this older way of seeing Christianity was afterlife-oriented. In the Christianity I learned as a child, the primary meaning of salvation was “going to heaven.” Indeed, heaven was so central that if you had been able to convince me at age twelve or so that there was no afterlife, I would have had absolutely no idea why I should be a Christian. Heaven was what it was all about.
Cumulatively, to put this older understanding into a single sentence: “Be a Christian now for the sake of salvation later.” To express the same notion in only slightly different words: “Believe in Christianity now for the sake of heaven later.” And the emphasis was on “believing”—believing all of this to be true.
But this way of seeing the Bible and Christianity has come undone for the majority of people in Western culture. The natural literalism of my childhood could not endure, just as the natural literalism of most of our ancestors has largely disappeared. Conscious literalism, of course, remains. But for many of us, it is not an option.
It is important to note that this older vision is often seen as traditional Christianity by both Christians and non-Christians, and by both conservatives (who defend it) and liberals (who reject it). But this older way of seeing the Bible and Christianity is not “the Christian tradition.” Rather, it is a historically conditioned way of seeing the tradition (including the Bible) that has been shaped by the circumstances of the past few centuries. Thus the issue is not whether to keep or abandon the Christian tradition, but a transition from one way of seeing it to another. The question concerns the lenses through which we see and read the Bible and the Christian tradition as a whole.
Seeing Again: Our Cultural Context
Why has this older way of seeing and reading the Bible ceased to be persuasive? Why do the older lenses no longer work? The primary reason: who we have become. By “we,” I mean most of us in modern Western culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I will describe who we have become with four statements. Though not a comprehensive description of who we are, these statements name four factors that affect the way we see the Bible, Christianity, and religion more broadly.
Religious Pluralism
We are aware of religious pluralism. We are aware of the world’s religions in a way that most people have not been for most of human history, even as recently as a century ago. We know about other religions to varying degrees and in a variety of ways: from college religion courses, or from our own reading, or from public television series such as those featuring Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith, or from personal acquaintance with people of other traditions. This is simply part of our increasingly global awareness.
Thus many of us find the exclusivistic claims of the Christian tradition impossible to accept. This is so for both commonsense reasons and Christian theological reasons. Does it make sense that the creator of the whole universe would be known in only one religious tradition, which (fortunately) just happens to be our own?
Moreover, such a claim is difficult to reconcile with the centrality of grace in the Christian tradition. If one must be a Christian in order to be in right relationship with God, then there is a requirement. By definition, then, even though we may use the language of grace, we are no longer talking about grace.
Historical and Cultural Relativity
We are aware of historical and cultural relativity. In only slightly different words, we know about historical and cultural conditioning. We are aware that how people think is pervasively shaped by the time and place in which they live, as well as by social and economic class.
This applies not only to people in earlier times and other places, but also to us. Our concepts, images, language, knowledge, beliefs—even our thought processes themselves—are all profoundly shaped by culture. They are all conditioned by and relative to the time and place in which they originated. We are thus suspicious that any collection of teachings can be absolute truth or the only truth, just as we are suspicious of attempts to exempt anything from this category (such as the Bible or the religious teachings of our own tradition).
Modernity
We are modern people. By this I mean simply that we live in that period of Western cultural history known as “modernity.” Modernity is the cultural mind-set that began with the Enlightenment of the seventeenth century and continues into the present. Modernity is a complex phenomenon, of course, with both impressive achievements and important limitations. For our purposes, I will mention two of its most central features, both closely connected to each other.
First, modernity is characterized by scientific ways of knowing. Indeed, the birth of modern science is the birth of modernity. With modern science came a new epistemology (or theory of how we know): unlike people of earlier eras, we know something to be true today through experimentation and verification.
Second, modernity is marked by what is sometimes called “the modern worldview” or “the Newtonian worldview.” A worldview is an image of reality—an understanding of what is real and what is possible. The modern worldview is based on scientific ways of knowing: what is real is that which can be known through the methods of science. Epistemology (how we know) has become ontology (what is real).
The modern worldview yields a material understanding of reality. What is real is the space-time world of matter and energy. Reality is made up of tiny bits and pieces of “stuff,” all of them interacting with each other in accord with “natural laws.” The result is a picture of the universe as a closed system of cause and effect. Although this worldview has already been superseded in theoretical physics, it continues to operate powerfully in our minds.
Modernity has produced much of great value. Its most obvious accomplishments are in the sciences, technology, and medicine. But its achievements extend beyond those realms into systems of government, human rights, the study of the past, the empathetic awareness of other cultures, and on and on. I am very appreciative of modernity, even as I now mention two of its deeply destructive effects upon religion in general and Christianity and the Bible in particular.
The first of these effects: modernity has made us skeptical about spiritual reality. Modernity’s material understanding of reality has made the reality of God problematic for many of us. It is no accident that “death of God” theology emerged in the modern period. It is the logical outcome of absolutizing the modern worldview.
Second, modernity has led us to be preoccupied with factuality—with scientifically verifiable and historically reliable facts. Indeed, modern Western culture is the only culture
in human history that has identified truth with factuality. We are “fact fundamentalists”: if a statement isn’t scientifically or historically factual, it isn’t true.11
Within the church, both biblical fundamentalists and Christian liberals are often fact fundamentalists. For the former, the Bible must be factually true in order to be true at all (hence they emphasize the literal and historical factuality of biblical texts). The latter have tended to follow a different strategy, seeking to rescue a few facts from the fire. But fundamentalists and liberals alike have agreed: facts are what matter.
The modern preoccupation with factuality has had a pervasive and distorting effect on how we see the Bible and Christianity. During most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many Christians and much of Christian theology were caught between the two sterile choices of literalism (in harder or softer form) and reductionism. The first sought to defend the factual accuracy and uniqueness of the Bible and Christianity. The second tended to reduce the Bible and Christianity to what made sense within the modern worldview. Both are thoroughly modern positions.
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