In yesterday’s post I wrote about the article by Valerie Tarico entitled “Why is the Bible So Badly Written?” that was taken down by Salon.com because it had gotten such negative feedback. The long and short of the article, as I said, was the equivalent of a sophomoric complaint about having to read Shakespeare. Specifically, the “reasons” she gave for the supposed bad writing of the Bible really weren’t examples of bad writing at all. In a word, the article was a mess.
Now, I can understand if someone doesn’t find the Bible riveting. Heck, I absolutely hate country music, but I would never try to make the argument that country artists like Brad Paisely don’t have talent or are bad musicians. I acknowledge Paisely’s talent, I just don’t like that style of music. If I wrote a post entitled, “Why is Country Music so Bad?” and my reasons were like, “I don’t like the twangy guitar sound,” or “Why do so many country artists wear cowboy hats?” or “That music has no relevance to kids living in the inner city,” well, I assume I would be savaged, and rightly so—because those “reasons” aren’t reasons at all. They’re just revealing some kind of animosity I have against country music. The same goes for Tarico’s article.
Something else is at play. And as I poked around online, read her bio, and watched a video of one of her lectures, I think I know what that something is. But I want to say one more thing about her article, and have that serve as a jumping off point for discussing that “something else.”
It’s Not About You…but It’s Really Kind of About Me!
After a few pages of lodging complaints that have nothing to do with whether or not the Bible is poorly written, Tarico then opines, “As a modern person reading the Bible, one can’t help but think about how the pages might have been better filled. Could none of this have been pared away? Couldn’t the writers have made room instead for a few short sentences that might have changed history?” And then she proceeds to complain that since the Bible doesn’t reflect modern sensibilities, that it is pretty useless (i.e. why doesn’t the Bible tell us to wash our hands after we poop? [Yes, she said that]; why doesn’t it say to ask for consent before you have sex?).
What is going on here?
By the end of her article, Tarico finally gets around to addressing the real problem she has: it’s fundamentalism. She writes, “The folks who are confused [i.e. fundamentalists who think the Bible was dictated by God and dropped out of heaven] are those who treat the book as if they were the audience, as if each verse was a timeless and perfect message sent to them by God. Their yearning for a set of clean answers to life’s messy questions has created a mess.”
Now, let’s be clear: that is actually right. People who refuse to read the Bible in its historical and literary contexts are often those who think that “since the Bible is inspired” that it speaks directly to them in their own little world—and yes, that kind of thinking creates a mess. When one does that, one ends up with really bizarre claims about the Bible (i.e. the locusts in Revelation are Blackhawk helicopters; the Pope is the beast of Revelation 13; Noah had access to advanced technology; Genesis 1 is doing science; we need to implement the Old Testament Torah as the law of the land in America…and yes, we should stone adulterers).
That kind of thinking really does exist among the more right-wing extremes of fundamentalism; and sadly (specifically within the creation/evolution debate) it seems that there is a considerable segment of Evangelicalism that is now getting caught up in that thinking. And yes, that kind of mindset really does create a mess and really does cause a lot of damage.
And this brings me to the “something else” that I believe is going on under the surface of Tarico’s article. The fact is that although that fundamentalist mindset is what Tarico is really criticizing, it’s also the very thing she herself is assuming the Bible to be. That’s why so many of Tarico’s criticisms are simply bizarre—she shares the same view of the Bible as the fundamentalists she’s critiquing.
The Wheaton College Connection (…but no, it’s not Wheaton’s fault)
As I poked around on her website, I was astounded to find that Tarico had graduated from Wheaton College, one of the most prominent Evangelical colleges in the country. Now, Wheaton College has its faults, but “right-wing fundie” it is not. Actual right-wing fundies like Ken Ham routinely accuse Christian colleges like Wheaton, and biblical scholars like John Walton who teach there, of compromising God’s Word precisely because it doesn’t teach the typical ultra-fundie view of inspiration, among other things. I have to think that anyone who went to Wheaton College and took biblical studies courses there would at least have a basic grasp on what the Bible is.
Interestingly enough, the agnostic biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, who has written countless books about how the Bible is not reliable, also attended Wheaton College. In fact, a few years ago, I was having a discussion with my dad (who went to Wheaton College) about Bart Ehrman. One of the things that shook Ehrman’s faith was when he went to graduate school at Princeton and learned about manuscripts and textual variants. I remember my dad saying, “I don’t understand how that could have been so surprising to him—they cover that stuff at Wheaton College.” How did Ehrman make it through his Biblical Studies courses at Wheaton and not be aware of this?
As Tarico’s article shows, the same question can be asked about her. She must have taken at least a required basic Bible course where these things were presented, right? So how is it that she still has such an uninformed understanding of what the Bible actually is?
After all, she claims that Christians believe God dictated the Bible; she says that the Bible is comprised of various genres and therefore isn’t “a unified book of divine guidance;” she complains that the Bible can be interpreted by people differently, and that the problem with translations is that the meanings of a story or certain words depends on the culture in which it was written. And then she complains that there are things in the Bible that may have been relevant to people living in Iron Age but are just irrelevant to her.
I can guarantee you that such a view of the Bible did not come from Bible classes at Wheaton College.
As I thought about her comments about the Bible, it occurred to me what the core problem was. Her starting assumption about the Bible is that if it is truly inspired by God then it has to be a “perfect” book, “dictated” by God himself, and transcending language, literary conventions, genres, and culture itself. If the Bible truly is inspired, then it should be able to DIRECTLY speak to all people in all cultures at all times WITHOUT any linguistical limitations, conveying some sort of decontextualized, ahistorical truth that is unencumbered by the historical realities of life.
In short, Tarico expects the Bible to be a crystal ball, and since it isn’t, she complains about it and rejects it completely. Why is that? I’m inclined to think that she had certain fundamentalist assumptions about the Bible going into college that were so ingrained, that whatever was taught in her Bible classes just went in one ear and out the other.
I know this to happen in my teaching experience in high school: I’ve had students go off to college, become atheists, and then rattle off to me some of the same kinds of criticisms of the Bible that were in Tarico’s article. I’d think, “Where did you get that from? Because it certainly wasn’t from my class!”
The Tragic Effects of Fundamentalism
The answer I’ve found is that more times than not, many who grew up in quite a fundamentalist background had that particular view of the Bible so ingrained in them, that regardless of what I taught them in high school, things just didn’t really register. And then at some point, that fragile (and I would say idolatrous) fundamentalist view of the Bible was shattered—and along with that went any faith they might have had.
The story of Bart Ehrman’s eventual loss of faith follows roughly that same storyline. When he “got saved” as a teenager, it was into a rather fundamentalist mindset. When he got older and learned some of the more challenging aspects of Biblical Studies at Princeton, it rocked his world—his fundamentalist assumption of the Bible being a “perfect book dropped out of heaven” was shattered. And then, as he himself writes, what caused him to lose his faith was trying to come to terms with the problem of human suffering.
The same seems to hold true for Tarico. I watched a video of a talk of hers, in which she shared that while at Wheaton, she suffered from bulimia. She said that she had fervently prayed that God would heal her of it, but she continued to struggle with it, and it sent her into suicidal depression. She had eventually lost her faith completely at 26, when she was interning in a hospital and working with a two-year old that was suffering from a spinal tumor.
Put that all together, you get a progression of something like this:
- A person who grows up with that fundamentalist mindset thinks the Bible is a “perfect” book, virtually dropped out of heaven, and it gives clear and easy answers to all of life’s problems.
- That person is told it’s a “divine guidebook,” and if you just “follow the rules” and pray, it has all the answers.
- But then at some point, a fervent prayer doesn’t get answered, and so that person gets frustrated and thinks he’s doing something “wrong.” He feels guilty because he’s trying so hard, and yet he’s not getting easy answers.
- Then at some point, that person learns something about the Bible that calls into question that assumption of a “perfect” book, and everything quickly unravels: I can’t trust the Bible; Is there even a God? I’m so sick of feeling guilty about myself; no matter what I do, I’m not getting easy answers like I was told I would.
- Then eventually they realize that the fundamentalist answers they’ve been given simply are not strong enough to deal with the inevitable struggles and sufferings of life, and they chuck it all.
- But that fundamentalist mindset never really leaves them. Whether it is Tarico, or Bart Ehrman, or other former Christians like Dan Barker and John Loftus, they spend the rest of their lives attacking the lies and abuse they received from that fundamentalist mindset throughout the years. Just like an abuse victim, that pain and frustration never really leave them.
And I’ll be honest, I get that. Life is hard enough as it is. During the darkest and most painful days of my divorce, and then the loss of my job over the issue of young earth creationism, there were times I was ready to chuck my faith all together. If had been raised in a fundamentalist household, I probably would have done so ago. Fortunately, I wasn’t, and I was able to see in the Christian faith and in the Bible that God isn’t about giving easy answers (just look at what He says to Job). And He certainly isn’t about insulating us from suffering and pain. To the contrary, anyone who honestly reads the Bible will see that God is about transforming people through suffering–what do you think “taking up your cross” means?
But fundamentalism gives exactly the opposite answer and ultimately turns the Bible into a useless idol and tells people it is a crystal ball that churns out verses that give easy answers that you can put on a magnet and put on your refrigerator. It says, “If you follow these easy steps, life will be easy.” But life isn’t easy. It’s often hard and messy and painful, and fundamentalism cripples its adherents from being able to deal with reality, confront the inevitable challenges of life head on, and make sense of it all.
By doing that, fundamentalism enslaves people. By turning the Bible into an idol, fundamentalism blinds people from perceiving the living God to whom the Bible bears witness. And that is why fundamentalism so often leads to the death of one’s faith.
***
After watching that lecture by Tarico, I have to say, she seems like a nice and caring person who really wants to help people. And that’s why her article ultimately is so tragic. Now, I’m not going to sugarcoat it—it’s a horribly ignorant article. To make the arguments she made, one has to choose to be willfully and purposely ignorant of what the historical understanding of the Bible is. In short, her article tells me that she doesn’t really want to understand the Bible, and that she’s content will attacking the fundamentalist caricature of the Bible.
Nevertheless, her article makes me sad, for it shows what modern fundamentalism ends up doing to people—namely, it destroys them.
Powerful post on this topic
And just to be ‘that guy’, that helicopter is a Cobra, not a Blackhawk. 🙂
Haha Haha…..
Well, this article hits home. I haven’t read part 1, but part 2 is sufficient. I am an Orthodox inquirer/half Catechumen but was raised fundamentalist, complete with YEC, “following the rules,” “you just don’t have enough faith or else your prayers would be answered” – or, “our wrathful God is punishing you,” any questions about multiple interpretations met with questioning the very foundation God himself and my entire salvation. Oh, and I totally heard that weird interpretation of helicopters and prophecy all the itme as well. My birth family is KJV-only.
I’m 30 now, but for years in college I was disillusioned with God. I was in the sciences and struggled reconciling my faith and science (it has since been resolved). I was angry that I was praying and praying and still single, and pretty depressed about it. I had various struggles in college with peers and advisers and I felt like God was abandoning me because I questioned things about what other Fundamentalists said, which of course was equated with absolute truth itself. It was a nebulous problem that was impossible by nature to put my finger on because it wasn’t a problem with God or me, but with how others used God but questioning others was seen as questioning God.
Thank God I found Orthodoxy. I was on the brink of abandoning my faith. I realized that not all churches were like how I was raised. It’s something that has tainted all of Protestantism to me, because in the end there is no authority check over Protestant churches even when they are under a denomination and that is how something like Fundamentalism can exist.
I’m not saying Orthodoxy is perfect but generally the most I have to check with a new Orthodox church is if the services are in English. I spend a lot of time checking the basic doctrine of Protestant churches because you cannot trust them.
It’s easy to see how so many Protestants get disillusioned (and of course it happens with Catholics and Orthodox but for different reasons), and I see so much anger and venom from former Protestants now atheists. I wish they had tried Catholicism or Orthodoxy, but most remotely Fundamentalist Christians are raised to believe that those two churches aren’t even Christian so I see why they don’t. I’m just sad that these people are completely atheist now and don’t see a way through their bitterness.
Thanks for sharing that, Jordan. I think it is inevitable for most people, especially those who’ve grown up in any kind of church background, to go through a period where they question their faith–a lot of times that happens in college or in the twenties. When you think about, that makes sense–it’s the first time you’re really “on your own,” so you’re going to be reassessing a lot of things.
But as I said in the post, the thing about fundamentalism is that it is so fragile and so easily crumbles with even the most understanding of church history, actual Biblical Studies, and science, that those who’ve grown up in it eventually experience reality and then find that EVERYTHING they’ve been told is wrong. And the thing is, we need some kind of structure, lens, or worldview to help us make sense of the world. Without it, we can’t see anything clearly. Orthodoxy helped me put things in focus as well. And no, it isn’t perfect; but its outlook on so many things just seems to be a mature way of understanding the world. By contrast, I feel so much in Evangelicalism–even at its best–tends to be quite juvenile and a “youth group” mentality.
Now, that being said, there IS a lot of good stuff going on in Protestantism and Evangelicalism. Some of the best biblical scholars are Evangelicals. But unfortunately (if you’ve ever read stuff by Peter Enns), the “rank and file” of a lot of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists tend to look upon Evangelical biblical scholars with suspicion–and that goes back to the whole “anti-intellectual” label that tends to be accurate a lot of the time.
In any case, thanks for sharing.
I point out that atheists (as you well know) also interpret Scripture ala Fundamentalists and even often choose to use the KJV, as this makes it easier to pin down what some text is saying so they can try to repudiate it. They also get to use handy quotes from actual believers of that persuasion.