wfn.org | Commentary: When use becomes abuse

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 21, 1999	News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.    10-21-71B{380}

NOTE:  This article first appeared in the spring/summer issue of
Perspective, a newsletter for alumni and friends of United Methodist-related
Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Used
with permission.

A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. H. Neill McFarland*

The best but most abused of books has taken another conspicuous hit - this
one delivered by a prominent congressman.  

Pandering to the religious right, he invoked the Bible in a bid to validate
his partisan stance that homosexuality per se is sinful.  Thus, he allied
himself with a sizable company of "exegetes" whose self-righteousness and
graceless judgmentalism - in dealing with this and other societal issues -
make a mockery of the concept of scriptural authority.

My concern here is not to enter the debate on the nature of homosexuality.
Rather, I want to challenge both the propriety and the substance of the
congressman's use -- or misuse -- of the Bible.

This project initially is taking a surprising course.  Inexplicably,
memories of two obscure moments in my distant past are resurfacing to
suggest an effective procedure.

The first occurred during a Thanksgiving Day community service hosted by the
Brooklyn church that I served as a pastor.  The designated preacher, a
neighboring minister, began his sermon by waving the Bible aloft and asking,
"How many have brought your swords this morning?"  His parishioners all had
come fully armed.

Mississippi was the venue for the second incident.  Invited there as a
lecturer, I was introduced by my host to a Millsaps College professor, well
known locally, I was told, for his weekly radio broadcast.  When I inquired
concerning his program, the professor replied, "I'm trying to save the
people of Mississippi from their enslavement to the Bible."

These two occurrences, I acknowledge, were not especially dramatic. But, as
the congressman's conduct demonstrates, they were scenarios that in essence
are still playing more than 40 years later.

For many people, the Bible remains a weapon with both a defensive and an
offensive utility.  Also, the need for a rescue mission has not diminished.
The Bible is still being used extensively to enslave minds and control
lives, rather than to help liberate and inspire questing spirits.

How then did the congressman abuse the Bible?  He employed it as a weapon to
gain political advantage in an emotionally overheated ideological struggle.
The advantage that he sought was an increased partisan support among people
already conditioned to regard a biblical proof text as a divinely sanctioned
alternative to informed reasonableness.

The congressman's action is reprehensible, but rather than impeach him for
it, let's use his misstep as an occasion for focusing on a more basic issue:
the very nature of biblical authority.

The authority of Scripture --  indeed of every religion's scripture - is an
attributed authority, and in every instance that attribution has been made
by human beings. This is a historically demonstrable fact that should be
recognized and acknowledged unashamedly.

To move to this level of understanding does not denigrate the importance of
the Bible.  Indeed, this is an essential step in reclaiming the Bible from
the realm of sanctimonious fantasy and restoring it to the context in which
it was begotten - the human experience of living in a world permeated by
factors that both defy and transcend human understanding.

In part, the Bible reflects -- even recounts -- that experience. More
important, it records the derivative wisdom, insight, and sense of purpose
gained through that experience. Is the product in any sense revealed or
inspired? Possibly.  Probably! But the understanding of Ultimate Truth,
however constructive and instructive, is always a human understanding,
therefore limited and subject to correction and expansion.

Ascribing inerrancy to the Bible is actually the ultimate gesture in
subverting its real importance.  If the function of the Bible is to define
and freeze some status quo ante as a divinely prescribed human norm, the
Bible is essentially obsolete and irrelevant in certain details.

If, on the other hand, the Bible functions to keep alive a questing spirit,
giving hope and expectation of yet fuller revelatory discoveries and deeper
understanding, it is more than worthy of respectful study and thoughtful --
not manipulative -- exposition.

Let the Bible, the best but most abused of books, be an aid to faith, not an
object thereof!
# # #
*McFarland is professor emeritus of history of religions at Southern
Methodist University.

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