Someone recently asked why I think so differently about Christianity than other pastors.
I responded that “I attended a progressive Episcopal seminary in Berkeley, California, whose basic teaching philosophy was religious literacy.”
“What do you mean by religious literacy?”
Let’s start with the word literal. It can be confusing. A literal person is
- someone who can read and write, or
- someone who sees words on a page and believes they are exactly what the writer meant. For example, the introduction to Matthew 14:22–23 reads “Jesus Walks on the Water.” A literalist believes this primarily because the Bible is the inerrant word of God. He-She-It wrote it, so it’s true.
Because my foundation is religious literacy, I immediately question the validity of Jesus’s walking on the water. It’s an impossibility, and I’m not interested in the response that God can do anything. My question is not whether Jesus walked on the water (no one can), but what the story is really saying. Because I am familiar with Jewish midrash (Biblical interpretation), I believe the story is saying something else: life is full of challenges (storms), and Jesus has given me the tools (agape) to calm the storms. This is my interpretation. What’s nice about Midrash is that you could have a different interpretation, and yours is as valid as mine.
What religious literacy allows me to do is question everything and anything, no matter who wrote or said it. Doubt is a key component of religious literacy and also a tool that helps me keep growing in the faith. Religious literacy allows me to question as well as to speculate about what I think the meaning of something might be.
For example, in Sunday school and until I started attending seminary, I believed that God lived in the heavens, right above the earth’s atmosphere, and had a couple of mansions up there. I never questioned that. Later I was broadsided by a fire engine and my best friend was killed. I had to do some serious doubting when a priest suggested that God was punishing us for something naughty we had done in our past lives. Religious literacy came to the rescue, and I quickly developed a new concept of God based on pantheism, the belief that every living thing in the universe is God. So far, especially with the advent of space exploration, Creation is still my God.
I’m not alone in this belief, but it’s a heresy as far as the institutional church is concerned. Religious literacy again comes into play, and I now have to wrestle with the idea that the institutional church thinks it has the final answer. Religious literacy reminds me that the church is extremely fallible, and that it’s my role as a believer to keep challenging its belief system.
There is no question in my mind that religious literacy has helped me grow as a follower of Jesus and continues to do so. I shall use it until my dying days because I don’t believe there is ever a final answer to anything.
What do you think about religious literacy?
PeaceLoveJoyHopeKindness
Bil
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P.S. People often ask me provocative questions about current events, both religious and secular. I have found that some of these questions are being asked universally. I’ll be periodically alternating regular articles with one of those questions and my answer. I invite you to send me your question to bilaulenbach@yahoo.com.
Totally with you on this, Bil. I’m a member of the Westar Institute whose #1 mission is “religious literacy”. Their scholars present very interesting webinars with interpretations of the truths contained in the Bible as well as an emphasis on the historical Jesus (the human being) and the times in which he lived. Are you a member of Westar?
Linda Ann
Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada
Great article, Bill, keep on producing.
From the questioner ‘s comments about you holding different views than ‘other pastors’, it could be implied that the questioner believes you to be “odd-man out.”
Let me assure the questioner that Bill is not alone for there many many of us ministers who hold similar views and do expound upon them publically.
Because I’m quite ‘progressive’ in my faith, I often refer to myself as a ‘Heretic’, however I think the greatest heresy is understand one’s faith and reading the Bible as a ‘Literalist.’
Keep at it, Bill!
Michael Barnes
Bracebridge (a little outpost of ‘progressiveness’), Canada
Who said “Faith Without Doubt is Dead Faith”? I believe that. In addition to the comments so far, I believe that God expects us to use our brains–after all why do we have the highest level of thought/reason of all living creatures, (although I am beginning to wonder about that.) The Bible is a Jewish book and Jews use Midrash to reveal their truths as you pointed out. As a Catholic Priest friend of Marcus Borg Said “The stories in the Bible are true and some of them actually happened.” Amen, Amen. Let’s use the brains we were given to THINK.