It seems to be open season on “Christian fundamentalists” because of their so-called narrow-minded and unsophisticated practice of taking the Bible literally. One myth I want to clear up first is the notion that Christians who take the Bible literally are dangerous wackos, completely out of touch with
mainstream Christianity.
In a special episode of “The West Wing” made in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Bradley Whitford’s character resists an attempt to compare Islamo-terrorists to fundamentalist Christians. The character makes a good point when he argues that comparing mainstream Islam’s relation to Islamic extremism is more like comparing Christianity to the Ku Klux Klan because that’s how badly these people have to distort scriptural integrity and sound theology in order to
justify their horrific actions.
People who interpret the Bible literally are not the same people who bomb abortion clinics and kill in the name of religion. The domestic terrorists who claim to kill in the name of God are drastically distorting the Bible, not taking it literally.
What really shocks me, though, is that people write off those who take the Bible literally as uneducated rubes who don’t approach the text with any sophistication. In broad strokes they paint those who take the Bible literally as if they leave no room for interpretation, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
Taking the Bible literally is not immune to interpretation. In fact, pure literalism makes interpretation an absolute imperative. Think about it. To take the Bible literally means to realize, for instance, that the Pentateuch is God speaking through Moses to the Hebrew people at a specific time and a specific place in a particular social, cultural and historical context. Literalism also means to realize that the Gospels are God speaking through particular people, to particular people, in unique circumstances.
Taking the Bible literally means realizing that when God told the Davidic Israelites to kill the Philistines, he meant just that; he wasn’t telling you to kill anybody.
In an e-mail that’s been forwarded countless times over the last several years, an anonymous author lambastes Dr. Laura for her use of Scripture to support her controversial opposition to homosexuality. Now don’t get me wrong, I hate Dr. Laura just as much as the next guy, maybe more, but this e-mail demonstrates a shockingly inept reading of Scripture. The e-mail points out and ridicules certain portions of the Torah that seem to be out of place if applied in today’s culture.
Few would be so foolish as to read a few sentences from Aristotle and claim to know exactly what he says about motion. Few would be so foolish as to read a paragraph from Adam Smith and claim to understand the breadth and nuance of his classical capitalism. Why, then, do so many people — Christian and non-Christian alike — approach the Bible
with a narrow-minded, totalizing point of view?
The literalist understands that these laws were not prescribed for us. They were prescribed to a certain people in a certain set of circumstances. The laws and rules are not what count. Understanding the underlying principles given the specific social, cultural and historical context is what counts.
Taking the Bible literally means going way beyond face value. It means employing exegesis and hermeneutics in order to mine the text for its original meaning in its original context so that the transcendent personality of God can be revealed throughout. Though the personality of God doesn’t change throughout the Bible, the rules that he plays by do change — a lot.
This is why so many lazy Bible readers shy away from the Old Testament. The cultural context is so far removed from our own that it requires even more interpretation than the New Testament in order to access the underlying truths.
Taking the Bible literally is not the dull-witted, unsophisticated approach to scripture reading. It is an almost unrivaled intellectual challenge that requires an intense academic rigor and a highly sophisticated textual reading. Bending and breaking the text to make it mean whatever one wants in current social circumstances and political realities is the unsophisticated approach that ignores academic rigor and
intellectual honesty.
I’m not worried about the Christians who take the Bible literally; I’m worried about the ones who don’t. There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who claims to believe the Bible is the word of God without knowing what it says. These are
the ones who substitute their
judgment for God’s and commit terrible atrocities.

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