Reading the Bible With Openness

Krista Tippett has written a wonderful book -- Speaking of Faith (Viking, 2007). I've been putting out some quotes for your consideration. These are I think very thoughtful statements. Here she talks about her encounter with Scripture -- how she reads it.

"The Bible, as I read it now, is not a catalogue of absolutes, as its champions sometimes imply. Nor is it a document of fantasy, as its critics charge. It is an ancient record of an ongoing encounter with God in the darkness as well as the light of human experience. . . . In the Christianity of the modern West, we've largely left the vivid storytelling of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, in Sunday School. We've consigned it to the world of childhood figuratively and literally. And in our time a superficial Christian rendering of these biblical texts underpins false dichotomies that plague our public life -- chasms we've set up between sacred text and truth, between idealized views of the way human beings should behave and the complex reality of the way they do." (pp. 56-57).

If you read Richard Dawkins, the only parts of the Old Testament he seems to know of are the depictions of a God of wrath, the one Marcion seems to have rejected, without recognizing that there is a more nuanced depiction of God found there. Then of course many of his Fundamentalist opponents latch on to the same descriptions, giving support to his conclusions. Krista, however has caught hold of the breadth found in Scripture. This is just a piece of the pie! Get the book and read the whole thing. In fact, click here to order.