Toxic Religion
Introduction
This is difficult to say as a former evangelical Bible professor but here it is:
An inspired Bible produces harmful Christianity.
When you slap a “divine” label on the biblical text it warps everything inside. Ancient violence and practices are sanitized and we are no longer scandalized by what we read. An inspired Bible turns Christians into decoders of ancient words and practices, even as they try to make sense of the muddle of interpretations coming from the Christian landscape.
Here is a catalogue of these harmful consequences over my twenty year ministerial career.
Harmful Consequences of Divinely Inspired Bible
Stifling legalism - This occurs because people read the Bible as “the word of God,” and thus any verse can become a command to obey. The result is straightjacket Christianity where church members police each others’ thoughts and behaviors based on the prescriptions of ancient ethics.
Spiritual abuse - This occurs because pastors are given complete spiritual authority over the lives of their congregations. Empowering one person to have spiritual authority over another, much less a large group, is a recipe for disaster. The result is wide scale spiritual abuse of pastors over their congregations in the name of Jesus.
Spiritual anxiety - Spiritual anxiety comes from the impossibility of meeting the demands of a sacred text. First, there are too many commands to keep track of, and secondly, there are far too many interpretations of scripture. Christian life becomes about performance.
The Bible as a machete - If people believe God speaks through the words of the Bible, then every word can be weaponized. People interpret the words of the Bible them according to their tastes, then use that understanding to shred people, or to to tell them how to live, how to vote, who to love, and when.
It produces interpretive chaos - There is not one verse in the entire Bible upon which there is universal Christian agreement. Every word is a battleground, and the job of the seminary is to train people on how to interpret the words of the Bible.
It produces doctrinal divisions - There isn’t one single doctrine upon which there is universal agreement in the Christian church. This is why we have books with silly titles like Four Views of the Atonement. The doctrinal divisions reflect how inconsistent the Bible can be on many topics.
It produces conflict and divisions by nature - The cultures of the Bible saw the world in binary categories—good or bad, saint or sinner. This is automatically divisive.
We submit to ancient ethics - The social, familial, relational, and religious ethics of the biblical writings are for that time period. For example, what Paul has to say about sexual ethics is for Paul, and for his congregations. Those ethics, and similar kind from the Bible, are not appropriate to deal with the complexities of the modern world.
We celebrate a cruel and violent God - The worship and liturgy include the destruction of pagan nations by a victorious and violent God. The church is no longer scandalized by such brutality. Even worse, it asks the members of its congregations to defend such inhumane behavior.
It produces magical thinking - The cultures of the Bible believed in magic. Wood did turn into a snake, people did turn into salt, and donkeys could talk. But this is magical thinking.
This list why I deconstructed out of the Bible. I no longer wanted to be associated with the harms of a sacred Bible or Christian orthodoxy.
Charge for Christian Leaders
If you are a Christian leader, pastor, or preacher, ask yourself these questions before you get up to preach next time:
Am I contributing to toxic religion?
Are my words producing harm towards people, especially marginalized groups?
Am I contributing to spiritual abuse or anxiety, or confusion around the Bible?
Am I contributing to a violent view of God, or magical thinking?
Am I asking the congregation to submit to ancient ethics more suitable for Paul or King David, than for the modern world?