Why I am not a "The Bible" fan

I have now see all the Bible shows thus far and I gotta say, I am not a fan. ​

​It is not because the production looks cheesy. Or that I prefer the "Heston" version of Exodus. Nor am I really put off by the number of just literal inaccuracies. It does not bother me the nuanced is sacrificed for a broad story telling. Not even because of the stories they choose to tell and those they choose the leave out. And while it deeply offends me that the devil looks like President Obama and Jesus is a white guy, even this is not the most offensive bit to me.

The offensive aspect off all this is it is designed to be entertaining. ​

FoxNews/MSNBC, Dancing with the starts, Days of our Lives, Jeopardy, Duck Dynasty are all entertainment.​

They all tell ​stories that are literally inaccurate, broad and lacking nuance, and they leave out a lot of other stories for the sake of keeping the viewer entertained.  

The medium of a 'mini-series' on television carries with it a number of implicit messages that go unspoken but deeply realized. Namely, once you put something on television, those who watch is instantly become passive observers who judge the show on how entertaining it is.

The same is true for televangelists.​ When you are getting your faith formation from the same device that you are watching Wheel of Fortune, we will tend to treat all the shows the same: something to watch to entertain us. 

You see, as we move more and more of the Biblical witness to the idea that it is entertainment, then it moves us into a place that I am not sure I want to go. The Bible, while at times has entertaining stories, is not entertainment. The Bible is a collection of stories that shaped millions of people over the course of time. It is a document that ​forms us not entertains us. 

Please do not cheapen the faith of millions of people (Christians, Muslims and Jews)​ in order to generate a buck. If you are interested in the Bible, might I suggest the actual Bible.

The chapter I wish I wrote...

Chapter one of the book When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church is worth the cost of the book. 

When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church

By Lillian Daniel

Buy on Amazon

I wish I wrote it. ​

Chapter one reflects her thoughts on the "spiritual but not religious" people she encounters. Just to share a few quotes: ​

​People tell preachers stuff they would never tell others:

When I meet a teacher, I don’t feel the need to tell him that I always hated math. When I meet a chef, I don’t need to tell her that I can’t cook. When I meet a clown, I don’t need tell him that I think clowns are all scary. No, I keep that stuff to myself. But everybody loves to tell a minister what’s wrong with the church, and it’s usually some church that bears no relation to the one I am proud to serve.

To those who find God in nature (my riff):​

But push a little harder, on this self-developed religion, and you don’t get much, at least much of depth. So you find God in the sunset? Great, so do I. But how about in the face of cancer? Cancer is nature too. Do you worship that as well?

To the self-established spiritualistic people (my riff): ​

But their parents, so afraid that the church is a place where they force you to accept their answers, have set up a vacuum in which the answers get invented without any formation or guidance. So when there are rainbows and happy kids it all works, but it’s not so successful in the face of temper tantrums, selfishness, and dare I say it, sin. Because most self-developed Sunday morning ritual has little room for sin.

To those who feel they cannot be associated with religion because it has done so much harm:​

The church has done some embarrassing things in its day, and I personally do not want to be associated with a lot of it. But, news flash, human beings do a lot of embarrassing, inhumane, cruel, and ignorant things, and I don’t want to be associated with them either. And here, I think we come to the crux of the problem that the spiritual but not religious people have with the church. If we could just kick out all the human beings, we might really be able to do this thing and meet their high standards.

​To those who express they are blessed by not having pain in their lives (a riff):

But when you witness pain and declare yourself lucky, you have fallen way short of what Jesus would do. When you witness suffering and declare yourself to have achieved salvation in the religion of gratitude, you have fallen way short of what God would have you do, no matter what religion you are called to. And by the way, while I think God does want us to feel gratitude, I do not think God particularly wants us to feel lucky. I think God wants us to witness pain and suffering and, rather than feeling lucky, God wants us to get angry and want to do something about it.

Jesus was not a soothsayer, he knew humanity

Many understand Jesus is able to see into the future because he was God (indeed) and had a divine (non-human) ability to see into the future. The thought being that some have the gift of seeing into the future, like a soothsayer, and some do not - like some people have brown eyes and some do not. 

The truth is, Jesus was not a soothsayer. He did not need unique access to divinity in order to see that he was going to die. 

Humanity has always sought out release valves to the tension of society. The most wide spread valve we have discovered is finding a scapegoat to the problem. Rene Girard is the one who articulates this the best, and I have written this notion before, but as we close in on Easter it is worth recalling the great revelation of Christ. 

Everyone could sense the tension in the culture in the days of Jesus. There were so many players biding for power: Rome, Zealots, Pharisees, Sadducees, tribal leaders, etc. And all of a sudden there is this guy who is getting a following that continues to grow - Jesus. The traditional players in the power struggle take the unique position of "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy." No one is interested in allowing another player into the system of power. And so tensions rise and the release valve must be pulled. A scapegoat must be found. 

And who fits the bill? No one who is in the traditional power player camps (otherwise Barabbas the Zealot would have been ​killed.) No, an outsider of who the majority of people, the crowd, must agree upon. 

Jesus was not a soothsayer, he just knew humanity.