Literally true...

This is me lacking a 'communicative outlet'...

About to hit the sack last night.  Phone rings.  It's my biz-partner.  It's 11:00pm (which I do realize is early if you're 23 and single, but I'm 33 and father of four...) and I'm cursing under my breath as I reach for the phone.

"Are you watching 'The Hour'?"  

So I turn it on.  Georgie is interviewing Creflo Dollar.  One question in particular got me thinking.  George was asking Creffie about the whole literalist approach to interpreting scripture.  Creflo did the typical "You can use the Bible for whatever you want if you take it out of context..." thing.  I got to thinking how I would have answered.

See, if you're going to pull the whole 'literalism=fundamentalism" card there's not much I can do about it.  Put aside the verbal jousting for a second though and I think there's another way to look at it.  Naturally I wouldn't want to say I don't believe that what the Bible says is true, absolutely true, because to do so is to take the teeth out of Christianity.  If Christianity is just another philosophy you can try on for size it ceases to become that which it is intended to be.  It's Christianity's exclusivism that is both its great asset and liability.  If we were just 'one among many', nobody'd hate us and we wouldn't mean a thing to a World in pain.

But is it 'LITERALLY' true?

How hard you going to press me?  See, George mentioned how his Christian mother had forbidden him to get an earring because of an obscure passage in the Bible that forbids cutting/piercing of the body.  So George is like; "That wouldn't really work for me 'cause I couldn't shave if that was true and I'd be, all bushy and stuff."  Classic.  Either it's all completely literally true or it's all completely subjective and open to interpretation.

I thought that maybe Creflo could've pointed out the following...

Perhaps it's not just about what's 'literally true' but rather, maybe it's about what's 'actually true'.  See?  Did the Bible literally forbid cutting, piercing, etc?  Well yes. But why?  What did God actually mean (for us) in that passage.  Now, granted, I recognize we're delving into dangerous territory here as I (a human with all the cravenness that goes along with that...) attempt to say what God was thinking. The thing is, this is what guys like me (Preacher/Pastors) do.  We interpret the Bible in an effort to help it 'speak' to our audience today.  That's the job.  Which, by the way, is why so many Preachers are so lousy, but that's another story. 

[also, 'interpreting' a piece of text, like a screenplay, is what Directors do. The two jobs aren't very different in actuality.  Different canvases and different mechanics but very, very similar] 

What was actually at stake with the whole 'no cutting/piercing' thing was idolatry. Worshipping something other than YHWH, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob the God who, we Christians believe, took on flesh (incarnate) by being born of a woman and entered into human history as the long-promised Messiah of Jewish prophecy to live and die and rise again so that we-the-dead might live.  You're only supposed to worship Him, is what the Bible's saying.  One of the great tensions of all of scripture is the tension between God's desire for us to be devoted (captivated by) to Him over and against the constant pull of the life that surrounds us with its constant pressure to place other 'things' in the highest place of attention in our lives.  

Creflo could've turned that corner.  Could've said: "Y'know George, what's at stake there is not a literal interpretation of 'don't cut/pierce' but rather the actual call of God to you to be His, to love Him, walk with Him, devote your entire being to Him."  Yes the Bible literally says that and here's what it actually means.  Instead we got to see another 'liberal talk show host' bests 'fundamentalist televangelist' by pointing out how silly it really is to believe that the Bible is literally (actually) true, moment.

Sigh.

Sometimes I wish I could jump through the screen.

Someday.

T