Weaponizing the Bible

On display at Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., is a special exhibit centered on a rare Bible from the 1800s that was used by British missionaries to convert and educate slaves.

Recently while driving through the State of Alabama my wife and I stopped in Montgomery and visited the Legacy Museum located a couple blocks away from the center of the city. It was here in the 18, 19th centuries black men and women were commonly sold as slaves, nothing more than cattle to be used. The museum is not for the faint of heart, as it documents centuries of lynchings, segregation, and every kind of deprivation and depravation that black people had to endure. It reminded me of the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and how hell-bent people can be in preserving our own kind at the expense of the stranger. But what was personally gut wrenching was the historical Christian support that was given to such depravity and how the Bible was weaponized to further support it.[1]

As I have previously written I love the Bible but in the wrong hands it is a potential weapon of mass destruction, prone to abuse and misuse. It is subject to proof texting and lifting verses out of context to make them say whatever one wants for their cause no matter how depraved. It has been used to justify genocide, land theft, cultural humiliation, war, exploitation of land and people, colonization, apartheid and the list goes on.

Many would argue this alone is enough to say good-bye to the Bible, but the Bible has also been a source for liberation, hope, healing and redemption. So where do we go from here?

When you are a Bible professor attending a home Bible study can be awkward. I prefer to be a participant and not the leader but blending in is not always easy. Invariably my presence sometimes stifles the conversation. People look to you as the answer guy when that is the last thing I want to be. On this day we were studying a popular book on Christian living. At the end of the lesson, one of the suggested questions was, “how can we make the Bible more useful?” The host of the Bible Study decided to go around in a circle and solicit everyone’s thoughts.

Fortunately/unfortunately sitting where I was meant I would be last to respond. Full disclosure, I did not like the question and as people shared their thoughts, I grew even more antsy with how to respond. One by one people shared with ways they could be more disciplined in their reading of scripture. “Get up earlier in the morning to read”, “use a Read the Bible in One Year study guide,” and so on. Nothing wrong with reading the Bible in a systematic fashion, but the question and responses still gnawed at me. My wife who was sitting across the room from me could sense my discomfort and with her eyes, said in effect, “whatever you are thinking don’t say it, be good, play along.” Helpful, if not in this case futile advice.

Finally, it was my turn, and I slowly said, “The Bible is useless.” Pause. Silence. Then I picked up a TV remote control and said, “this is useful because I can switch between TV channels and not have to get up.” I picked up a pencil and said, “this is useful for a whole lot of obvious reasons.” “But in all these cases I am the doer and they are the done unto. I can manipulate them to my advantage.” Drawing on a little C.S. Lewis I then proceeded to say, “the Bible is the doer and I am the done unto. It is our task to receive scripture, not use it.”

But even as I write this, I know in the words of the late jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes this response represents "implicitly on the other side of complexity." There are cultural, linguistic, racial, geographical factors that all influence how we receive a text. But as a starter it goes a long way in disarming the simple claim “the Bible says it, I do it.”

to be followed next week

---

[1] In 1808 A Bible was published called, Select parts of the Holy Bible for the Use of the Negro Slaves in the British-West-India Islands (London: Law and Gilbert, 1807). Heavily redacted, passages referring to slavery, obeying your masters were included, passages that such as Gal 3:28 were omitted “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus.”