I get concerned when people use the Bible to justify a position. The United Methodist Church recently justified its decision to exclude LGBTQ people from ministry leadership and marriage on the Bible. Oh, I’m sure if you look, you’ll find passages in the Bible that speak out in some way against homosexuality. And you’ll find passages to justify lots of other things, from concubines to slaves.
It’s all a matter of your perspective and what you’re trying to accomplish. And whether you can put your own biases aside. If you are open to the idea we are all one body in God and willing to accept everyone’s humanity, you’ll find guidance in the Bible to help you be open-minded and non-judgmental. If you want rules that speak to separating people into “them” and “us,” you’ll find that in the Bible as well.
I like how Richard Rohr puts it in “What do we do with the Bible?” If your interpretation of the Bible leads you to “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control . . .you can trust this interpretation is from the Spirit.” On the other hand, “if you sense any negative or punitive emotions like morose delight, feelings of superiority, self-satisfaction, arrogant dualistic certitude . . . or exclusion, you must trust this is not the Jesus hermeneutic [methodology for interpreting spiritual text] at work.”
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel speaks to these ideas in “Witness,” written by his student, Ariel Burger. “If even the most authoritative teaching, the most sacred text, leads us to dehumanization, to humiliation, to harm, then we must just reject it. Remember, the Bible itself shows us how to do this: Abraham argues with God on behalf of Sodom. Moses breaks the tablets of law—yes, even the law must be broken when it threatens humanity. . . We need courage in reading scripture, courage and compassion.”
The only people I remember Jesus excluding were the excluders—the Pharisees and Scribes. Remember them? They were ones who sought to be elevated by drawing lines between themselves and others.
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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com
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