A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
Mixing a cocktail of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.
We're a pastor and a philosopher who have discovered that sometimes pastors need philosophy, and sometimes philosophers need pastors. We tackle topics and interview guests that straddle the divide between our interests.
Who we are:
Randy Knie (Co-Host) - Randy is the founding and Lead Pastor of Brew City Church in Milwaukee, WI. Randy loves his family, the Church, cooking, and the sound of his own voice. He drinks boring pilsners.
Kyle Whitaker (Co-Host) - Kyle is a philosophy PhD and an expert in disagreement and philosophy of religion. Kyle loves his wife, sarcasm, kindness, and making fun of pop psychology. He drinks childish slushy beers.
Elliot Lund (Producer) - Elliot is a recovering fundamentalist. His favorite people are his wife and three boys, and his favorite things are computers and hamburgers. Elliot loves mixing with a variety of ingredients, including rye, compression, EQ, and bitters.
A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
The B-I-B-L-E
What is the Bible? How should we read it? What does it mean for a text to be authoritative? Do I have to believe the Bible is inerrant in order to be a Christian? In this episode, we discuss the beautiful messiness that is the Bible and talk about our relationships with this incredible and ancient text.
Catch Part 2 of this conversation here.
The whiskey featured in this episode is Wathen's Single Barrel.
If you're local to Milwaukee, check out our friends at Story Hill BKC.
=====
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Cheers!
[Music]
00:13
welcome to
00:14
a pastor and a philosopher walk into a
00:16
bar the podcast where we mix a sometimes
00:18
weird but always delicious cocktail of
00:21
theology
00:21
philosophy and spirituality
00:26
[Music]
00:28
so in this episode we are discussing the
00:30
bible uh we knew we would have to get to
00:32
this topic eventually
00:34
i have to he says he knows now it's as
00:36
good a time as any
00:38
we're affectionately calling this the
00:39
b-i-v-l-e uh just so that song will be
00:42
stuck in your head
00:43
after you hear this in the same way that
00:44
it's been stuck in mine all day you're
00:46
welcome
00:46
you're welcome for that well i don't
00:48
know about you but i
00:50
could use a drink agreed
00:53
so for today's tasting we have a bourbon
00:56
that was gifted to us by our friends
00:58
here in milwaukee
00:59
at story hill bkc which i got to be
01:02
honest was my main hope for doing a
01:03
podcast
01:05
if nothing else comes out of this i'm
01:07
totally satisfied with where we have
01:09
landed already
01:10
we made it uh so this this offering from
01:12
story hill
01:13
is called wathens straight bourbon and
01:16
this
01:17
is the single barrel version which comes
01:20
in at 94 proof
01:21
i googled and the mash bill apparently
01:23
is 77
01:24
corn which is pretty good that's
01:26
highlighted in corn yeah 10
01:28
rye 13 barley
01:32
why'd you choose to say 10 before 13
01:36
i'm reading it off the internet got it
01:40
so no age statement on this um
01:43
probably somewhere between four and
01:44
eight years but that's
01:46
speculation it's not as hot as i would
01:48
expect it to be for us
01:49
um barrel proof not in the mouth it goes
01:52
down a little warm but yeah i was gonna
01:54
say it's
01:54
very clean i mean it's not as complex as
01:57
a lot of bourbons but that's not in a
02:00
bad way it's it's
02:01
i kind of like it reminds me of like an
02:03
eagle rare kind of clean flavor where
02:05
it's not super complex but it's really
02:07
easy drinking do you know what i mean
02:09
yeah it's really smooth it's not as
02:11
sweet as i would expect it to be for
02:13
that much corn
02:15
which actually might be a good thing
02:16
depending on your palate need some
02:18
simple syrup or something
02:22
randy is currently choking on his
02:23
bourbon for those who can't see that
02:26
strong vanilla yeah not a ton of oak in
02:29
there
02:30
yeah not not a ton i get some dark
02:32
berries in there some dark fruit
02:35
i'm a fan i've never i'll be honest i've
02:37
never even heard of wildens before
02:39
story hill bkc brought it to us i love
02:41
trying new things and this is fun
02:43
awesome so woden's kentucky bourbon
02:45
single barrel from story hill bkc if
02:47
you're in milwaukee
02:48
go to storehealth bkc if you're not in
02:50
milwaukee support your local restaurants
02:52
and bars
02:53
[Music]
02:55
um so we're going to discuss the whole
02:58
range of things
02:59
what is the bible how do we use it how
03:01
should we not
03:02
use it maybe what are some good ways to
03:05
approach it some not so good ways
03:07
what are the problems with the ways that
03:08
a lot of christians have used it and
03:10
continue to use it
03:11
so this might end up getting split into
03:13
a couple episodes we have kind of a lot
03:15
to say
03:16
randy you wanna you want to launch us
03:18
off well
03:20
so let's talk about first what is the
03:22
bible
03:23
so that we can get on an even playing
03:24
field here i'm i'm hoping that we have a
03:26
few atheists listening or
03:28
former you know christians
03:31
that are interested in this so let's
03:33
let's get into what is the bible and
03:34
what isn't the bible
03:35
yeah well from a just sort of very basic
03:38
unbiased average secular person could
03:41
even say this what the bible is it's
03:44
it's a sacred text which which means
03:47
it's a it's a collection of documents
03:50
really old documents that a lot of
03:53
people
03:54
in the world view as having some kind of
03:56
religious significance
03:57
that's all it means to be a sacred text
03:59
and there's there's a whole class of
04:01
sacred texts and so
04:03
in that very basic sense the bible is
04:05
one book among many other similar books
04:07
like the quran
04:09
or the bhagavad gita or the book of
04:12
mormon i suppose or
04:14
you know fill in the blank so it's a
04:16
it's a text
04:17
that lots and lots of people have found
04:20
to be
04:20
spiritually significant in their
04:22
religious practices
04:24
and it's a text that both jews and
04:26
christians would claim
04:28
is a unique place where god has been
04:31
revealed to humans
04:32
now the thing that i that i find
04:35
interesting about
04:36
christianity's sacred text the the bible
04:39
and correct me if i'm wrong kyle or or
04:42
elliot but it
04:43
i don't know of any other sacred text
04:45
that has included
04:46
another faith's sacred text into its
04:49
sacred texts did you follow the the line
04:52
there
04:53
yeah we don't think of this often
04:55
because the old testament to us
04:56
is the old testament it's christian's
05:00
sacred text but really it's
05:03
the jewish people's sacred text that we
05:06
as coming from the jewish heritage
05:08
have taken into our own and that is
05:10
utterly as far as i know utterly unique
05:12
and really fascinating to me
05:14
that we have two religions sacred texts
05:17
that we
05:18
claim as our own uh so i don't know if i
05:20
don't know enough about
05:21
uh world religion to know if if
05:23
christianity's
05:24
sacred text is unique in that aspect i
05:26
mean i know
05:28
buddhism and hinduism have a lot of
05:29
overlap in a lot of ways
05:31
buddhism is a reaction against a certain
05:34
a certain version of hinduism and so
05:36
it's
05:36
it's sacred texts probably do
05:38
incorporate a lot of the hinduistic
05:40
brahman sacred texts but probably not in
05:43
the same way that
05:44
jewish judaism and christianity are
05:47
related so
05:48
we have all of their sacred scriptures
05:51
inside of our sacred scriptures and
05:54
we interpret almost all of it very
05:56
differently than they do
05:58
[Music]
05:59
which is that that probably is unique
06:01
yeah and i mean it's worth
06:03
noting that we are christianity is one
06:05
of three abrahamic religions right and
06:07
so the quran also has
06:09
we share prophets we share leaders we
06:12
share
06:13
spiritual leaders with islam as well
06:16
in in with the quran but i just find it
06:18
fascinating that we
06:20
in christianity have the jewish sacred
06:23
text within our sacred texts it's
06:25
fascinating to me
06:26
and you know i've i've tried to move
06:29
away from referring
06:30
to that portion of the bible as the old
06:33
testament
06:34
because that's a a very
06:36
christian-centric way to look at it you
06:37
know it existed a long time before
06:39
christianity existed
06:40
it's the hebrew scriptures yeah i prefer
06:42
the hebrew scriptures hebrew bible
06:44
yep and the thing that when we think of
06:46
the bible we often think
06:48
of the bible as a book which it isn't
06:51
the bible is not a book the bible is
06:53
this ancient library of books
06:55
and our bible by our i mean protestants
06:59
our bible has 66 books it's a library of
07:01
66 books written over the course of
07:04
let's say 1500 years there's
07:06
disagreement whether it's 1200 years
07:07
1500 years but
07:08
around 1 500 years and then it was
07:10
passed down orally even before that for
07:12
centuries
07:14
i have no idea how long it's a library
07:16
of books that were written in different
07:18
times different centuries different
07:20
cultures different situations
07:23
all sorts of different contexts and we
07:26
bring them together in this one library
07:29
we call the holy scriptures
07:31
all of this still i'm still fascinated
07:33
just saying you know
07:34
like this this has got me this is super
07:37
fascinating super interesting even if i
07:39
wasn't a
07:39
christian this would be fascinating to
07:41
me that this is how the sacred text came
07:43
together
07:44
because i think that's a pretty unique
07:46
story as well
07:48
and so so far it doesn't seem like
07:50
you've said anything
07:52
controversial or i mean this is all
07:55
basic facts right that
07:56
anybody could wikipedia and find out but
07:59
just calling it a library
08:01
already probably would be enough if if
08:04
the implications were understood
08:06
would be enough to make a lot of
08:08
fundamentalists
08:10
pretty uncomfortable i think so because
08:12
because you don't read a library
08:14
you you walk into a library and you see
08:16
all the books there and you pull one off
08:18
the shelf and you read it
08:19
you don't you're not going to read every
08:20
book there the same way and you're not
08:23
going to approach each book there with
08:24
all the same expectations
08:26
you're going to recognize that in a
08:27
library there are all the books that are
08:29
organized by sections
08:31
yep and they have genres they have types
08:33
and the types are
08:35
importantly different from each other
08:37
i'm not going to pull down
08:38
the his the history factual history
08:41
section
08:42
and read that book the same way as i
08:44
would a book i pulled out of the poetry
08:46
section
08:46
i would i would take have very different
08:48
expectations of those books
08:50
and yet it's very common among
08:52
fundamentalist christianity
08:54
to approach the bible as though all the
08:57
books had the same kind of significance
08:59
and were of the same type and intended
09:01
all the same things but that's just not
09:02
the case i mean you have
09:04
a whole range of different types of
09:05
literature contained within the bible
09:09
and let's be i would say let's go
09:12
you know not just single out the fundies
09:13
but i would say just
09:15
in general christians who take a more
09:18
simplistic
09:19
approach to the scriptures would just
09:22
read the bible for the
09:23
the same way whether you're reading
09:25
genesis or whether you're reading you
09:26
know for a lot of them
09:27
that's that's perfectly understandable
09:29
because
09:30
nobody's ever told them they shouldn't i
09:32
mean the bible is presented to us
09:34
usually in sunday school contexts in
09:36
american christianity as
09:38
a book a book that we can read from
09:41
beginning to end and we can even have
09:42
like a year-long plan where we read this
09:44
part and then we skip over to this part
09:46
and then you know we read a couple
09:47
chapters here in a couple chapters there
09:48
totally ripped out of their context and
09:51
and we read it through like we would
09:52
any any text that didn't have all of the
09:55
differences that this one has
09:56
right and that's something you mentioned
09:58
sunday school that's that's something
09:59
that i've been thinking about these last
10:01
couple days today in particular as i
10:02
thought about
10:03
what we're going to talk about which is
10:05
i feel like
10:06
most a vast majority of christ followers
10:09
of
10:10
christians let me say have a
10:13
sunday school this is so condescending
10:16
so forgive me
10:17
community but most of us have the way we
10:21
see the scriptures the way we think
10:22
about the scriptures the way we engage
10:23
the scriptures the way we
10:25
read the scriptures most of that is
10:28
formed in sunday school
10:29
and it doesn't go too far beyond that to
10:31
be honest with you
10:33
a lot of our understandings are shaped
10:35
by
10:36
very simplistic understandings of the
10:38
scriptures and
10:39
we get stuck there and then we think
10:41
that that's the gospel truth because so
10:43
many of us just think that this is the
10:44
way you handle and approach and read and
10:46
apply the scriptures
10:48
yeah about i have a whole set of
10:50
thoughts about sunday school
10:52
i'm gonna get started on that all right
10:54
we'll keep understanding there's
10:55
something fundamentally wrong
10:57
with uh supposed educational
11:02
program where the teachers are chosen at
11:04
random
11:05
[Laughter]
11:07
or or they rotate based on uh you know
11:10
who's in the class which is every sunday
11:12
school class i've ever been in
11:13
no expectation whatsoever there's no
11:15
expectation whatsoever for any kind of
11:17
qualification or training or expertise
11:19
for sunday school teachers in any church
11:21
i've ever been to or heard of
11:23
yep um so so automatically we know
11:26
something has gone wrong
11:28
it's true and but to let church leaders
11:30
off the hook
11:31
being a church leader sometimes you just
11:33
got to take what you get
11:34
because not a whole lot of people want
11:36
to be sunday school teachers let's just
11:38
be honest so
11:39
sure fair enough so so we have a
11:42
library ancient library of books
11:46
let's say with including the oral
11:48
tradition
11:49
a couple of millennia old with all sorts
11:52
of genres
11:53
all sorts of writers all sorts of
11:54
authors more authors than we
11:56
think and by we i mean common you know
11:59
christians
12:00
people in the church and let's let's
12:03
think about what the bible is for
12:05
us as christians for most
12:08
christians what how people see the bible
12:10
what the bible is
12:11
for us right and i would say mostly for
12:14
many christians many protestants well
12:17
only protestants catholics wouldn't have
12:19
this view of the scriptures but
12:20
for most of us good protestants the
12:23
scriptures are
12:24
pretty much can i say everything for our
12:26
faith
12:27
it's the thing that the whole thing is
12:30
based off of
12:31
it's the only place where we get our
12:33
theology it's the only place where we
12:35
get our formative picture of who god is
12:38
it's it's this thing that we hold up and
12:41
esteem as our final authority solo
12:43
script tour we've been given for martin
12:44
luther god bless him what does that mean
12:46
randy
12:47
scripture alone right it means that and
12:50
this is at a really good place
12:52
martin luther rejected this um idea that
12:56
clergy could tell us what to do out of
12:59
something that's not based on scripture
13:00
and taking the scripture out of the
13:02
church's hands is a bad idea and so
13:04
martin luther probably overswung a
13:06
little bit right where
13:07
solos scripture is a great idea but
13:11
i would say we protestants put a little
13:13
too much weight and sometimes a lot too
13:15
much weight
13:16
on this on the authority of scriptures
13:18
and i'm just talking as
13:19
somebody who because i believe in the
13:21
holy spirit and the the right now word
13:23
of the holy spirit so
13:25
but you get this picture i'm painting
13:26
right that for many christians for most
13:28
christians the bible is
13:29
the whole dang thing and i would say
13:32
sometimes it's
13:33
like the third member of the trinity we
13:34
forget about the holy spirit and it's
13:36
father son and holy scriptures sounds
13:39
like you think that's bad
13:42
i do i do yeah i've um
13:45
i mean really a lot of my background
13:48
spiritual background is
13:49
in this camp and
13:52
it breaks down over time to be honest
13:53
with you uh doesn't
13:55
doesn't last and also it's it lends
13:58
itself to this thing that scholars would
14:00
call
14:00
bibliolatry bibliolatry being that we
14:03
make
14:04
an idol out of the bible and we hold it
14:05
above even god himself
14:08
and we bow down and worship the bible
14:10
and we have all sorts of
14:12
strains of christianity where we call
14:14
ourselves berean
14:15
or we call ourselves you know the the
14:17
true church who follows
14:19
we we have this the way we interpret the
14:21
scriptures
14:22
is the way to interpret the scriptures
14:24
there's all sorts of brands within
14:25
christianity that
14:27
that talk like this and it makes me
14:29
super uncomfortable i'm sure you're not
14:30
super comfortable with it either kyle
14:33
i'm not how could you tell yeah
14:36
i mean that that's that's every
14:38
christian tradition as far as i can tell
14:40
i mean
14:41
there is no there's no denomination
14:43
without this is the correct
14:45
interpretation of the bible
14:47
sure sure at least within catholicism it
14:50
seems to be
14:51
there's more room for argument about
14:53
some things
14:54
well yeah because they would say their
14:57
main authority isn't the church it's the
14:58
pope
14:59
and it's the the priesthood basically
15:02
but it's i guess you're free as a
15:04
catholic you're free
15:05
to argue with the pope uh in most
15:09
contexts
15:10
you know if the pope says something
15:13
about the bible
15:14
like it's important and you have to
15:15
listen to it but the the range of
15:18
contexts in which it is your duty to
15:20
just accept it and obey yes it's fairly
15:22
small
15:23
it's kind of a kind of a that a lot of
15:26
people have about catholicism
15:27
well for crying out loud i mean there's
15:29
there's all sorts of catholics who want
15:30
to assassinate
15:31
francis right now as we speak and i'm
15:33
vlogging about this
15:36
well well somebody like me that's almost
15:39
secular it's
15:40
like super excited about uh this current
15:42
oh i hope francis lives for a really
15:44
long time
15:45
it's funny to me it's ironic that that a
15:48
lot of protestants view
15:49
the catholic church as more rigid
15:51
because of the pope and because of the
15:53
really
15:54
clear hierarchy but their ability to
15:57
process and interpret scripture together
15:59
as a community is a lot freer
16:01
than what i've observed in a lot of
16:02
protestant traditions sure as far as
16:04
scripture
16:04
i would definitely say the clericalism
16:06
and the the authority
16:08
of tradition and papal authority
16:11
is much much higher in in the catholic
16:14
church i mean we protestants have been
16:15
taught to so the
16:17
religious structure obviously sets it
16:19
apart from
16:20
protestant dominations but i mean
16:24
some a microcosm of that exists in a lot
16:26
of protestant denominations too i mean i
16:28
i came from a particular brand of
16:31
pentecostalism
16:33
where the leader of the local church
16:35
might as well have been the pope
16:36
yep yep because i mean you and
16:38
everything he said was ex cathedral
16:41
it was it wasn't like uh you're free to
16:44
question any of it i mean
16:45
the the hierarchy was every bit as rigid
16:48
and even less free
16:50
in that tradition that's fair yep which
16:52
i'm not sure if we'll keep any of this
16:53
because we could talk about the catholic
16:54
yes for another time yeah
16:58
yep so decide what you want people to
17:00
get mad at you for exactly
17:02
yeah so for many many christians
17:06
the the bible is the end-all be-all it's
17:08
everything it's the authority it's the
17:10
final word it's the final authority
17:12
and then for many others the bible is
17:15
actually the main reason why they left
17:16
the christian faith
17:17
right yeah i mean i've met quite a few
17:20
of these people
17:21
i've come close to being one of these
17:22
people part part of it i think a big
17:25
part of it
17:26
is that it's not so much the text itself
17:28
that drives people
17:30
out of the church sometimes it does and
17:32
we can talk about some of the reasons
17:34
for that as we go on
17:35
uh but it's the the certainty about the
17:38
text
17:38
yes that a lot of these traditions
17:42
exhibit that the text has to mean this
17:45
that we're totally sure that it means
17:46
this and that if you see it a different
17:49
way
17:50
you're somehow deluded or deceived or
17:52
maybe even sinful
17:53
something like that and often in those
17:55
kinds of contexts what the text has to
17:57
mean
17:58
is something really judgmental and
17:59
really exclusivist
18:01
and so you know the text might have to
18:03
mean
18:04
for example that somebody who exists in
18:08
a certain
18:09
socioeconomic position
18:12
is automatically more prone to sin
18:15
or somehow second class or somehow
18:18
marginal
18:20
and if you happen to exist in that space
18:22
whatever it is
18:23
and you don't read the bible in that way
18:25
then there's just not room
18:27
for there's no room in that tradition
18:29
that kind of tradition for you to
18:30
express what the bible is to you
18:33
and and to to be someone who is
18:35
passionate about god
18:37
who is even really in love with
18:40
the way god is presented in the new
18:42
testament through jesus
18:44
but then to be given a really
18:47
rigid paradigm for what the bible has to
18:49
be it's very difficult in a tradition
18:51
like that
18:52
to love the bible it's very difficult to
18:55
love
18:56
god because you're told that what god
18:57
has presented in this text and here are
18:59
the ways that you must read this text
19:01
and those ways are exclusionary to
19:02
people like you and so
19:04
for lots and lots of people people from
19:06
my generation and later ones in
19:08
particular
19:09
if if that's what god is like then we're
19:11
just
19:12
not interested and we end up leaving all
19:15
together
19:15
i feel like what by and large what the
19:18
church gives
19:20
you know the leaders in the church give
19:22
everybody is this idea
19:24
that it's all or nothing right you have
19:26
to believe
19:27
everything it's all literal it's all
19:29
infallible it's all
19:30
inherent it's all correct and
19:34
everything has to stand everything has
19:37
to work together
19:38
everything has to build on it each
19:41
one bit built on the other and if you
19:43
don't believe this one thing about it or
19:45
if you have a problem or an issue with
19:46
this other thing about it
19:48
then you're out of the church then
19:50
you're out of the club then now you're
19:52
in dangerous territory right and so i
19:54
think that's what a lot of people have a
19:55
hard time with
19:56
i know plenty of people who love jesus
19:59
who love the gospels
20:00
who like lots of the new testament who
20:02
like a decent amount in the old
20:04
testament but there's stuff that they
20:05
just can't get around
20:06
for one reason or another and they're
20:08
told it's kind of all or nothing
20:10
love it or leave it and i think that's
20:11
the reason why a lot of people have left
20:13
the church is because they've been given
20:14
this ultimatum
20:16
that they just can't buy anymore and i
20:18
know there's
20:19
there's probably a good amount of more
20:22
conservative christians who are
20:24
already you got your hackles up already
20:27
you're already on
20:28
on the edge of your seat getting ready
20:29
to write us off as heretics you can do
20:31
that
20:32
the first thing i want you to do i'm
20:33
going to ask you is to listen to this
20:35
episode and probably the next episode
20:36
because it's probably going to be
20:37
two-parter
20:38
just listen to the whole thing before
20:39
you write us off before you hear one
20:40
little thing that makes you think that
20:42
throw throw that h word at us so that's
20:44
for us in particular
20:46
and then if we get to the end of these
20:47
two episodes and you think we're
20:48
heretics god bless you we love you
20:50
you know let's go our separate ways or
20:53
you can keep listening and send us awful
20:54
emails and
20:55
that's great too but here's what i'm
20:58
i've got an ulterior motive
20:59
in some ways with this episode i would
21:02
love
21:03
to paint a picture of a more inclusive
21:06
way to hold the scriptures
21:08
that isn't going to make a whole
21:10
generation
21:11
of the church leave the church i believe
21:14
that the way
21:15
the way the church by and large the
21:16
protestant church
21:18
is passing down our understanding of the
21:20
scriptures is actually
21:22
turning most young people off they don't
21:25
have room for it they can't get their
21:26
minds around it they have
21:28
they don't buy the the sales pitch that
21:31
prior generations have and they're
21:32
leaving like the the stats are just
21:34
obvious this is i'm not talking any
21:36
biases here i'm just talking
21:39
stats i'm talking data young people are
21:41
leaving the church in droves and i'm
21:43
fairly convinced that one of the main
21:44
reasons is because the way we tell them
21:47
to approach the scriptures and to handle
21:48
the scriptures and to believe about the
21:49
scriptures
21:50
and so here's my ulterior motive could
21:53
we
21:54
actually in the church present a
21:56
different way for engaging with
21:59
and in in applying and living out
22:02
the scriptures in a way that actually
22:04
allows for some space for people
22:06
to be themselves to ask the hard
22:08
questions
22:09
and to approach the bible from an
22:11
authentic vulnerable
22:13
honest place rather than have it forced
22:15
on our throats in a way that we just
22:17
are going to gag up and walk away
22:21
yeah and if it had been presented to me
22:25
in that way when i was a kid
22:28
i think my relationship with it now
22:30
would be quite different
22:31
how so i don't have what a lot of
22:35
christians like to call a high view of
22:37
scripture
22:39
anymore there are as many problems i
22:42
have with it as
22:42
as things i love about it and i don't
22:45
read it regularly i haven't read it
22:47
regularly for years
22:49
and i i don't feel in any way guilty
22:51
about that
22:52
i still remember all the things i knew
22:54
about it and all the things i learned in
22:55
sunday school and i can carry an
22:57
intelligent conversation
22:58
about just about any part of it because
23:00
i've read it many times but
23:03
yeah i can't say i really respect it as
23:05
a
23:06
as a sacred text that much anymore
23:09
and i think it's probably because of
23:11
what you just described it was
23:14
presented to me in a really rigid way uh
23:16
in a really exclusionary way
23:18
the interpretation i was given of it
23:21
didn't withstand scrutiny even
23:22
even the barest most sort of
23:25
introductory level amount of scrutiny
23:28
i mean it's not hard to figure out that
23:30
there are contradictions in the bible
23:32
like even a just sort of unbiased
23:34
reading of the gospels
23:35
you just notice things like well here it
23:37
says there were two angels
23:39
and here there were three or whatever it
23:41
is and and then you ask about that and
23:43
it's either shut down
23:44
or they explain it away but not in a
23:46
really convincing way
23:48
and deep critical discussion about that
23:50
is not usually welcomed
23:52
and at least in the evangelical context
23:54
that i grew up in
23:55
you're never allowed to get to the place
23:57
where you admit
23:58
that this text is not perfect and not
24:01
only is it not perfect it has some like
24:03
serious flaws
24:04
that if it were any other text we would
24:07
notice those flaws immediately
24:10
like we're going to talk later about
24:12
violence in the bible
24:13
like a christian can read the quran
24:15
notice all the violence
24:17
and be horrified but somehow they read
24:19
the old testament
24:20
and they don't notice or they feel like
24:23
they can
24:23
easily explain it away when it's just as
24:26
bad
24:27
i mean from a totally unbiased
24:29
perspective there's no difference
24:31
and so if there had been more like
24:34
willingness to engage those questions as
24:35
i was learning what the bible was
24:38
i'd probably have a lot higher respect
24:39
for it now yeah yeah that
24:41
i mean i appreciate your honesty and it
24:43
also makes me sad to hear
24:45
you say the words you know you don't
24:47
have much respect for it as a sacred
24:49
text so
24:50
um but i appreciate the honesty so we've
24:53
talked about what the bible is
24:54
and the bible is different things to
24:55
different people let's talk about what
24:57
the bible is not because this is a
24:59
really important
25:00
thing to think about i think what what
25:02
the bible is not because we
25:04
we make it into all sorts of things that
25:06
things that it is not which you've been
25:07
speaking to a lot kyle but
25:09
um i think something good to hear here's
25:12
a way that i think
25:13
many christians see the bible
25:16
and when you say how did how did the
25:18
bible the inspiration of the bible
25:20
happen how did god give us his word
25:22
i'm going to just start talking in some
25:23
churchy language i think most people
25:25
when you close your eyes and you imagine
25:27
it
25:27
you imagine it being this like
25:30
beautifully
25:31
lowered book that's gift wrapped in the
25:34
most dazzling
25:35
white gift wrap you could ever imagine
25:37
with a golden
25:38
golden ribbon on it that's from heaven
25:40
itself you know and
25:42
it just slowly lands on the altar
25:45
before abraham and there's angels
25:48
singing
25:49
and there's a voice from god saying this
25:51
is my eternal word
25:53
read it and follow everything this is it
25:57
right i mean like i'm putting a little
25:59
cheese behind it a little drama
26:01
behind it but i think that's basically
26:02
what we think is that the bible is this
26:04
clean tidy perfect
26:06
word given from god to mankind so that
26:08
we can know everything that we need to
26:09
know about god everything that's in the
26:11
bible is
26:11
everything about god that that's to be
26:14
known right
26:15
and that's just not the case not even
26:18
close
26:18
i mean the bible is this messy
26:22
book that is has human hand prints
26:26
all over it every single page from front
26:27
to back it's
26:29
it's this book that is complex and
26:32
it's it's kind of a mess in some ways in
26:35
some places you're wondering what's
26:36
going on and in some
26:37
places you're wondering what god is
26:39
doing and what god isn't doing and why
26:40
he's doing something and why he's not
26:42
doing
26:42
another thing in some places you're you
26:45
actually have to actually say
26:47
if you have an honest reflection on the
26:49
bible if you have an honest approach to
26:51
the bible what the hell is going on here
26:53
this seems i've said this before and
26:55
i've gotten heat for it
26:57
but it seems in some ways more like a
26:58
game of thrones episode than it does
27:00
a holy scripture or holy text right
27:03
it's a messy thing this bible that we
27:05
have
27:07
yeah i mean it's funny if if if the old
27:09
testament in particular were
27:10
serialized in a television show it would
27:13
definitely be mature audiences
27:15
it would be like hbo level absolutely
27:18
yep
27:19
i remember my daughter was with some
27:22
family
27:23
who was reading some scripture reading
27:25
in genesis the account of cain and abel
27:28
and you know i haven't hadn't introduced
27:30
my daughter to the story of cain and
27:32
abel yet
27:33
for this reason of what happened but the
27:35
story of cain and abel is written
27:37
and my daughter's into it she's probably
27:40
nine at this point eight or nine and the
27:43
part comes where cain
27:44
kills abel and my daughter is horrified
27:48
she's she has brothers she loves her
27:51
brothers
27:52
and she she hears the story read and
27:54
she's she has this
27:55
vitriolic response to it of like he
27:57
killed him
27:58
and she's disturbed by it i love
28:02
watching kids response to things because
28:04
we get so anesthetized
28:06
and so used to the the the crazy
28:08
scandalous nature of some of these
28:09
stories
28:10
and then you watch a kid hear it for the
28:11
first time and you see oh yeah
28:14
that's a wild violent story i remember
28:16
the first time
28:17
well i don't remember like specifically
28:19
where i was or anything like that but i
28:20
remember it being like
28:21
a kind of shocking realization when i
28:24
thought
28:25
without the sort of blinders that i was
28:27
given about
28:29
the flood story and noah and what
28:32
actually happened
28:34
and because you know in in sunday school
28:36
or vbs or whatever
28:38
that's a that's a really common theme in
28:40
like
28:41
vacation bible school curricula and it's
28:44
always presented with rainbows and
28:45
happiness and the animals on the ark
28:47
so fun delightful and they just skip
28:50
right over the part where god
28:51
kills everybody he didn't have to
28:55
he chose to uh and then he picked
28:58
seemingly arbitrarily one family it's
29:01
like
29:01
you know build the boater you're gone
29:03
too so
29:05
recently a few years back my one of my
29:08
favorite film directors
29:09
darren aronofsky directed the the film
29:12
noah and i was super excited about it
29:14
both because i knew that he was into
29:16
like
29:16
jewish midrash and kabbalah and would do
29:19
it in a really interesting historical
29:20
way
29:21
but also because he's not a christian
29:24
and that is a terrifying story
29:26
and i would really like to see a
29:27
visualization of it that that keeps the
29:29
terror intact
29:30
and it really does so it was a really
29:32
successful film if you haven't seen it
29:34
and the bible's full of stuff like that
29:36
that we just don't notice anymore
29:38
because we were given a particular way
29:39
to read it
29:40
yep my only beef with it is that they
29:42
cast russell crowe as noah that was a
29:44
bit
29:46
i won't argue with you there but i love
29:49
you what i loved about that movie what i
29:51
really loved was
29:53
even knowing the story as well as you do
29:55
it was suspenseful
29:57
like i i didn't know what was going to
29:58
happen at the end yeah he's a great
30:00
filmmaker and that
30:01
i thought that was a good trick so when
30:03
we talk about what the bible isn't
30:04
let's also get this kind of out there
30:07
and this is just all our opinion
30:09
but the bible isn't a book that will
30:11
give you an answer to every single
30:12
question
30:13
or problem i feel like this is what many
30:16
christians
30:17
how many christians see the scriptures
30:19
as well is that it's this guidebook it's
30:21
a textbook
30:22
and everything that we have to know
30:24
about science everything that we know
30:25
have to know about ethics everything
30:26
that we have to know about morals
30:27
everything that we have to know about
30:28
life itself
30:29
how to handle ourselves during anything
30:32
it's got all the answers right in that
30:34
that's how what it was designed to be
30:36
actually that's what god meant it to be
30:38
as a book book of answers
30:40
for every human problem or question and
30:43
that's just not the case either
30:44
if the bible is way better than that
30:46
let's just be honest the bible is way
30:48
better than a book of answers and
30:49
solutions in
30:50
a textbook it's way better and way more
30:52
interesting thank god it's not that but
30:54
it's just not that
30:57
yeah i mean it's more like a novel than
30:59
it is like a textbook
31:00
oh it's not a novel but it's closer to
31:02
that yes
31:04
i mean the idea the way that we even
31:06
think about a textbook
31:08
as this like source manual for objective
31:10
facts about the world
31:12
those ideas didn't even exist like
31:14
people didn't think in that way
31:15
at the time of the writing of the bible
31:19
though those are all post-enlightenment
31:21
ideas the idea that
31:23
the world is this objective thing out
31:25
there that's represented in our minds
31:27
and that we can approach to find out how
31:29
it actually is
31:31
not the way that we look at it but how
31:32
it actually is with a method
31:35
which is which is what gives us the idea
31:37
of a textbook
31:38
that didn't even exist prior to about
31:40
the 17th century
31:42
yep yeah we introduced all sorts of
31:44
problems with our relationship with the
31:45
bible in last two to three hundred years
31:47
i would say
31:47
and let me just say as i say the bible
31:49
is messy the bible's not clean
31:52
tidy neat descended from heaven
31:55
with doves surrounding it i actually
31:57
think that's way better
31:59
i actually love that the bible is messy
32:01
i have some issues with some things in
32:02
there and that makes it a little more
32:04
a lot more complicated but the fact that
32:06
the bible is messy just speaks to the
32:07
way that god works
32:09
in reality as best i know it
32:12
in all ways and shapes and forms being a
32:15
human being is a messy
32:16
experience reality as we know it
32:20
is just one big mess it's beautiful
32:23
it's complex but it's messy it's not
32:27
clean
32:28
in our faith journey if you're honest
32:30
for most of us
32:31
it's a messy and complex thing our faith
32:34
journeys are
32:35
are nuanced and they change and they
32:38
morph
32:39
in what i believed five years ago i have
32:42
a nuance to it now or maybe i don't
32:43
believe that at all anymore
32:45
that's just reality for some of us we
32:47
have to keep it nice and
32:48
boxed in and tightly wrapped and you
32:51
know take all the edges off
32:52
and i would say mo for most of us that's
32:54
you'll come to the end of that
32:56
you gotta you gotta at least work really
32:57
hard to keep that nice tightly wrapped
32:59
theology
33:00
to make that work and you gotta believe
33:02
all sorts of different things about the
33:04
world but
33:04
for me the fact that the bible is messy
33:07
just speaks to the way
33:08
god works with humanity in general it's
33:11
kind of messy it's dirty it's gritty
33:13
but it's beautiful yeah and we're not
33:16
saying
33:17
anything super liberal here either so
33:20
unless it'd be you know understood as
33:22
this
33:24
sort of pie in the sky liberalism or
33:25
something like that i mean
33:28
we're not saying that the bible isn't a
33:30
good source of information
33:32
about a lot of things about god and that
33:34
you know it actually does have some
33:36
important insights on how to relate to
33:37
god
33:38
and maybe even what the world is like
33:39
fundamentally but it's not
33:41
it's not a source text to learn any the
33:44
answer to any question you might have
33:46
and this is not a liberal view in fact
33:49
if i can
33:50
quote here a well-known theologian who
33:52
is certainly no liberal
33:54
so n.t wright recently published an
33:56
op-ed
33:57
in time magazine which i loved it was
33:59
called christianity offers no answers
34:02
about the coronavirus
34:03
and a quote from that he says it is no
34:05
part of the christian vocation
34:07
to be able to explain what's happening
34:10
and why
34:10
in fact it is part of the christian
34:12
vocation
34:14
not to be able to explain and to lament
34:17
instead now we could dig in that could
34:20
be a whole episode on its own what he
34:21
means
34:21
by lament but i mean this is a paragon
34:24
of
34:24
conservative biblical scholarship now
34:27
many conservatives would say
34:28
mentee wright is absolutely liberal but
34:30
that's whatever okay
34:31
fine but to the rest of the world he's a
34:33
conservative
34:35
saying look that's just not what this
34:37
text is for
34:38
to treat it that way actually does
34:40
damage to the kind of document that it
34:42
is
34:42
yep yep absolutely so let's just brush
34:45
on
34:46
the eye words right do you know what i'm
34:48
talking about
34:49
the what in aaron c versus infallibility
34:51
right come on kyle
34:52
jeez you have you've gone way too far
34:55
into academia dude
34:58
that that's a distinction without a
34:59
difference as far as i'm concerned so
35:01
the fact that there's a debate about
35:03
that is kind of silly to me but but go
35:04
ahead
35:05
it's amazing actually yeah that's that's
35:07
a raging debate
35:08
but here's here's where we're going to
35:10
disappoint all those uh people who are
35:12
just like chomping at the bit wondering
35:13
where we land on inerrancy versus
35:15
infallibility
35:16
here's where i am i don't care
35:21
i just don't i feel like that's one of
35:23
those
35:25
old and mostly useless debates
35:28
that a lot of people in the church or a
35:30
lot of people who are done with the
35:32
church
35:32
are really just bored with it's just one
35:34
of those
35:35
things to argue about among christians
35:37
to separate ourselves to differentiate
35:39
ourselves to
35:41
judge one another to try to be right and
35:43
it's one of those arguments that i feel
35:45
like
35:45
you go so far down the rabbit hole you
35:47
don't even believe what you're saying
35:48
anymore but you're trying to actually
35:49
still prove your point right and i just
35:51
think that what is the
35:52
what is the argument what's the
35:54
difference inerrancy would be best
35:56
described as the bible is without
35:58
error in its original texts and it's an
35:59
original manuscripts
36:01
infallibility would be that the bible is
36:03
infallible
36:04
in communicating the purposes of god and
36:06
what god wanted what god wanted the
36:08
bible to communicate it does so
36:10
infallibly
36:11
right so let me see if i understand so
36:13
if you're an inerrantist on that
36:14
definition that you just gave
36:16
you could also admit that the bible was
36:18
not transmitted such
36:20
that its original message was perfectly
36:23
communicated
36:24
i think so probably i mean i'm far
36:26
enough out of that camp
36:27
that i don't remember exactly but i
36:29
think so that's the big caveat
36:30
is in its original manuscripts it's
36:32
inerrant it's without
36:33
error so yeah so from my
36:37
perspective totally outside these
36:38
debates that's almost not different
36:41
at all it's like a hair splitting kind
36:44
of thing but here's another good eye
36:46
word right
36:47
inerrancy infallibility but here's the
36:48
the real
36:50
the real nut to crack inspired or
36:53
inspiration
36:54
right first timothy says that all of god
36:57
all of the scriptures
36:58
is god breathed is inspired and useful
37:01
for correcting and rebuking and teaching
37:04
and all that stuff
37:05
what it what do you think that word
37:09
inspired by god the scriptures were
37:11
inspired by god what does that mean to
37:13
you
37:14
that's a great question i mean the the
37:16
honest answer is i don't know
37:17
it's the best and probably only answer
37:21
yeah i mean i i know that inspiration as
37:24
a concept is just taken from something
37:26
paul said
37:27
it's god breathed no idea what that
37:29
means
37:30
paul didn't elaborate on what that means
37:34
and also as we're going to see later i
37:36
don't feel bound to view the text in the
37:38
way that paul viewed the text
37:39
so my approach to the bible does not
37:41
commit me to
37:42
accepting as authoritative any opinions
37:45
of its authors so paul could have been
37:48
wrong
37:49
about it being god-breathed for for all
37:51
i know
37:52
so when i think about inspiration what
37:54
i'm thinking about is
37:55
is there anything that makes this text
37:57
special
37:57
[Music]
37:59
special in the sense of it gives
38:02
unique access to god or maybe not even
38:04
unique
38:05
it gives access to god in in ways
38:08
that not just any text would and i think
38:11
the answer to that is probably yeah
38:13
but i think probably also because it
38:15
tells us about jesus
38:16
and jesus is god so in that sense any
38:19
text about
38:20
jesus would give us the kind of access
38:23
to god that the bible does
38:25
and that by the way includes some texts
38:26
that are not in the bible
38:28
so for example the gospel of thomas i
38:31
take to be
38:32
more or less on the same level as far as
38:34
inspiration as
38:35
some of the stuff that made it into the
38:36
new testament it just gives us access to
38:38
that guy jesus
38:39
but it wasn't canonized and that's a
38:42
historical accident as far as i can tell
38:44
so inspiration to me comes down to does
38:47
this
38:48
text actually make space for a human
38:50
being
38:51
to encounter the presence in the spirit
38:53
of god
38:55
and it seems like often the answer for
38:57
the bible is yes but in many other cases
38:59
the answer is
39:00
no and the answer is not the same for
39:03
all of the texts in the bible
39:05
yeah i mean when i think of
39:08
something being inspired or god breathed
39:12
i go back to the to the upper room where
39:15
the disciples are
39:16
you know post-crucifixion and not post
39:19
resurrection even though they don't know
39:20
it and all of a sudden jesus just shows
39:21
up in the room
39:23
and they're all blown away and they're
39:25
all emotional and they're all
39:26
like don't know what to think probably
39:28
some of them are wondering if this is an
39:29
aberration or a ghost or
39:31
the real deal whatever all this stuff
39:33
and if you remember
39:35
it says that jesus breathed on them
39:39
and it didn't it's not that they all
39:41
turned perfect when jesus breathed on
39:43
them
39:44
but he breathed on them for this purpose
39:46
and
39:48
for me this scripture as being god
39:50
breathed to me sounds like god breathing
39:52
on this
39:53
on this process on this on these
39:56
writings and empowering in some way
39:58
and inspiring in some way and
40:01
really i think this inspiration of the
40:04
scriptures is an
40:05
ongoing thing because i believe that the
40:07
holy spirit
40:08
is an ongoing ever-present counselor
40:11
guide equipper
40:12
you name it and so i think part of the
40:14
inspiration of scriptures comes down to
40:16
our engagement with it
40:17
and the spirit's testimony back to us
40:19
does this make sense what i'm saying
40:21
and so inspiration of the scriptures
40:23
happened
40:24
probably maybe as it was writing i've
40:26
had moments where i felt
40:27
inspired you know really and i'm not
40:30
saying that i
40:31
couldn't write some scriptures not that
40:32
inspired but i've had moments where i
40:34
feel like the holy spirit is speaking to
40:35
me and through me
40:37
and then i have had all sorts of moments
40:38
where it's just pure randy and i
40:40
and i think that's how when we think
40:42
about the inspiration of the scriptures
40:43
too many of us think of
40:44
marionettes or puppets that god just
40:47
kind of the holy spirit
40:48
embodies and comes into in just every
40:51
single word
40:52
is the word of god from god from the
40:53
spirit and all of a sudden
40:55
they they put down their pen and whoa
40:57
that was weird you know
40:58
that's not at all how i think that
41:00
happened as a matter of fact just read
41:02
the new testament
41:03
paul didn't think he was writing the
41:04
scriptures he just thought he was
41:05
writing
41:06
to these churches in the early church in
41:08
asia minor in
41:09
you know in the middle east he thought
41:12
he was just writing to correct some
41:13
things and to do all these things
41:15
over the course of time we see that as
41:16
inspired over the course of time we see
41:18
this as
41:19
important and more important than other
41:21
books and i think that even that
41:23
canonization process
41:24
could have been and probably was
41:25
inspired by the holy spirit guided by
41:27
the holy spirit shaped
41:28
in and moved by the holy spirit do i
41:31
think that was a perfect process
41:33
not at all do i think that was inspired
41:35
by god and intentionally happened in
41:37
some way shape or form
41:38
for sure so i think inspiration of
41:41
scripture is a thing that's been it's
41:42
not a static
41:43
thing it's a dynamic thing it was
41:46
happening
41:46
and it still is happening god
41:49
illuminating the scriptures to us
41:50
through the holy spirit
41:51
yeah yeah that appeals more to me i mean
41:53
the most the most inspirational
41:56
use of scripture that i've experienced
41:57
has always occurred in the context of
41:59
the community getting together to talk
42:01
about
42:02
some aspect of them and to let it inform
42:05
their own experience with
42:06
with the holy spirit and i have had a
42:09
handful of
42:10
experiences with groups of people like
42:12
that
42:13
that i'd be fine calling inspired
42:15
because i felt like god was there
42:18
you know literally there in her midst
42:20
and that that was evidenced by all the
42:21
fruits of the spirit that you see listed
42:23
in
42:24
in the new testament if that's what
42:25
inspiration is then i have i have no
42:27
trouble believing that something similar
42:28
happened in the early church
42:30
at the time that these documents were
42:31
written and disseminated
42:33
i have a harder time thinking that
42:36
whatever inspiration means it's
42:38
something qualitatively different than
42:40
anything
42:40
any current christian could experience
42:43
interesting that
42:44
seems just unmotivated
42:47
to me okay and also not really what you
42:49
find in the text itself
42:50
sure i mean i think and i say i think
42:52
because you know i haven't thought about
42:54
this much but i think i disagree with
42:55
you there
42:56
i think the scriptures there's some
42:58
things that god
42:59
says i want to make sure that this has
43:01
my life on it
43:02
more than others something this document
43:04
that's been passed down this
43:05
library of books that's been passed down
43:07
for millennia makes sense to me that
43:09
there'd be a little bit extra special
43:10
sauce on that thing
43:11
but i don't know would you say it's a
43:13
different dispensation
43:15
oh no i did not say that thanks for
43:17
asking and clarifying that
43:20
we'll go into that in another episode or
43:22
not or not or we won't ever
43:24
yeah thank you good
43:27
so we talked about what is the bible
43:29
bible's different things for different
43:30
people
43:32
what isn't the bible we've talked about
43:34
the big
43:35
i words inerrancy infallibility
43:37
inspiration all that
43:39
let's talk about perhaps how to approach
43:42
your
43:43
what i would say hold the bible this is
43:45
the way that a more contemplative way of
43:47
how do we hold this how do we how do we
43:49
approach the bible how do we see it how
43:50
do we
43:51
hold all of the stuff all of the mess
43:54
all of the genres
43:55
all of the authors all of the problems
43:58
with it all the contradictions
44:00
all the violence all the beauty all the
44:02
goodness all the inspiration
44:04
how do we how do we hold it and approach
44:05
it what's a healthier way to do that
44:08
oh my goodness um maybe it's best that i
44:11
go first i'll say all the
44:12
the liberal um potentially heretical
44:16
things
44:16
faith shattering definitely heretical
44:18
not potentially heretical things
44:20
and then you can you can bring it you
44:22
can reel it back in got it
44:24
good good plan so
44:27
i i often when i'm teaching intro to
44:30
philosophy
44:32
to illustrate the difference between
44:34
philosophy and religion
44:35
because a lot of students come in
44:37
assuming that they're more or less the
44:38
same thing
44:39
depending on you know the faith
44:41
tradition that they have
44:43
and i still have family members who
44:44
think that i do some kind of ministry
44:47
or that i do some kind of theology or
44:50
religious thinking
44:51
oh bless your heart super super common
44:54
uh among a lot of church traditions in
44:56
the united states to see philosophy as
44:58
kind of an arm of
44:59
theology or something like that so the
45:01
way i
45:02
distinguish it from my students and i
45:04
rely here on the philosopher named
45:05
bertrand russell
45:06
who was an atheist for for what it's
45:08
worth there's
45:10
there's something that religion has that
45:12
philosophy
45:13
does not and that thing is authority
45:16
particularly intellectual authority
45:20
so in every revealed religious tradition
45:23
that i'm aware of
45:24
there is some kind of authority
45:26
structure
45:27
and what that means is there's some
45:31
point it might be a person it might be a
45:33
group of people
45:34
it might be a text or a particular
45:36
interpretation of a text
45:38
but there's some point that everyone in
45:40
that community traces their beliefs back
45:42
to
45:43
and that's where the buck stops so if
45:46
you're catholic and the pope
45:48
declares let's say it's an official
45:50
ex-cathedra declaration
45:51
or a papal bull or something you know
45:54
this is the case
45:56
then if i'm a catholic my intellectual
45:59
responsibility my obligation
46:01
is to believe that thing if if i'm not a
46:04
catholic i'm any christian
46:06
it's not open to me to disagree with
46:08
jesus
46:09
if jesus says this is what god is like
46:11
then if i'm a christian jesus is my
46:14
authority so it's not open to me to
46:15
disagree with that this is true in every
46:17
religion they're just about every
46:19
everything that gets classed as a
46:20
religion there's some kind of authority
46:22
structure
46:22
that doesn't exist in philosophy we
46:25
don't have authorities
46:26
uh the the only author the only
46:28
authority is your own reason
46:30
though the whole tradition of western
46:31
philosophy since socrates
46:33
began as a kind of
46:36
rational critique of religious authority
46:39
so
46:40
i'm in kind of a weird position when a
46:42
book is presented to me as authoritative
46:45
and yet i'm committed intellectually and
46:49
i believe morally
46:50
to an approach to knowledge that is
46:53
anti-authority
46:55
from its in its dna anti-authority so
46:58
that means i don't take the bible or any
47:00
other text as authoritative
47:02
over my beliefs i don't take the
47:04
testimony of any individual
47:06
as authoritative over my beliefs in fact
47:08
i think it's irrational and ultimately
47:10
incoherent to do so
47:12
so this this puts me on a very different
47:14
footing than than most christians
47:16
approaching the bible but i don't think
47:17
it removes its value entirely
47:20
and so there's a way that i have found
47:22
of approaching the text that i find very
47:24
helpful and i actually draw it from an
47:25
evangelical an evangelical
47:27
uh paragon of evangelical theology john
47:30
wesley
47:31
shout out to wesley yeah now i don't
47:33
accept it in the way that he said it
47:35
because he's not an authority for me
47:36
either
47:38
but i'm stealing i'm stealing the idea
47:40
from him uh and it's
47:41
it's come to be called the wesleyan
47:43
quadrilateral
47:44
and it's this idea that wesley had which
47:47
is remarkably progressive i think
47:49
that the way you should do theology and
47:52
forgive me my wesleyan friends if i'm
47:54
butchering this but
47:56
the way you should do theology has kind
47:58
of four parts to it or you might view it
48:00
as
48:01
your faith is a stool with four legs and
48:04
one of those legs
48:05
is the bible so the the revealed text
48:08
of sacred scripture another of those
48:11
legs is tradition
48:13
what people in your tradition and it
48:15
might even be your local tradition but
48:17
it might be the tradition all the way
48:18
back to the beginning of the church
48:20
what what other christians have
48:21
understood about that text
48:23
and about god that's tradition but then
48:25
he said there's two other legs though
48:27
there's experience
48:29
so wesley is very famous for making your
48:32
experience of god central
48:34
to the you know what christianity ought
48:37
to be
48:38
so there's your experience and then
48:39
there's also reason
48:42
and these things need to be in agreement
48:44
now where i part from wesley is he would
48:47
he put most of the emphasis still on the
48:49
bible right that's the big wheel
48:50
he was it wasn't soulless scripture uh
48:52
so much as primo scripture
48:54
the bible is the most important thing
48:57
and then all those other things have to
48:58
agree with it
49:00
uh and when they do then you have a
49:01
robust theology but when they don't you
49:04
should defer to scripture
49:05
i would modify that because i'm a
49:07
philosopher and say
49:09
no in fact the reason and experienced
49:12
legs of the stool carry most of the
49:14
weight
49:15
there's very many reasons for that we
49:17
can get into some more of them maybe in
49:18
the next episode
49:19
but for me the bible is authoritative
49:23
only in the same sense
49:24
that the rest of my experience conformed
49:27
to my reason
49:29
is authoritative so i think about the
49:32
bible
49:32
as a kind of evidence it's
49:36
it's a set of evidence a set of really
49:38
good evidence i think
49:40
about what god is like but it's not the
49:42
only set of evidence
49:43
there's lots of other evidence and i
49:44
have to wait as a rational person with
49:46
my own set of experiences i have to
49:48
weigh it
49:49
against those other sets of evidence and
49:51
i'm still a christian partially because
49:53
i think it gives me good
49:55
and undefeated evidence
49:58
about what god is really like but
50:01
viewing it in that way does not mean
50:02
that i have to take all of it
50:04
to be totally accurate and it and it
50:07
it also means that anything i find in it
50:10
can be overcome by better evidence
50:12
just like i live the rest of my life so
50:15
it's kind of a scientific or forensic
50:17
approach to the bible i guess
50:19
but i find it to be very helpful and it
50:20
helps me deal with a lot of really
50:22
questions that are really controversial
50:24
for for a lot of other christians that i
50:26
don't think actually need to be
50:27
controversial because often we're we're
50:30
using the bible as though it gives
50:32
better evidence than it does
50:34
about a lot of issues so if we want to
50:37
get really nerdy about it i i think of
50:38
this as kind of
50:40
my own copernican turn here's what that
50:42
means so there's a
50:44
philosopher named immanuel kant who
50:47
is famous for always famous for a lot of
50:50
things but
50:50
the main thing he's famous for in the
50:52
history of philosophy
50:54
is taking the emphasis of philosophers
50:57
away from
50:58
metaphysics which means trying to figure
51:01
out the way the world really is
51:03
fundamentally on its own
51:05
and putting the emphasis instead on
51:09
what is the structure of the mind like
51:12
such that we have the experiences that
51:15
we do
51:16
and he said look a lot of the problems
51:18
that philosophers are dealing with and
51:20
not making any progress on
51:22
in metaphysics what is the world really
51:24
like those problems
51:26
are due to the fact that they think they
51:28
can get out of their own
51:31
minds that they think they can actually
51:34
access the way the world really is on
51:36
its own
51:38
and they're missing the fact that
51:40
they're limited
51:42
by the structure of their own
51:43
experiences
51:45
and so for kant all i could really know
51:48
anything about it all
51:50
is how things appear to me he called
51:52
this the phenomenal
51:53
world and it's the whole world it's
51:56
everything that we can access
51:58
you can't actually know anything about
51:59
the world as it exists outside of
52:02
the way that it appears to you and so
52:05
uh for some basic philosophical reasons
52:07
my experience and my reason
52:10
are primary even if i think i'm
52:13
accessing something
52:14
out there in the real world i'm still
52:16
accessing it through the
52:18
forms of the structures of my mind that
52:21
allow me to
52:22
access that kind of information and so
52:25
for that very abstract reason
52:27
i just can't get on board with the idea
52:29
that
52:30
the bible could be ultimately
52:32
authoritative because
52:34
i can understand it in one way somebody
52:36
else can understand it in a different
52:38
way that contradicts the way that i
52:39
understand it
52:41
and there's no way to access the
52:44
objective reality about it
52:46
because i can't step outside of my
52:48
interpretive
52:49
experience and they can't step outside
52:51
of theirs and so we're stuck
52:53
what do we do and and that's the end of
52:56
the story as far as far as i can tell
52:58
it's very
52:58
kind of disappointing end of the story
53:00
but like nobody can actually ascend to
53:02
the god's eye view of things and say
53:04
here's the correct interpretation
53:06
so and he called that the copernican
53:08
turn because he says it's kind of like
53:10
what happened with copernicus
53:12
because everybody up to copernicus had
53:14
been assuming that the earth was
53:16
stationary
53:17
and that everything moved around it and
53:19
then they were trying to figure out why
53:20
stuff moved the way it did with that
53:21
assumption
53:22
and they failed and then copernicus said
53:24
well what if we assume
53:26
that we move too that we're the thing
53:28
that's moving and that stuff out there
53:30
is stationary
53:31
it turns the focus back on us that's
53:33
what khan did and i think that's what we
53:34
have to do with the bible if we're going
53:35
to use it
53:36
responsibly so for all
53:40
you beloved conservatives out there who
53:43
are throwing kyle
53:45
out there to the heretical wolves i'll
53:47
just you can do that if you want but
53:48
i'll just encourage you
53:50
to i'll just ask you can we
53:54
hold different views of the scripture
53:56
fundamentally different
53:58
ways that make us a little bit insecure
53:59
even
54:01
and ways that offend us a little bit
54:04
and can we hold that space together can
54:07
we do
54:08
what the scriptures tell us which is
54:11
walk and live in the way of agape love
54:13
rather than walking in the way of being
54:15
right
54:17
so i'll just encourage you to to live
54:19
into
54:20
that way that jesus and the apostles
54:22
encouraged us to which
54:24
is to say i'm not going to throw you to
54:26
the heretical wolves i'm going to love
54:27
you
54:28
i'm going to listen and i'm going to ask
54:30
the holy spirit for some
54:31
guidance and direction along the way
54:34
already there randy you're putting more
54:36
weight on your experience and your
54:37
reason than you are
54:38
oh shut up kyle because uh
54:42
most of christian tradition it would
54:43
have been the right and recommended
54:44
thing to do to literally throw me to the
54:46
wolves
54:47
there you go there you go good good good
54:50
i like it so let's uh why don't you reel
54:53
it back in
54:56
tell us maybe a more moderate take on
54:59
what do you think a healthy way to
55:00
approach the bible is
55:01
sure for a long time i was i got
55:05
fairly uncomfortable with referring to
55:06
the scriptures as the word of god
55:09
that's the way a lot of christians refer
55:11
to the scriptures the word of god
55:13
and you could argue that the scriptures
55:15
at some point refer to itself as the
55:16
word of god or
55:18
the writers of the scriptures do now
55:20
what the writers of scriptures were
55:21
referring to is the old testament
55:23
because they didn't have the new
55:24
testament at that point but that's not
55:26
the point
55:27
my point is the reason that i got
55:28
uncomfortable with referring to the
55:30
scriptures of the word of god is because
55:32
the apostle john
55:33
the beloved disciple he when he would
55:36
talk about the word of god if you would
55:37
say what's the word of god
55:38
to john he would say well duh the word
55:41
of god is jesus
55:43
jesus is the divine logos jesus is the
55:46
divine word of god
55:49
case closed end of story that's it and
55:52
so
55:52
for me i think that holds so much weight
55:57
that jesus is the divine word of god
56:01
and jesus is the absolute authority and
56:04
foundation of our faith
56:05
not the scriptures if we can just get
56:07
that straight i think that'd be really
56:09
really helpful
56:10
jesus is the end-all be-all for our
56:13
faith not the scriptures and i know
56:14
that's kind of a horse cart situation
56:17
which you know we we know about jesus
56:18
because of the scriptures blah blah blah
56:20
i get it
56:21
but i think that we should listen to
56:24
jesus words again
56:25
he's talking to the modern day church
56:27
the
56:28
or the the ancient church the the jewish
56:30
people and he's saying you guys read the
56:31
scriptures
56:32
the scriptures testify to me i'm
56:34
standing right in front of you
56:36
and you don't you don't have enough
56:38
sense to recognize
56:39
that i'm in the word of god standing
56:41
right in front of you right so i think
56:42
we'd do well to
56:44
in the way we approach the bible is that
56:46
jesus is the foundation and the
56:47
authority of our faith
56:49
period case closed and now we look to
56:51
the scriptures to illuminate
56:53
who jesus is now we look to the
56:55
scriptures to illuminate
56:56
like you called the scriptures more of a
56:58
novel and i love that idea because to me
57:01
the scriptures is this grand
57:03
meta narrative told over the course of
57:05
66 books if you're a protestant more if
57:08
you're orthodox or catholic
57:10
but it's this narrative that says that
57:13
god
57:13
the god of the universe the creator god
57:16
who's existed for all time
57:19
he just wants to share himself the
57:21
father son holy spirit the divine life
57:23
wants to share itself
57:24
so badly that it's going to create a
57:26
people that they could have as their own
57:28
and even though sin and rebellion and
57:32
all the garbage of humanity started to
57:34
happen and spin out of control
57:36
this divine life father son spirit this
57:39
trinitarian god
57:40
wouldn't settle for not having his
57:42
people and he went all the way
57:44
to sacrificing his very self god
57:48
becomes a human and god dies and is
57:50
executed
57:51
and is resurrected back to life that
57:53
narrative that met a narrative
57:55
within the scriptures that we find that
57:57
to me
57:58
is the most beautiful thing that i could
58:00
imagine and so
58:02
i want to see the bible for the
58:03
meta-narrative that it is
58:05
not get lost in the weeds so much i can
58:07
have a lot of fun with a lot of
58:09
exegetical study i mean shoot we just
58:11
studied our way through ecclesiastes as
58:12
a church a couple of months ago
58:14
it was a good time as a matter of fact
58:15
if you have issues with what kyle's
58:17
bringing
58:17
go to read ecclesiastes and then email
58:19
us when you're done
58:22
another way i think that's really
58:24
helpful and healthy
58:26
to see the scriptures especially when we
58:28
get caught up in the things like the
58:30
violence of the scriptures and god
58:31
telling
58:32
his people to kill everybody man woman
58:35
and child
58:37
it's this thing that theologians and
58:39
scholars call a cruciform way of seeing
58:41
the scriptures
58:42
and cruciform way of seeing the
58:43
scriptures just means that i'm going to
58:45
interpret my
58:46
my hermeneutic my method of
58:48
interpretation of how i'm
58:50
going to take in the scriptures and
58:51
understand them is in
58:53
and through the filter of the cross that
58:56
the cross of christ
58:57
is the greatest representation in
58:59
revelation of who god is and what god is
59:02
like you can't get any more of a clear
59:03
picture
59:04
of god hanging on a cross for the sake
59:06
of humanity
59:07
that's who god is for once and for all
59:10
and now we see the rest of the
59:11
scriptures through the crucified god
59:13
hanging on a cross and we everything has
59:17
to has to
59:18
work out from that point that i think
59:21
is a really beautiful and potentially
59:22
more healthy way to see the scriptures
59:24
and
59:24
in a way to engage with the scriptures
59:27
in a more
59:28
fundamental and foundational way that we
59:30
can actually have some some
59:32
character and integrity that the fullest
59:34
revelation of who god is was revealed in
59:36
that moment
59:36
and we see everything else through that
59:39
method and we'll talk more about that in
59:40
the next episode and something else that
59:41
we'll talk more about in the next
59:42
episode that
59:43
has been helpful for me is this idea
59:46
it's not my idea i mean i all of us
59:48
steal everything from everyone anyways
59:51
but this idea that god let his people
59:53
tell his story
59:55
that to me is a obvious
59:59
and be fascinating
60:03
that the god of the universe the divine
60:05
life
60:06
that god let his people tell our god's
60:09
story and the story of
60:11
god in humanity gets told by the by
60:13
god's people who
60:15
all you got to do is open up the book
60:16
and you're you're in the library and
60:18
you're going to find
60:19
god's people get it wrong a lot right
60:22
and they interpret things
60:23
in all sorts of wonky ways and they have
60:26
all sorts of wrong unders
60:27
wrong ideas and understandings and they
60:29
go their separate ways from that god
60:31
all the time and yet god has seen
60:35
fit to let his people tell the story
60:37
tell
60:38
god's story that to me is fascinating
60:40
and it's also
60:42
super helpful when we tackle the things
60:44
that we're going to tackle in our next
60:45
episode
60:46
things like patriarchy in the bible
60:49
things like sexism and misogyny in the
60:50
bible things like violence in the bible
60:52
all sorts of things god actually let his
60:56
people tell a story and that just seems
60:58
like the way again god works on earth
61:01
is through humanity through his people
61:04
who are broken
61:05
and messed up sinful they get it we get
61:08
it wrong more than we get it right and
61:09
god
61:10
has seen fit to have his people
61:14
bring about his new creation right in
61:16
some way shape or form that we are the
61:18
ones who are supposed to actually bring
61:20
redemption
61:22
to all of the world and that to me
61:25
just speaks of a god who is if he's
61:28
going to do that with his church he's
61:29
probably going to do that with the
61:30
scriptures as well
61:31
that just makes all sorts of sense but
61:33
we'll get more into that in our next
61:35
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61:36
episode
61:38
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