How to Be Miserable in Your Christian Life
Chapter Two: How to Deal with the Bible
(Section Three: Reading the Bible through a Political Filter)
Now a quick look at political
filters. Like most steps to Christian misery, this is pretty easy. In our
hyper-politicized world, most of us already think in political terms about any
issue that might arise. We can classify anything that confronts us as “liberal”
or “conservative,” “left” or “right.” This easy categorization is a great and
helpful trait, because it enables us to see everything in the harsh light of
black-and-white terms. And the wonderful thing about seeing things in black and
white is that you can be absolutely certain that you are right, and that
everyone else is wrong. And there’s something comforting to that.
This politicization can even extend
to Christian theology. In some circles, even the slightest hint of doubt about
the most debated and peripheral of doctrines can immediately (and helpfully!)
label someone as “too liberal.” Meanwhile, in other circles, even toeing the
line of suggesting that a person’s identity might not be entirely definable by
their own whims is enough to handily classify someone as being “too
conservative.”
It’s pretty
easy to do this to the Bible, too. Let me throw out a random list of doctrines,
any one of which might claim some kind of biblical support (to a greater or
lesser degree), and let’s see if you can correctly identify them as liberal or
conservative. Just try to imagine which one of the major parties you might hear
plugging each of the following principles. (Please note: the author makes no
claim to believe or disbelieve any of the following; I simply use them here to
illustrate how easy it is for someone to liberalize or conservativize the
Bible, according to their taste. Obviously, I only believe the doctrines below
that are truly biblical and sensible,
just like you.)
(1)
One of our main jobs as human beings is to tend
to the environment and care for God’s created order, so environmentalism should be a major concern of Christian political activity (Gen. 2:15).
(2)
The unborn are living human beings, each one
intentionally created by a loving God, so abortion should not be legal (Psalm 139:13-16).
(3)
You should love all immigrants, treat them like
native-born citizens, and actively offer all the help and resources they might
require (Lev. 19:33-34; Deut. 10:18-19; 14:28-29).
(4)
Marriage is a sacred institution originally
intended for the union of a man and a woman, and so it is not within the
purview of human governments to rewrite the meaning of marriage (Gen. 2:22-24).
(5)
Redistributive socialism is an acceptable method
of organizing a Christian society (Acts 2:44-45).
(6)
Government’s rightful place is in securing order
and justice, but it has overstepped its bounds if its legislation impinges on
an individual’s freedom to obey God (Rom. 13:1-7, Acts 4:18-20).
(7)
God cares deeply about the plight of the poor,
so the alleviation of poverty ought to be one of the leading concerns of
Christians’ engagement in political life (Psalm 12:5, James 2:5).
(8)
Homosexuality is a symptom of the deep way that
human society has been affected by our common sinfulness, and is not something
to be celebrated (Rom. 1:21-2:1).
(9)
Christians should love their enemies, and are
commanded not even to resist an evil person through the use of force, so they
should not make the right to possess weapons a part of their political platform
(Matt. 5:39).
(10) Appropriate sexual behavior is a matter of divine
law, not personal taste, social convention, or human legal traditions (1 Cor.
6:12-20).
Pretty easy, right? In our current
American political climate, all the odd numbered teachings are usually
trumpeted by one political camp, and all the evens by another. You’ll find some
crossover here and there, but the main talking-points of the parties generally
fall squarely along those odd/even lines. As I’m sure you must have realized as
you worked through the list, the set of numbers that you already agree with are
clearly the correct interpretations of Scripture, which means that the other
set of numbers must be spurious readings of the holy text. After all, who would
be wild enough to suggest that all of
these biblical-political assertions might have some claim to validity? That
would render our black-and-white political platforms ridiculous. And one thing
we can be sure of is that our American political life is never shortsighted,
narrow, or ridiculous.
Since we’re already so good at
sorting everything we see into political categories and ignoring the parts we
don’t agree with, this kind of political filter is one of the most helpful ways
of reading the Bible. It prevents Scripture from challenging our preconceived
ideas and settled positions, ensuring that we can remain safely ensconced in
our cocoon of happy moral certainty.
Ironically, this will actually
maximize your Christian misery. This is because, by using this method, you are
essentially muting the possibility of the Holy Spirit speaking to you about
areas where you could grow, where you could deepen your faith, understanding,
and love for those with differing opinions. Such growth in compassion and depth
of perception has, in my humble experience, led to a diminishment in the
experience of the miserable life.
However, if you end up going down
the dark road toward letting Scripture shape your politics (rather than the
reverse), you can sometimes still save your misery by giving up in the name of
relativism. This helpful tactic, unlike the black-and-white perspective we
talked about earlier, is unwilling to see any gradations or context at all, and
insists on seeing all issues in a uniform shade of gray.
Perhaps, as you looked over the
list of possible biblical doctrines above, you wanted to throw up your hands
and say, “Well, then if all of this is in the Bible, then we can’t know
anything for sure! Let’s just throw in the towel on politics and biblical
certainty!” If that was your impulse, then run with it. If you can convince
yourself that everything is relative, and that nothing is certain, then you
have once again found an easy way to slip into that sweet spot of not having to
stretch your spiritual and intellectual imagination in ways that might tend
towards personal growth.
Whatever you do, absolutely do not
enter into dialogue with Christians who may have differing perspectives from
you. It’s just a bad idea. You already know that you have everything right; so
you don’t need to listen to them. The more you can keep yourself in the comfort
zone of absolute moral certainty (or, if you’re so inclined, absolute moral
relativism), the more you’ll be able to gloss over things in Scripture that you
might not want to think about, and the more you’ll be able to tune out the
nagging voice of the Holy Spirit. On the road of Christian misery, that’s the
fast lane to success.
A Final (but Dangerous) Method
If all of
the above strategies for limiting the Bible’s capacity to affect your misery
end up not working for you, there’s one last recourse. It’s simple, but not
many people can do it successfully: you could study the Bible in all of its
depth, and then just not do what it asks you to do. It takes some perseverance,
but that road will definitely maximize your Christian misery. Knowing the will
of God, and then willfully ignoring it—it takes a good deal of guts and a
fundamental absence of wisdom—but if you can do it, you’ll be miserable for
sure.