We should desacralize, critically consider what Bible says

 

I believe I could make a case for why the Bible is sacred to so many. I could write pages about the beauty and majesty of so many parts of scripture.
It would be easy to lay out a position that millions of human lives have been changed in a positive and lifesaving way from reading what so many have called Holy Writ.
At other times I have done that. And doubtless I will do it again.
But my goal here is to set forth what I deem a valid contention: The Bible should be desacralized.
There is evidence for showing that the Bible as sacred scripture has produced as much harm as good in human history. Perceptions that millions of people have internalized through the ages from reading these scriptures have legitimized some of the most horrendous evils one can imagine.
Much has been written over the years about how certain scriptures, when read literally as God’s word, have spawned immense wickedness. Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong detailed in The Sins of Scripture hundreds of scriptures that have been used to sanction injustices toward women, gay people, Jews, the environment and even children.
It would be easy to affirm that the vast majority of these scriptures lent themselves to being easily distorted. Nonetheless, the damage was done.
It might be helpful to ask how the Bible attained its status as sacred, and to many millions of people, as absolute. I think the answer isn’t complicated.
The majority of Bible readers may imagine that the Bible “came down” to us directly from God, as God’s eternal and immutable word. They have thought of it as sacrosanct and unassailable. It is as though God dictated it and supervised its transcription.
I believe that is illusory, purely and simply. Certainly there is no way I can prove that, and I don’t intend to try. It is even difficult for me to write such a statement.
For many years I simply took it for granted that “this is the word of the Lord.” Because this belief was so ingrained and fixed, it took many years of contemplation, evaluation and study to reach a different opinion. I believe that’s true of a large number of people.
I reached the conviction that the Bible represented very basically the history of a human search for the holy, the transcendent. It was written by fallible, error-prone human beings, writing in numerous genres of literature.
The Bible represents the thoughts of people living first in nomadic and tribal settings, before settling in agricultural societies. These writings represent the reasoning and perceptions of ancient cultures and reflect their evolving social, political and religious ideas over a thousand year span.
So the Bible, cherished and revered by more than a billion people, has achieved a sacred status. Because of this standing, multitudes of people accept it unequivocally and absolutely. There are great perils in doing that.
Claims of inerrancy and infallibility for this human creation have led, as I have pointed out, to immense injustices through history. Absolute truth claims made for the Bible have brought disastrous results.
For these reasons I believe the Bible should undergo a process of desacralization within the church. Such a procedure would open the door for and give people permission to question and debate with and confront the writers (even Paul). They could challenge assumptions, question axioms, re-examine long-held theories and maintain open dialogue.
What a healthy and liberating occurrence that would be! It already is for me.