Baptist News Global: Why Such a Need for Literalism?

 Rodney Kennedy: Why Such a Need for Literalism?

I saw this in  Baptist News Global which is an excellent site if you are looking for a solid, spirit-led approach to Christian faith and practice.  It resonated. I strongly recommend that you read the whole piece.  It won't take that long and he nails it.  

Arguments for living out a genuine Christian faith cannot begin with the assumption that the inspiration of the Bible's writers meant that God used their hands to write his word without filtering anything through their mind.  There is no place, not even the favorite prooftexts of those who make the claim, that the Bible's writers lay claim to infallibility, in the way that we define that term, or even inerrancy, as we define that term, and that it is meant to be interpreted literally, according to the context of our life, education, language and experience.  It is not a holy rule book set on the shelf, with select verses (divisions that are not part of the original text, by the way) in categories for dealing with human problems.  

As Kennedy says in this piece, literalism has led to "awful" ideas such as how immigrants should be treated, discrimination against women and minorities, insisting women can't be ordained as pastors (I read people who use the defense, "it says so in the Bible"), screaming about being "woke", which is a genuine awareness of the lack of equality and justice among minorities in a predominantly white society, Critical Race Theory, Replacement Theory, white supremacy, anti-science and in my opinion, the worst product of biblical literalism and of the merger of religious fundamentalism with right wing politics, white, Christian nationalism.  

Those who insist on literalism have, according to Kennedy, substituted a literal Bible for God, they have replaced God with words about God.  I know the church creeds by heart, that claim the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are the "sole authority for the faith and practice of the church."  The Bible's writers don't make that claim, in fact, they provide ample instruction in faith and practice being directed as a work of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  The "sole authority" claim is a trademark of the conservative Evangelical war on the Catholic church, which includes church tradition and the papal succession as ecclesiastical authority.  

I also recommend Kennedy's book.  Check the link. 

The Immaculate Mistake