Unchain God

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The greatest foolishness that occurred in our spiritual life was that we decided to chain God to the Scripture. Refuting the ineffable nature of the Divine we endeavoured to ghettoize the mystery in human verbiage. The focus was drifted towards achieving a common consensus rather than fostering the plenitude of possibilities. The written word usurped the Incarnated Word; closed ended definitions gained prominence over open ended quests. We presumed that a peripheral reading of the Bible would aid our spirituality because studying it was strenuous. Memorizing and quoting scriptural references became a competition item for the Sunday school kids because deciphering the scripture would compel them to ask disturbing questions which we fear might endanger the magisterium. Thus we created a bubble and propagated a safe yet false narrative that knowing the scripture and knowing God is the same. Nadia Bolz-Weber eruditely reckons;

I can't imagine that the God of the universe is limited to our ideas of God. I can't imagine that God doesn't reveal God's self in countless ways outside of the symbol system of Christianity. In a way, I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.[1]
Many a time scripture could not only become an impediment in our faith journey but also a tool to legitimize exploitation. Its attestation of holiness belittles all the obvious reasons of suspicion. Fr. Richard Rohr states;

The Bible is undeniably problematic. Put in the hands of egocentric, unloving, or power-hungry people or those who have never learned how to read spiritually inspired literature, it is almost always a disaster. History has demonstrated this, century after century, so this is not an unwarranted, disrespectful, or biased conclusion. The burning of heretics, the Crusades, slavery, apartheid, homophobia, and the genocide and oppression of native peoples were all justified through the selective use of Scripture quotes.[2]
Recently a new exhibit in Washington D.C. museum featured an abridged version of “Slave Bible”. This bible was used by the Christian missionaries of The Missionary Society for the conversion of Negro Slaves to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity without deeming slavery as unethical. To prevent any sort of uprisings from the slaves the missionaries removed all those passages that could possibly counter slavery.

The book is basically the enslavers extended remix of the King James version of the Bible, leaving out all that unnecessary junk that might lead slaves to turn on their masters. For instance, Moses doesn’t even exist until he is an old man in the Slave Bible…They’ve cut out the story of the Israelites captivity in Egypt and their eventual liberation and journey to the promised land…The censored version removed 90 percent of the Old Testament and 50 percent of the New Testament, eliminating potentially seditious passages such as Exodus 21:16, which reads: “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death”… However, the curators of the Slavery Bible did keep some passages that they thought were necessary for slaves, including Ephesians 6:5: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.”[3]

Usually our engagement with scripture is to maintain its credibility. We spree our time in preserving their inerrancy. We are oblivion to our servitude and numbness. We are called to become Disciples of Christ and not slaves to anyone or anything; neither to Christ nor to scripture.  Being a disciple of Christ means to take the liberty to play with the “holiness” of the “Holy” Text; it means to challenge the age old hermeneutical stagnancy of traditions and writings; it means to overturn the grand narratives; it means to acknowledge the incompleteness and fallibility of the Scripture; it means to trust our individual distinctive interpretational intuition and instincts even though at times they could stay at odds with the interpretations of Church and it's revered prelates; it means to endeavour in constructing a renewed, progressive and inclusive present rather than relishing the stench of the past; it means not to be fixated on the monotony of theologies and Christologies imparted to us by others ever since our childhood but to embark upon identifying our unique versions of the same. Because at the end of the day Christ would ask each one of us; “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt 16:15).

Lent is a time to not only read but also study the scripture. To determine its ability to wound and heal; to love and hate; to create and divide; to include and exclude. Bible is not the word of God rather it contains the word. It might initiate the revelation of God but never completes it. The revelations of God continue beyond the pages of the Bible for those who have eyes to see and ears to listen. Unchain God from the Bible to discern the divine in the elements of creation and in the face of our fellow beings. I conclude with a story by Henri Nouwen;

“One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: “It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost.” Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I know?” the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.” Amen

Prayers
Dn. Basil Paul


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