Not Loving the Bible

In sharing a post about “loving the Bible” on Facebook, I summed up its point in this way:

You can heap praise on another human being, but if you won’t let them express themselves freely, but force them to say only things that you want to hear, you do not really love, honor, or respect them, no matter how much praise you heap on them.

That is precisely how fundamentalists treat the Bible…

Phil Ledgerwood then left a comment of his own that is worth quoting here:

A fundamentalist view of Scripture is like someone who who worships the ground their wife walks on in terms of reverencing her and praising her, but she isn’t allowed to speak for herself very often and she is expected to conform to all these standards her husband has whether she actually does or not. This view of the Bible is sort of like the stereotypical “pastor’s wife” as viewed by a congregation.

That seemed worth sharing with a wider audience. I also found myself wondering whether there is not something telling about the fact that the view of the Bible under discussion, and the view of wives under discussion, both are typical in the context of fundamentalist Christianity. What do you think?

See also Brandon Robertson’s sermon that he shared, explaining in detail why the Bible is not the Word of God. It is directly relevant to the theme of this post, in a way, because he explicitly says things such as “I really love, and I really dislike the Bible.” His discussion of how Protestants turned the Bible into the “Paper Pope” is also very helpful.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Do you think that Phil’s way of putting things is helpful? Please share your thoughts in the comments section!