A Close Reading of the Text - The Progressive Approach to the Bible

By: Paul Raushenbush

Common wisdom holds that the people who take the Bible most seriously in America are those from the conservative traditions who claim a literalist interpretation of the "The Bible says it and I believe it" variety. But try telling these same people that there are two creation stories or that God refers to God's self in the plural and they give you a blank expression. What they mean by literal interpretation is really just a amalgamation of selected texts read at a surface level with an overlay of airtight coherence.

Ever since seminary it has been my contention that the people who delve most seriously into the Bible are those who employ the critical approaches - historical, textual, literary - in other words those most beholden to the enlightenment. This does not mean that they are looking to undermine the text, just the opposite, they are looking to mine it for the richness of the meaning it holds and are simply coming to different conclusions than their more conservative counterparts.

In his column on USA Tom Krattenmaker writes about the setbacks of the religious right on the political front as a preface to the extending of the battle to how we read and interpret the bible and our tradition. Krattenmaker points to the release of some important new books by progressive theologians and Church historians including Jesus Interrupted by Bart Ehrman, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon by Marcus Borg and Dominick Crossan, and my Progressive Revival colleague Diana Butler Bass' A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story.

This is all very good news for those of us who take the Bible and the Christian faith seriously but not literally. We want to retain the right to look carefully at the text and not be forced to leave our intelligence at the door when we approach the Bible. It does not diminish my faith to realize that there are different witnesses to the account of Jesus' life and that they emphasize different things any more than it diminishes my faith to realize that my neighbor might have a different experience of Jesus than I do in this time.

I am glad that I know Diana Butler Bass, Marcus Borg and Dominick Crossan. I had the privilege of hearing Bass and Borg at a wonderful conference last January called January Adventure that brought a thousand mainline and progressive Christians together on the coast of Georgia. Next year I will be presenting with Dom Crossen. I am in awe of these scholars and their labors of love that look for the truth that the Bible and our tradition holds, knowing that there is always more to the story than has been told before. These books and the progressive tradition represent an ongoing effort to practice an authentic faith.

We should celebrate this resurrection of progressive Christian voices as Robby Jones calls it. When too much of the world is beholden to a fundamentalist rigidity that allows for no constructive interaction with text or tradition we need to be free to use the power of intellect and heart that continues to renew our faith into the 21st century. It will help us be better followers of Christ and better citizens of the world.

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