| Jason Interview (7) | | Date Created: Oct 25, 2006, 12:20 PM |
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[last one]
JASON: Your new housegroup DVD Christian Life & the Bible is a good place to start, but how might churches begin to encourage individuals to open up the Bible for themselves?
We made the DVD with precisely with this task in mind. One of the difficulties is that the various people in a church will be in very different places with regard to their attitudes toward the Bible. As a result there are lots of different facets to the approach I take. Let me talk about two.
In the 20th century, evangelicals thought that one of main barriers was the intellectual credibility of the Bible. This has to be taken seriously even today, although I personally doubt it was ever the main barrier for most unbelievers. You only have to read a chunk ot Richard Dawkins's new book The God Delusion to see what I mean. Moderns over-emphasise content: the content of Dawkins's book is all science and logic and stuff. But few readers with 21st century sensibilities will be able to miss the passion with which he writes against Christianity. It's an irrational passion dressed in the finest modernist rationalism that one of the greatest intellectuals of our time can muster. Still, you need to be able to show that it's not a problem to respond to "miracles can't happen" and "everyone knows the gospels are unreliable" and Dawkins and the DaVinci Code.
But when you've done this, your job isn't done. It's just beginning.
We've talked a little bit about the 20th century idea that you have to make the Bible relevant to today in order for people to be interested. It's still such a prevalent myth that I dealt with this both at the beginning and end of the DVD, using examples drawn from relationships. My wife works in the Health, Safety and Environment group of an oil company. When she talks to me about her day, I have a choice. I could try to filter what she says in terms of what's relevant to my life and interests. I could insist that she work harder at thinking through how she talks to me in terms of how it will impact me. If I love her, though, something strange happens. Things that affect her -- even statistics about non-fatal accidents in Siberia -- become relevant to me because they affect the person I love. It's not her job to make her life into something that suits my tastes. If anything, it's my job to change my ideas about what's interesting and relevant so that I can listen empathetically and stand alongside her.
I guess some people get married for the way their spouse will enhance their own lives, but I don't think that's the right motivation. I guess some people join Christianity for the way that it will enhance them spiritually. I don't think that's the right motivation either.
Too often evangelicals are like the conceited boyfriend in the sit-coms on a date: "But, hey, I'm talking way too much. What about you? What do you like best about me?" Hey, God, enough prayer about what I want in my life. It's time to listen to your Word now. What do you have in it for me?
So one of the most important things we need to do is change people's perception of the Bible. It's not an instruction manual, something God gave us in case it helps us get on with our jobs or our lives. If it were, and if you found that most of it doesn't talk about your job or your life, you'd rightly ignore it as irrelevant. Instead it's as the story of someone whom you love and who loves you. It's more like a love letter than a how to. It's God saying "Oy! What a day I've had; let me tell you about it!" And we make him say "Please."
And by far the best way to do this is not by playing people my DVD or talking to them about it but by modelling it. By all means we should be people who merge our stories with the Bible's stories. We should be people who are connected to culture and connecting our faith to our culture. A marriage that is totally inward-looking and selves-obsessed is not healthy, it's true.
But we also need to model an interest in the Bible -- to be folks who are transparently as or more interested in God than in mammon; more interested in Scripture than culture without losing the ability to relate to people and culture. Model that and people will get more interested in reading the Bible that they can see that you find interesting and vital.
There's a world of difference between being relevant and being able to relate. It's a question of who calls the tunes, who controls the conversation ("what do you think about me?"); it's a matter of which is the Master: my felt needs or God's.
[give me a day or two and I'll re-publish the interview in order as a PDF and make the link available here] |
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