The New Lifeless, Limp Bible (TNLLB)
May 25th, 2009 by John
I knew she could do it. My friend, CK, an accomplished water-color and pastel artist, did a do-over of Salvador Dali’s limp watches painting. I asked CK to exchange the watches with Bibles. Why?
A few posts back I wrote about “the Dali-ization of the Gospel and the Bible.” I mentioned a visual remake of Dali’s painting. CK did it.
It’s not so much what has become of the Bible itself, but what we as USAmerican evangelicals have done to the Bible. We’ve made it limp. We’ve sliced and diced it and boiled it down to tasteless mush. We’ve drained it of any energy whatsoever. As a pastor I see it and I hear it: most Christians are bored silly with the Bible. It’s become a boy scout manual or a recipe box. It’s a medicine bottle of spiritual pills for what ails you. It’s an “ouchless” band aid for a bad conscience. It’s a coloring book for the kids. It’s no longer tough meat; it’s tofu. People sit around crying, “Pastor, pastor, feed me, feed me” and out comes the pablum.
Nice people need a nice book. The Bible is not a nice book. It’s real. It’s graphic. It’s ruthlessly honest. But it’s not nice. So, the grand American evangelical tradition kicks in and we’ve made the Bible nice. The Bible is like the movie “Crash” and we’ve made it into “Leave It to Beaver.” The Bible presents bloody battle fields; we turn them into funeral parlors with make-up on the corpses with the lighting just right. “Why, they look like they’re asleep.” Have you noticed how pretty we’ve made the cross? I guess Mel Gibson, as an honest Catholic, had enough and gives us the passion of the Christ. How awful! The cross is nice, we’ve been led to believe. Get one for her as a gift. What?
We have made Jesus into a flannel-graph figure. He has become a two-dimensional character at our mercy to move around and talk about the way we want. We can’t endure the wild-eyed Galilean prophet who bit off first century Judaism, chewed it up and spit it out. We like a Savior who is meek and mild. We refuse a leader who invites us into a life of insecurity and danger. We like a stained-glass Jesus who decorates our religious moments. We flee the blood-stained Jesus who shouts, “Pick up your cross and follow me, if you dare!”
We are so bored by the Bible these days that we have to prop it up with notes. You know, notes from Dr. So-in-So or camping notes or cowboy notes or leadership notes or genX notes or women’s notes or Native American notes or CEO notes or dietary notes or archeological notes or how to fly an airplane notes…anything but the text of the Bible. Limp. Dali-ed to death.
The robust Story of God has been diluted into the Cliff Notes of harmless USAmerican evangelicalism.
Thanks, CK, for the picture. It says more than my paltry words could ever say.
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Thanks, I figured someone would do this–so now I will link back to the new pic. I guess as someone involved in spiritual formation/direction, I like to hear the cries, “pastor, feed me, feed me.” They show a longing that is there for God, a longing for transcendence, a hunger and thirst for the kingdom of God. Or, in my case, a discovery of my desperate need for God.
As Christian leaders, we need to affirm these longings for God but resist giving functional, superficial answers found in more Bible knowledge that merely puffs up and further alienates us from the world that is even more hungry than us. I guess it is too difficult for some to say that this longing you have is for God Almighty and He is longing for a relationship of intimacy with you. Wait on him, listen, read and listen, expecting him to speak to you. There is a holy mystery here and yet it is one well worth the investment of your time and life. Don’t miss it. Let me tell you how God is speaking to me this week. Let me suggest some places you can go and some practices you might try that will make it more likely for you to hear him speak to you. God is trying to communicate to us all the time–sometimes, it may even be through my sermon!
David,
I appreciate the spiritual direction you offer. IMO the motivation for “feed me, feed me” is the old vice of sloth. It is a good feeling to have people depend on you for “feeding,” but it handicaps both pastor and people in the long run. “Sheep need to be fed. Disciples feed themselves” wrote Bruce Wilkerson.
Interesting post John, but I have to say I have a major disagreement with your exegesis of American B&W sitcoms. The Bible is obviously explained by the Andy Griffith Show, not Leave It To Beaver.
http://www.firstbaptistathens.org/article136328.htm
This was a really cool post — I think I’m going to make a post to your post, you said it better than I could re-say it
[...] The New Lifeless, Limp Bible (TNLLB) [...]
1. Try the ESV Literary Study Bible (Crossway, L Ryken & P G Ryken, ed.), it offers only lead-in commentary on the upcoming text, not irrelevant stuff. I’m doing the M’Cheyne reading schedule on a 2-year plan using this particular edition of the Bible, and have found it to be beneficial.
2. You want graphic? Read Judges 3, the story of Ehud and Eglon. I found the ESV in its “essentially literal” translation to be more graphic than the NIV. Reading in bed at night, I thought to myself, “Did I just read that?!” It is no wonder that some less-literal versions scrub the details a little. Judges 4 was a good follow-up.
3. John, another good book offering perspective on your post (more in regard to your description of how Americans portray Jesus than the Bible, but also containing a good section discussing the [Thomas] “Jefferson Bible”) is Stephen J. Nichols’ “Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ”. I admittedly skipped parts of it during my library loan, but it does illustrate through our nation’s history how Americans have attempted to fashion Jesus in their image. Nichols approaches this topic with an often wry sense of humor as he proceeds through the centuries. For example, I took special interest in his handling of Contemporary Christian Music, as I’m a music fan but have never quite been able to embrace CCM. He pokes more than a little fun at what he calls “Jesus is my boyfriend” types of lyrics.