One of the problems with the Biblical narrative is that we have no control over how it is used. Often, passages are taken out of context and examined for their “Meaning”. Although we might read any part of it arguing that it be assessed through a call to radically inclusive love, we could just as easily read it without any such referent. Now, to take a sentence or two out of a book by Michael Ondaatje and find a few different ways to interpret it is no big thing, really. But to take something out of a book believed by gazillions to be TAWOGFAT (the authoritative word of god for all time) and find a few conflicting meanings in it is a very big thing. A VERY big thing, indeed. To dismiss an opponent’s interpretation of a passage based on his or her “misreading” of it or use of a faulty or ill-informed reasoning merely reinforces the authority of the book because we are still treating it as though it bears “The Meaning” that we are required to discern. We look for “The Meaning” instead of recognizing that all that may OR MAY NOT exist in the passage is simply “meaning,” sans capitals. Not God’s meaning. Not eternal truths. Simply something that we might use to assist us as we reflect on our own lives. What we must do is entirely discredit the authority of the Bible. Until we do that, we continue to make its many passages, no matter against what ethic we seek to interpret them, far too powerful and far too dangerous in the complex and explosive reality that is the 21st century.
Gretta Vosper is a minister and atheist. She is a Best-Selling author of two books and founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.