A while ago I decided it’s not possible to know with certainty what is true about the Bible or God (or even whether God exists).
What I care about is whether the stories people tell about the Bible and God motivate people to make the world a better place. I like Brian’s stories because I believe that’s the effect they have on those who are open to them. Brian’s stories encourage people to make Christlike love the goal of the church, to share with those in need and to be less wasteful with limited global resources. If people do those things, that will wonderfully contribute to improving the world we live in.
Some of Brian’s stories in his latest book line up with the conventional conservative Christian theology I learned. Others differ significantly: for example, Brian rejects the conventional narrative ascribed to the Bible. He depicts it with this diagram
Brian comments
this master narrative starts with one category of things—good and blessed—and then ends up with two categories of things: good and blessed on the top line and evil and tormented on the bottom.
He continues
Can we dare to wonder, given an ending that has more evil and suffering than the beginning, if it would have been better for this story never to have begun?
Indeed. I have dared to wonder that and it’s very refreshing to see that I’m not alone.
Brian rejects this narrative because it is more influenced by Greek Platonic thought than by the collection of writings which comprise the Bible. Reading Brian’s reasoning was an “Aha!” moment since the conventional narrative does not seem very ‘Jewish’ to me based on my knowledge of how Jewish people view the world.
Instead Brian draws a narrative from the Bible about ‘God the creator, liberator and reconciler’. Brian leaves many things more open-ended than the theology I was taught. He writes “history is not pre-recorded”. He doesn’t specific the extent of God’s reconciliation (unless I missed it), but his emphasis on the verse in Romans “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” leaves the door open for universal reconciliation.
Later, Brian provocatively states: the ‘ultimate revelation of God [is] not [seen] in the Bible, but in Jesus’.
Why not the Bible? Because Brian believes the Bible is a collection of writings which reflect an evolving human understanding of God. This gives him the freedom to reject troublesome Bible passages such as those about God being violent. Jesus was not violent, so the authors who wrote that God was must have had a flawed understanding of God.
I particularly enjoyed Brian’s comments on the book of Job. I appreciate reading different thoughts and ideas about Bible stories I’m familiar with.
I expect people happy with conventional conservative Christian beliefs will ignore what Brian has to say (or write critiques detailing where they think he is wrong). But Christians who have become troubled by those beliefs just as Brian became troubled – and I think there are many – will appreciate this book. I expect they will find some of their own questions and journey reflected in his, just as I did. And receive validation, reassurance and hope for the future.
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