My Bible, Your Bible

It’s a beautiful thing that almost everyone in Guatemala trusts in the same text as their moral and spiritual guide – the Bible. It is true that Catholics have a few more books in their Bible than Protestants do, but by and large the variety of religions (I’m using religions in the way that Guatemalans use it, I really mean something more like denominations or sects, because pretty much everyone belongs to the Christian religion) in Guatemala are all based on the same stories, the same words, the same Jesus. Most houses, stores, offices, etc. in the country have signs with Biblical quotes on them, and the great thing is that merely from the sign one cannot tell what is one’s religion. On buses people often make sales pitches for anything from donations to herbal supplements to protractors. And these sales pitches are always peppered with Biblical quotes, assertions that the salesman is pastor, missionary or somehow else a man of God. And in this sense, they appeal to everyone – when the person quotes the Bible, most everyone will accept it as authoritative. This paints a nice picture of Christian unity in the country which surely, is undermined by the bad blood between Evangelicals and Catholics, but is often underestimated.

You would think in that case that I would feel great to share this same foundation of my worldview with Guatemalans. And I do – it is so freeing, after Brown, to be able to reference the Bible and have people not judge you, but rather take seriously your statement. But at the same time, I have realized that it is very hard to take the whole Bible into account, putting equal weight on all the different parts, when forming your personal theology. This arose from an interesting line of thought that I was having – is Christianity an adventure or is it a way of life that involves the “prudent” choice? In other words, does Christianity involve an active engagement with the world or does it involve a more standoffish relationship with the world? I am going to reveal my personal bias when I say that I think that being a follower of Jesus means that you engage with the world, not that you copy everything that you see going on around you, but that you are light in the midst of normal society. For many other people, and I am not talking particularly about Guatemalans, but rather just many other religious people all around the world, the meaning is more to separate yourself from the world, distance yourself from sinful behaviors and people, and focus more on following specific rules of the religion.

Once, I was having a discussion with a person who was going to the same Foursquare church that I was going to during training and I asked her, “What are your favorite books of the Bible?” I had noticed that of all the passages quoted during sermons at that church, a good 85% were from the epistles, Paul’s and Peter’s letters that occupy the end of the New Testament. 10% came from random books of the Old Testament. And only the occasional passage would come from the gospels. My companion’s favorite books, however, were Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Proverbs. When she told me Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Proverbs I’m pretty sure I furrowed my brow quite strongly. Her answering the question made me realize that those were probably the three books of the Bible I disliked most. But she said that she liked those books because they had practical life lessons. It’s true, pretty much every verse of each of those books is some kind of law or piece of advice. And it is true that that makes it easier to deal with, easier to apply to daily life. (That definitely jives with our Peace Corps Non-Formal Education training: talk about things that people know they need, and give them advice that they can easily apply to their lives.)

I’ve definitely always seen Leviticus as the foundation of Jewish law. But this law, or “Holiness Code,” according to me was to a large extent superseded by the fulfillment of the law in Jesus, and the lack of the need for God to set apart the Jewish people after salvation was extended to all the nations. I haven’t read much of Proverbs because it is often common sense recommendations, and sometimes I think that Jesus’ ministry wasn’t much about following common sense. And my favorite books of the Bible have to be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I might not have admitted to it before, but now it definitely does seem to me like I privilege the gospels in the formulation of my own theology. In part, I think that has to do with the American emphasis on the salvation act, and in part just my own fascination with the person of Jesus and his incarnation on earth. I am also in keeping with strands of liberation theology thought that trace God’s work in historical events as a way of identifying God’s character. The Biblical narrative, or the history of God as related in the Bible, thus takes on supreme significance. Narratives, between individual stories and the overall historical arc of salvation/liberation/reconciliation described in the Bible, are more generally more important to me than individual verses in Proverbs, for instance.

This brings up a side note about a topic which people have raised for centuries: is there a difference between Jesus’ Christianity (so to speak) and Paul’s Christianity? The gospels and epistles are entirely different literary forms and are addressed to different people, so they do not look the same. The gospel writers and Paul had different interests and favorite topics. They did not contradict each other, but they have different “feels,” perhaps, which give the reader different impressions about the faith. I can definitely empathize with the feeling that reading the gospels leads to conceiving of the faith as an adventure, an exploration and engagement with the world, while sometimes the epistles can give a greater impression of an insular church that is more concerned with its rules.

In saying this, I am not trying to say that the Bible is contradictory but rather that different parts of the Bible can definitely give you different ideas if you build your beliefs around them. I definitely have my favorite parts too; now the question that remains for me is, Is it justified to build a theology around the gospels and Genesis, or should I try to view all parts of the Bible equally in my theological quest? Often when I do take into account seemingly contradictory parts of the Bible, a new understanding emerges. For those of you who spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, I’d love to hear your thoughts about my wandering thoughts this evening.