Crossing Jordan

All Christians allegorize, but some do it much more than others. Symbolic language is plentiful in scripture: we find it in poetry, metaphors, figures of speech, parables, prophecy and in the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old. You will find allegories in every book of the Bible and perhaps most often in the teaching of the Lord Jesus, who used symbolic language both to reveal and to conceal. In view of this, even the most literal Bible teachers allegorize from time to time. It’s impossible not to.

Of course, not all interpretations of allegories are on the same level.

Which Sense Makes the Most Sense?

In my internet wanderings, I frequently come across believers who are utterly convinced that the spiritual not only trumps the natural but invalidates it entirely.

There is indeed something to the first part of that: the spiritual is bound to be more important to the Christian than that which is merely natural. If we must choose, for instance, between responding to the promptings of flesh or Spirit, of course Spirit wins every time ... or ought to.

The Wrong Way Round

In a previous post I pointed out that Christ’s disciples, unlike many modernists, were seekers after objective truth.

But the process of discovering that truth was anything but easy or natural. The disciples made some pretty entertaining mistakes.

Not that I would’ve done any better, I assure you. But they had an uncanny knack for getting things the wrong way round.

I’ll Wait, Thanks (or, I guess this makes me a ‘Huddle Person’)

Uh oh. Apparently, I’m told (and not for the first time) biblical literalism is not healthy. Not healthy for those I would like to win to Christ, and not healthy for me. It’s (at least potentially) repressive, and possibly worse.

This particular poorly thought-out screed is drawing praise from other evangelicals. 

In it, Michael Gungor coins the term ‘huddle people’ to describe me and my ilk, then gives us a lecture about the dangers of failing to accommodate ‘science’ in our Christian worldview: 

“... you can still love God and love people and read those early Genesis stories as myth with some important things to teach us. Not all of you will be ready to do that, and that’s perfectly ok. But know that if you create these dichotomies where we force people to either fall into the camp of scientifically blind biblical literalism or a camp where they totally write off the Bible as a complete lie, you’re going to rob a lot of people of some of the richness that the Bible offers. You’re going to create a lot more jaded, cynical people that are completely anti-religion out there. And you are going to continue to repress the questions that lurk in the back of your own mind. And that’s just not healthy. That sort of thinking actually quashes and limits human thriving in the world.”

— Michael Gungor

Literal and Figurative

The most recent version of this post is available here.