The rant-inducing episode on the God Channel in my last post was thrown into sharp relief when, at the weekend, I watched the film The Way starring Martin Sheen.
God channelled
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Raging bull(****)
I have a confession to make. Late at night, if I am sprawled in front of the TV, I occasionally flip over to the God Channel with the sole purpose of making myself angry. It’s a somewhat bitter and mean-spirited hobby, to be sure, but one that generates a perverse pleasure. And sometimes it seems a useful way to jolt me out of a numb theolethargy into sharper thinking. Continue reading
The big fish and the wiggly worm: Part two
The more I read Jonah, the less like a historical account it seemed. The tie-in between ‘Jonah son of Amittai’ of this book and the individual in 2 Kings 14:25 was not necessarily conclusive; the height of Nineveh’s power came a century or so after the events of 2 Kings 14, and the book could easily have used Jonah pseudonymously. Moreover, the events were so melodramatic – the lament from inside the fish, the repentance of an entire capital city overnight (even the animals wore sackcloth!) and the miracle of the rising and dying plant – that they seemed almost theatrical. Maybe the Book of Jonah is, in fact, a play; a sharply satirical parable belonging more to Wisdom literature than Prophetic. Continue reading
The big fish and the wiggly worm: Part one
As I thought about the issue of genre, and felt more free to read the Bible in critical new ways, familiar events and stories began to emerge in unexpectedly fascinating form. One of the most striking was the children’s classic story of Jonah – the recalcitrant prophet and the huge whale. Continue reading
Genre and authority
My favourite film in my teens, and still the film I’ve seen more than any other, is The Three Amigos, a very silly slapstick western in which three movie stars are mistakenly hired to defend a Mexican village against the local thug. Much hilarity ensues, as you’d imagine given the talent involved. The theme is repeated in Galaxy Quest, a Star Trek spoof in which, once again, actors are mistaken for heroes. Continue reading
Slippery slope: Part two
The first of the objections to inerrancy in my previous post was the subjectivism that comes with dethroning biblical authority. The charge I had always used to myself (and, maybe, to others) was that this would result in a gradual drift away from objectivity and an increasing marginalisation of core evangelical doctrine. Crucially, it would undermine the Bible’s ability to judge and challenge one’s views and practices. Continue reading
The Slippery Slope
The last post posed the question: in the face of mounting pressure from internal and external ‘errors’, why do evangelicals (and why did I) cling so tightly to the notion that the Bible must be inerrant and authoritative?
