The trouble with hiding behind biblical inerrancy is that eventually one paints oneself into a corner.
I understand that the Bible reflects certain truths, but I also get my information and guidance from other sources. I acknowledge that the Christian Bible is comprised of two Testaments—Old, and New. My observation of certain people in positions of power is that they—whether for reasons of convenience or motivated by fear—seem to want to linger in the Old Testament, where one can more easily find the language of law and prohibition and a God who rains down judgment on anyone who “disobeys.”
The world as we know it, as it comes at us each day, is more complicated than these people would like it to be. They would benefit from guidance found in the New Testament, but they don’t like going there, because there they will find guidance and admonition from Jesus, who had much to say about loving one another. It is in the New Testament that we’ll find numerous accounts of Jesus’ confrontations with authorities who preferred a narrow reading of who’s in and who’s out.
There is also much to be commended in the writings of Paul, in whom, New Testament scripture tells us, Jesus worked a miraculous 180, and from whom we get passages like 1 Corinthians 13 and Romans 12. It seems more often than not that certain leaders on the right ignore such passages because of their exhortations to, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 7, pay attention to the log in our own eye before worrying about the speck in someone else’s.
Life is easier when it’s clear who can be blamed, who’s doing life “wrong.” This is why, when I learned that the new Speaker of the House is a biblical literalist, I cringed. Because experience should tell us, by now, that such a person is operating heavy machinery with insufficient training. Flying blind, maybe by choice. And he should know better.
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