When the Bible rubs us the wrong way

1. The Bible contains some teachings that rub modern readers the wrong way, including Christian readers. Including devout Christian readers. How should we respond?

I've been a Christian for 44 years. I became a Christian when I was 16. For as long as I can remember, I've always taken the position that Christianity (shorthand for biblical Christianity) is a package deal. Take it or leave it. To be a Christian at all involves prior commitment to certain things. That's the buy-in. You know what you're getting going in. The Bible isn't classified. Certain things are priced-in. That's the nature of a revealed religion. If you're not prepared to accept it, then the alternative isn't to reinvent Christianity, but to drop the pose and admit that you don't think it's true. Don't try to change it. 

2. When the Bible teaches something that rubs us the wrong way, that's an opportunity to think hard and find the wisdom in something that we'd ordinarily reject without giving it a second thought. One of the problems with "progressive Christianity," apart from incoherence, is that it has no capacity to learn anything from the Bible because it rejects out of hand anything in scripture that challenges its prejudices. 

3. There's nothing necessarily wrong with finding certain biblical teachings disturbing or bothersome. The opposite of progressive Christianity is a passive unthinking piety that's afraid to wrestle with these issues for fear it will result in loss of faith.

But it's good to grapple with these issues, from a standpoint of faith, because probing the rationale for biblical teachings that we may find shocking or unnerving may force us to achieve a better understanding of the wisdom behind biblical teaching. Don't push it away. Sometimes hard truths have the greatest potential for enlightenment. To revolutionize our superficial assumptions. 

4. Take OT ethics. Many readers find certain OT teachings repugnant. And they never get beyond their repugnance. They wince and turn the page. At best the file it away as something incomprehensible. 

People who object to OT ethics are apt to be intellectually frivolous. They lack the intellectual patience to seriously explore and work through the issues. They're just dismissive. They don't think there's anything true or good to be understood in such teachings. They don't find anything worthwhile because they don't expect anything worthwhile and they're not looking for anything worthwhile. So I can't say that I'm terribly sympathetic to their lazy reaction. I understand what they find objectionable, but they don't make a good-faith effort to go beyond that snap judgment. 

5. As I've said before, even if you don't believe in the Bible, it would be prudent for atheists to approach the OT from the standpoint of a cultural anthropologist. An academic field archeologist who lives with a tribe or people-group to understand their society from the inside out. He brings critical sympathy to the task. He may initially find some of their customs baffling, barbaric, and irrational. But he makes a good-faith effort to learn what motivates the customs. Perhaps, on closer examination, the customs are understandable adaptations to their circumstances. They may not be great customs, but if they were living under better circumstances, they'd have better customs. They've been thrust into a particular situation, and it isn't easy to cope. 

6. Now I'm not a cultural relativist. I'm not suggesting that we should be nonjudgmental. After immersive study, the anthropologist might well be justified in concluding that some of the customs are willfully stupid and wantonly cruel. 

But we need to understand things before we're in a position to render an informed judgment. In particular, an atheist is in no position to just assume that his provincial social conditioning is automatically superior to mine. That's arbitrary and lacks a capacity for critical self-awareness. Village atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens revel in lampooning OT ethics, but from the standpoint of a cultural anthropologist, their knee-jerk reaction is hidebound, ethnocentric, and question-begging. The same applies to "progressive Christians". 

7. In that regard, this is an interesting and provocative lecture on OT ethics by a noted scholar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7RfNe00NEg

To summarize, paraphrase, and expand on his explanation:

i) OT law is not utopian. It's not first and foremost about the promotion of virtue.

Rather, it's about damage control. What to do when things go wrong. Where to go from there. Given a bad situation, what are the realistic options? 

This is, after all, a penal code. A criminal law code. Something has already gone wrong. 

It's like pulling the pin on a live grenade. The options after you pull the firing pin are very different from the options before you pull it. Once you pull the pin, it's too late to go back to kinder gentler alternatives. 

ii) OT law has practical aims. It settles for limited, obtainable goods rather than ultimate, unobtainable goods. Curtailing evil.  Fixing what can be fixed. Regulating what can't be abolished. Preventing things from getting even worse. 

iii) Lawmakers are constrained by what's possible. That's why they forbid theft but they don't command generosity. God has chosen to place himself under such constraints. To some degree, God accommodates himself to our wickedness. OT law is a necessary compromise or concession to our fallenness. Not part of God's ultimate plan for human beings, but about how to God negotiates with this group at a particular time and place (OT Jews) to survive, relatively faithful and civilized long enough for the promise to come to fulfillment.

iv) The purity codes existed to differentiate Jews and heathen Gentiles. That's defunct. Christians properly distinguish which laws are just for OT Jews and which for God's people in general. 

8. In general, I think Provan's analysis is insightful and sound. Many unbelievers who blindly rail against OT ethics would benefit from taking these rudimentary distinctions into account. Problem is, many unbelievers don't seek understanding. They are lazy. They just want to feel superior. 

9. Having said that, I have some disagreements with Provan. He's an egalitarian, I'm a complementation. So he has a different take on Gen 1 and OT legislation for women than I do.

10. In addition, he seems  to be a freewill theist who believes that God must operate under the same constraints as human lawmakers. God is stymied by what is feasible, given the autonomy of human agents to thwart his will. 

That's not my own explanation, so I'd reframe the issue. There are constraints on God's field of action, but in a different way. God has different world histories at his disposal. I'm the end-product of a particular past. I exist because I have a particular set of linear ancestors. If God changed certain variables in the past, that would change the future, including my future. I don't exist in that future. So there are tradeoffs. 

God made a world designed for second-order goods. Eliminating certain evils has the side-effect of eliminating the compensatory goods. Goods that only exist as a result of prior evils. God didn't create a perfect world, a utopian world, but a world with redeemed losers like me. The ideal lies at the end of the process, not the beginning. 

Like a sports team where the coach doesn't pick the best players. These aren't the most talented players. His primary goal isn't about winning every game, but cultivating masculine virtues. Camaraderie, loyalty, and brotherly love. He prefers to work with losers. To reclaim losers. Rescue the lost. Give them a second chance.  

11. Finally, it's good to study how to be faithful in trying times. Life is rough. If a remnant of OT Jews could stay faithful despite harsh circumstances, that sets an example for Christians.