The Bible After God

A Post-Religion Guide for Understanding the Bible

Being someone with an academic theological background, having studied the Bible in its original languages, and teaching it for many years, I thought it made sense to write this article. I’m not claiming to be the authority on the Holy Scriptures, but I have probably done more study and research in this area than most.

But despite all this, I still felt conflicted about writing this article. Many people have strong feelings about the Bible and their particular interpretation of it. The Christian religion takes the Bible to be the foundation of their faith. People often get into heated arguments about the Bible and its meaning, and at times such disagreements have resulted in burning someone at the stake or war.

For my part, though many years a Christian pastor, these days I do not identify as a “Christian”. That doesn’t mean I don’t hold Jesus in high regard for my own reasons or that I have written off Christianity as the bane of all existence. With respect to this article, it means that I am not approaching the Bible with any particular axe to grind or position to defend.

I approach the Bible through the lens of the philosophy of religion, which is the examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions. Philosophy of religion explores varying beliefs about God, the varieties of religious experience, the interplay between science and religion, and the difference in understanding sacred texts. The philosophy of religion has been distinguished from theology by pointing out that the critical reflections of theology are greatly influenced by religious convictions. For example, in my Christian days it was my conviction that God exists as conceived by Christian theism, and that Jesus was a historical person who died for the sins of the world. Both of these convictions effected my scholarship.

My aim in this article, whether you are a Christian or Atheist, is to answer the question: “Which Bible should you read?” The question is perhaps more relevant to the Christian, but in my view it’s just as important for the Atheist.

Let me explain.

The question - “Which Bible should You Read?” - may seem strange. Someone might say:

“Which Bible??? It’s not like there are ten different Bibles. There’s only one Bible! You know like, the Bible the priest and pastor are teaching from, the same Bible in the hotel nightstand, the same Bible used at the swearing-in ceremony of the president-elect, the same Bible in a library or bookstore. It’s the same Bible!”

Right? There’s only one Bible.

Well, not exactly.

There are actually countless versions of the Bible. Factors that make them different, include:

1. Which books are considered part of the Bible

The term “biblical canon” refers to a set of texts (also called “books”) which are regarded as part of the Bible. However, not everyone agrees on what those books are. For example, the Protestant Bible has 66 books, while the Catholic Bible has 73 books. Both Bibles have four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), however some scholars believe there is a fifth gospel that was not included, the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Mary is another example. Depending on who you talk to, there are 7-14 additional books that never made it into the Bible. You have to sort out fact from fiction and weigh a few conspiracy theories to make sense of conversations about books that are said to have been hidden, left out, or removed from the Bible.

2. Various translations and paraphrases of the Bible

Tyndale's Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Since Tyndale’s English translation in 1526, translators and publishers have created approximately 900 different English Bibles, making it hard to know which to choose. A few of the most-used translations include: King James Version, KJV; New American Standard Bible, NASB; and New International Version, NIV. Most people think that these slightly different translations don’t impact the message of the Bible. This is not true. There are Christian doctrines of great importance that turn on a specific translation of one word. For example, the word “repent” in the New Testament does not mean what you often hear in church, and yet the doctrine of salvation hinges on this faulty translation.

For example, take the Bible verse James 1:26- 27. In the NASB Bible translation it reads:

“If anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

In the paraphrase of The Message the same passage is worded:

“Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.”

See the difference?

3. Different ways of interpreting the Bible

Another matter that results in different Bibles is the question of how to read it. You’d think that would be fairly simple - you open it up and start reading it like every other book that ever existed. I wish it were that simple.

When it comes to the Bible, there is widespread disagreement about which parts should be taken literally and which parts figuratively or allegorically. And who exactly decides this? There are difference of opinion on how various biblical events, figures and stories should be understood. For example, should Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis be taken as two actual human beings who lived in a literal Garden of Eden, or are they to be understood allegorically. Should the story of Noah’s Ark be taken literally? There is an entire field of study identified as “biblical hermeneutics” that addresses matters of Biblical interpretation.

The Bible includes a great number of types of literature such as historical narrative, poetry, parables, and apocalyptic writing. But questions remain. For example:

• Should the historical narratives be taken to be accurate, or are they more like historical fiction?

• Were the miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels historical occurrences of miraculous or supernatural healings, or were they part of a folklore legend that grew about Jesus?

• Did God actually part the Red Sea to save the Israelites, was Jesus actually born of a virgin, and will there actually be a rapture in which Christians are taken up to God and non-Christians are left behind?

Let me demonstrate the magnitude of these interpretation differences further. There is a passage in the Old Testament in which God commands the killing of infants and children. There is another passage in the New Testament that says, “God is love.” How do you reconcile these two? Would a loving God command the murder of innocent infants and children? And if God did, what else might God do??? Could one love a God who kills babies? Wouldn’t a person who demanded and orchestrated genocide be considered pathological?

There are a few ways one tries to resolve this, such as:

• Don’t question God - God knows best and whatever God does (including the killing of infants) is a God-thing we can’t understand as mere mortals.

• The tough-love God - God is love, but sometimes this involves confronting and punishing wickedness, which could include genocide and the death of infants and children.

• They heard wrong - those who understood God to be commanding them to perform genocide, were rationalizing their own agenda by claiming God told them to do so.

• The two-God theory - the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, and the God of the New Testament is a God of love.

All four of those explanations have their own problems. But I think you can see that which one you choose has significant ramifications. Right? If I believe that God commands violence to achieve a sacred mission, you have a rationalization for events such as the crusades, blowing up abortion clinics, or storming the Capitol.

Let’s also take the Christian doctrine of hell. It’s near impossible to take from the verses in the Bible the idea that there is a place in the afterlife where God banishes unbelievers to eternal conscious torment. The only way you could believe this is if you mistranslated a few words in the New Testament. Despite the lack of biblical evidence for the notion of hell, this teaching has traumatized countless numbers of people. A useful and easy-to-read book on this topic is, Raising Hell: Christianity's Most Controversial Doctrine Put Under Fire by Julie Ferwerda.

4. How any given person subjectively understands the Bible.

There are also many influences that impact how a person understands the Bible. In other words, any given person brings to the Bible their own set of assumptions, preconceptions, and biases.

People will often say, “My authority is the Bible.” It would be more accurate for them to say, “My authority is what they told me at church the Bible means.” I don’t mean to be snarky, but that’s the reality.

People’s understanding of the Bible is often shaped and formed by the religious sub-culture or tradition they are part of. Throughout history there have been varying Christian views on even the most fundamental doctrines, such as the divinity of Christ, salvation, and the end times. The idea that there is an enduring and unanimous agreement on the meaning of the Bible and the proper doctrines of the Christian faith, is not true.

What is “Biblical Christianity” to one person is not to another. There are 42,000 different Christian denominations around the world, most of which don’t agree on the meanings of the Bible. I myself have theological degrees, studied the Bible in its original languages, and was the Senior Pastor of a church and taught the Bible for many years. However, my views and interpretations are not infallible and have evolved over time.

When I was in seminary we did what we referred to as “exegesis”, which is intently studying the Bible in order to pull out the meaning. I hate to say, that this was largely wishful thinking. What we were actually doing is “eisegesis”, which is imposing an interpretation into the text based upon an already established belief-system. In this sense, theology isn’t the free search for truth, as much as a defense of an already held position. A lot of theological reasoning is circular, inevitably “proving” the truth of its own enshrined presupposition.

People start with their own subjective presuppositions and expectations about what the Bible is, such as:

• The Bible is meant to present a coherent picture of God and spell out all the essential doctrines of the Christian faith

• The Bible is the inerrant, infallible and God-given absolute truth to which all humankind is subject to believe and follow.

• The Bible is the foundation for ethics and morality, and the blueprint for daily living.

Based on all the above variables, does it surprise anyone that there are many different ways the Bible is interpreted? This is especially problematic because many people view the Bible as something to be “right” about.

Our best interpretations of the Bible are subjective. That’s not a criticism. We just have to know this is the case.

I cannot in this article cover everything there is to say about the Bible. But let me cover a few basic things.

The Basics of the Bible

The Bible holds the esteemed title of the best-selling book in history, with over 5 billion copies sold. It comprises 66 books in the Protestant Bible and 73 books in the Catholic Bible. These books are divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament, which were originally written in Hebrew (some Aramaic) and Greek. The complete Bible has been translated into 700 languages. The Bible also ironically holds the distinction of being the most stolen book. Pretty much anything after that you’ve ever heard about the Bible is up for debate.

The traditional Christian view of the Bible is that it was written over a period of 2,000 years by 40 different authors from three continents, who wrote in three different languages. However, some of these ideas are refuted.

A few of the items that are debated with respect to the Bible include:

• If the original Bible still exists.

• When the books of the Bible were written.

• Where the books of the Bible were written.

• Who exactly wrote these books.

• How was God involved, if at all.

• How politics influenced the compilation of the Bible.

• How did the Bible writers intend their writings to be taken.

The rank and file Christian may be alarmed with discovering that the Bible may not have been a divine download, which was channeled through the chosen biblical writers. Back in the 80’s, a group of biblical criticism scholars started the “Jesus Seminar”, founded by Robert Funk. The group raised the ire of many Christians because it challenged traditional thinking about the nature of the Bible and the historicity of Jesus.

In my view, even if one comes to believe that the formation of the Bible wasn’t as tidy and holy as they thought, it doesn’t mean they cannot find profound spiritual meaning and significance in the Bible. It is also true that we do not have a single copy of an original manuscript of the Bible. One shouldn’t take too much from this; neither do we have an original copy of Homer's Iliad, or writings by Plato.

Over the years, people have done some interesting (occasionally bizarre) things with the Bible. For example there is the Sportsman’s Bible, which includes notes throughout that describe useful hunting tips. There’s also The Street Bible, which uses the language of the modern urban reader. The Street Bible, paraphrases Genesis 1:1 as: “First off, nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God starts it all off and WHAP! Stuff everywhere!” There’s also the Couples’ Devotional Bible, with notes and advice on sex, money, parenting and other relationship issues, as well as The Queer James Bible, based on The King James translation, and edited to resolve interpretive ambiguity and prevent homophobic misinterpretation.

And of course more recently there is the God Bless America Bible, which includes the handwritten chorus to “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood, The US Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence and The Pledge of Allegiance. And that’s all I have to say about that in this article.

A few books you might read to explore the history of the Bible if you’re interested are:

• A History of the Bible by John Barton

• Why the Bible Began by Jacob L. Wright

• The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction by Bart D. Ehrman

• When Jesus Became God by Richard E. Rubenstein

• The Making of the Bible by Schmid and Schröter

• Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman

• The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? by Robert W. Funk

• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman

• Constantine's Bible: Politics and the Making of the New Testament by David L. Dungan

Some interesting docuseries and videos about the Bible include:

• The Bible (History Channel Documentary)

• Entire Bible Explained | Bart Ehrman

Does the Bible do more harm than good?

To the question - “Does the Bible do more harm than good?” - it’s a difficult issue to answer conclusively. Right? The Bible has inspired great acts of love and sparked great movements of social justice - for example, the way Martin Luther King, Jr. cunningly used the Bible to catalyze the civil rights movement in the South.

On the other hand the Bible has also been used to rationalize acts of violence and war, let’s say the crusades. Sadly, throughout history the Bible has been used to rationalize:

• the persecution of heretics

• the subordination of women

• the practice of religious intolerance

• the divine right of kings against democratic freedoms

• the institution of slavery

• cruelty to animals

• the suppression of civil rights

• white supremacy

• racism

• religious exclusivism

• opposition to scientific progress

• the burning of witches

• violence and war

• and the state’s enforcement of the Christian religion on the whole of society

In my work with people who leave religion or traumatized by religion, they often do not have any interest in reading the Bible and may never be able to read it again. I get it. For many of these people, they were significantly damaged through toxic religious indoctrination through the misuse of the Bible.

For example, in many religious circles the Bible is used to directly or indirectly convey these messages:

• I am inherently bad.

• I can't trust myself.

• My heart is wicked.

• I deserve punishment.

• I don't measure up.

• I am powerless.

• Self-denial is holiness.

• I need forgiveness for who I am.

• I need saved from myself.

• I am worthless on my own.

• Being devoted to God means staying in an abusive relationship.

• Therapy or medication is a lack of faith.

• Self-care is selfish.

• The world is evil.

• If I mess up I will lose my salvation and go to hell.

• People I deeply love are in hell or will go there.

• Everything outside my church culture is a threat.

• I can never be good enough.

• Feelings are dangerous and not trustworthy.

• I am not capable of thinking for myself.

• Obedience is true discipleship.

• Questioning is a spirit of rebellion.

• I must be perfect.

• My struggles mean I am not trusting God.

• I am nothing without Jesus.

• I am weak and he is strong.

• God will fix it for me.

Is the Bible brilliant or bust?

Life is filled with many false choices. A false choice is typically couched in binary terms, which eliminates several options in a spectrum of alternatives and possibilities. There are many false choices associated with religion. The one I want to briefly touch upon relates to the Bible.

The false choice goes as follows.

The Bible is either:

• Option (A): the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, exclusive Word of God, and the sole and absolute truth to humankind

• Option (B): the Bible is a fabricated book of fairytales and lies that has no relevance or meaning for modern civilization

Perhaps you could say generally that orthodox Christians would tend to line up with option (A) and atheists would lean more toward option (B).

Let me offer an alternative - option (C).

Option (C) - the Bible as ancient literature

Option (C) involves seeing the overall format of the Bible as a literary anthology—a collection of varied literary genres written by multiple authors over the span of many centuries. One could make the argument that the Bible is the world’s most famous literary work.

The Bible is an Epic, telling the saga of humankind. It speaks to the central themes of our existence, including: life and death; good and evil; suffering and flourishing; love and hate; benevolence and greed; romance and deceit; politics and religion. Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, asserted that the Bible is an extraordinary writing in that it is full of themes, figures and stories that hold archetypal significance for all humankind. An archetype is a universal narrative, deeply imbedded ideas and patterns of thought, iconic figures and metamorphic images that are present in the collective unconscious and have sway over the lived human experience. Jung believed that the Bible is chock-full of these deeply rooted archetypes, which accounts for its enduring interest.

The originality of the story that the Bible tells is extraordinary. In the beginning God creates the universe, gives life and orders everything, gradually fades into the background, hands the keys over to a nobody in Palestine who cobbles together a small group of peasant followers, and single-handedly sparks a revolution against the institution of religion, which results in his execution.

The Bible tells this story based upon the construct of theism, and anthropomorphism is the primary literary vehicle for expressing this idea of “God.” Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. Theism views God as a supreme and supernatural being who created the universe, directs human history toward the fulfillment of an ultimate purpose, grants eternal life in Heaven to the saved, and has a personal relationship with those who are true believers.

Christians often use the phrase, “Christianity is not a religion but a relationship.” However, over the years I have counseled with countless Christians who are disheartened and feel shame because they were not able to get a “relationship with God” to work the way they were told it should happen.

In my view, telling people that a person should relate and interact with God in the same way as two human beings, could be detrimental. I cannot, for example, relate to or interact with animals, stars, flowers, music, or the sunset in the exact same way I relate to or interact with my best friend. It is obvious that two human beings interacting and relating could not be replicated by one human being interacting with a non-material reality. And yet this idea is prevalent in Christian theism as God is presented as a person-like being, particularly expressed through anthropomorphism in the Bible.

A further, and perhaps more damaging, byproduct of Christian theism is that it established a separation theology on which the most fundamentalist Christian beliefs are built. If God is a supreme being and created you as a separate being, this sets the stage for the dilemma that human beings are estranged from God and without salvation will be separated from God forever, which means being condemned eternally to Hell in the afterlife. However, if you remove this theistic framework of God, and view God as the ground of all being, it’s not possible for anyone or anything to be separate or separated from God. I discuss further my misgivings with classic Christian theism in this article.

Keep in mind, that the word “God” is a linguistic marker to identify an ultimate reality that cannot by definition be fully comprehended. Consider the possibility that the word and concept of “God” is a metaphor itself - that the construct of theism is symbolic of a higher power, governing force, creative energy, vitality or essence behind or infused into all existence. There does seem to be a contradiction around understanding God in many Christian circles. On the one hand it is said that God is infinite and incomprehensible, but then quickly following this is a detailed and “correct” explanation of God.

In seminary, I had a class on “God”. In the textbook, the sections were:

• Part 1: Studying God

• Part 2: Knowing God

• Part 3: What God Is Like

• Part 4: What God Does

When I left seminary, I was confident that I knew exactly and correctly who and what God was.

People view the Bible as absurd because they assume that the Biblical writers intended us to take sections like the creation story, Adam and Eve, the Fall, Noah's Ark, Jonah and the whale, etc., literally. If taken literally, one could see how a person might come to believing that there is a Gandalf-God in the sky who asked Abraham to kill his son as an act of devotion, commands holy troops into battles and wars, strikes down people dead for disobedience, and sends the bulk of humankind to eternal conscious torment for incorrect theology.

In my view, attacking the Bible because you think it's a joke that the biblical writers believed the creation story and Noah and the Ark, etc. as literal events, might just make us the joke for actually believing they thought this. Just as Christianity became something that was not the fault of Jesus, so the Bible may not be to blame just because some people have interpreted it in absurd ways.

John Dominic Crossan wrote:

“My point is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”

People who leave religion often become highly condemning of the Bible. It’s understandable, given they may have been victimized by how the Bible was misused. However, not all Christians are Fundamentalists who interpret the Bible in these ways. There are those who believe Christianity is a lifestyle, not a set system of beliefs; see social justice as inseparable from Christianity, and do not view Christianity as the “one true faith”, but embrace religious pluralism. There is a Progressive Christianity website.

There are also theological frameworks that do not conceive of God in terms of biblical theism, and traditional Christian doctrine. If you have an interest in exploring this, a book to consider reading would be, The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God. There are also books that advocate a “Christianity” that doesn’t hold any traditional belief in God or the supernatural. two of them share the same title: Christianity without God: Moving beyond the Dogmas and Retrieving the Epic Moral Narrative by Daniel C. Maguire, and Christianity without God by Lloyd Geering.

In my criticism of narrow-minded theological work, I don’t want to overlook the theological scholarship of progressive theological scholars such as John Cobb, Marcus Borg, F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Charles Hartshorne, Dorothee Sölle and countless others.

Taken as literature, the Bible can be a book through which a person can discover:

• universal themes related to the human experience

• profoundly meaningful archetypes for empowering self-actualization

• wisdom for living a life of purpose, meaning and well-being

But even given all of that, because of how the Bible may have been misused to damage a person spiritually and psychologically, it may never be a piece of literature one will be able to embrace meaningfully. That’s okay too. There are many spiritual, sacred, and literary works that you may find worthwhile such as the Tao Te Ching, Buddhist Sutras, The Vedas and The Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, the writings of Stoicism, Reform Judaism and Open Judaism writings, and others.

Consider the possibility that the ultimate authority on all truth is not the Bible or any singular sacred writing. The highest truth cannot be confined between the covers of any book. It is not something written by men and frozen in time. It is not from a source outside oneself. One’s ultimate authority is the voice of truth within one’s own innermost being.

The Bible isn't the only way to know ultimate truth. Even if a metaphorical interpretation of the Bible makes more sense, you don't have to shift there in an attempt to stay attached to the Bible. If you never read the Bible for the rest of your life, you won’t be pulled through a trap door into a lake of fire.

However, the Bible can be viewed as a masterpiece resource for exploring the deepest and ultimate aspects of existence. Unlike plants and animals (presumably), our species intuits a relationship with the whole of the universe and the ultimate realities that infuse or underlie it. American philosopher and psychologist William James described religion in this way:

“Were one to characterize religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.”

Our species evolved into a vexing existential angst. Homo sapiens have approached this through many pathways, and one of them is religion. Christians believe that the Bible was God’s gift to humankind to sort out ultimate reality and the highest truth. But as I’ve shared, how we do this with the Bible differs. For example, the question may not be if there literally is an original sin condition we are born with. A deeper question might be: What does the Bible's “original sin” idea represent in our collective unconscious? The answer could be that it represents humankind's awareness that there is a shadow self that is capable of great destruction if we don’t properly face it.

There isn’t just one way to approach ultimate reality and truth. You can believe in God, but not be a theist. You can ascribe significance to Jesus, but not be a Christian. You can appreciate the Bible, but not believe it is the only or absolute truth.

The Story We Find Ourselves In

In my three-part Substack series - The Evolution of Religion - I discuss there was a point in our evolution as a species that we became acutely aware that something bigger than ourselves was happening in the universe. We found ourselves thrust into an epic story that often seems outside our control, and at times frightening. The magnitude of the universe pressed upon a budding species striving to survive. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. We should never take lightly just how menacing a Survivor episode this truly was, and how the development of religious imagination played a pivotal role.

The Bible is the best-selling book in all of history. Why is that?

What if the Bible is not a history book, not a religious book, not a theology book, not a morality book, and not a philosophical book. What if the Bible is a story. Not any story, but THE story. The story of us.

What if the Bible is telling a story we all find ourselves in. And what if that story is something about figuring out what we are doing in this universe, what it all means, and coping with the givens of human existence like death, uncertainty, and suffering. What if at the deepest place in every human being, we all desire the same things like love, and fear the same things like loneliness. And what if we all have these moments in which we feel there is something more, something bigger, something transcendent, something that seems to feel like… well… “God”… some kind of ultimate reality… something at the heart of everything…. some force or energy behind everything… some truth that sets us free.

What if the Bible tells our story of who we are and what we do as human beings in the world and universe - the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. And maybe if you look close enough, you find yourself in the story, maybe in ways that are affirming, maybe in ways that are disturbing.

The Bible opens with a picture of God and humankind as one, and then we went our separate ways and it all went of the rails. Maybe the lesson is how vital it is that as we evolve and progress as a species, that we stay rooted in the perennial and universal truths we know deep inside ourselves and bind us together as one, even if we might come at them from different cultures, belief-systems, language, and sacred texts.

The story continues with humankind trying to hash things out through religion. At times that story is beautiful, and at other times it’s ugly. We discover in the story that humans can be inspired by their beliefs in God to love each other, and at other times to rationalize about anything, including killing people in the name of “God’s will.” That’s all part of the story.

Then suddenly, a Middle Eastern Jewish revolutionary showed up and turned religion on its head by insisting we are not separated from God, that we find the ultimate truth within ourselves, and that the only rule is love. And of course, as the story inevitably goes, we managed to create a religion out of Jesus! Do we ever learn??? <Insert facepalm>

All those horrible stories in the Bible - you know we still do all that stuff now, right? We still rationalize our self-centered agendas in the name of some grand cause, we stone people, not with rocks in our hands, but with malice in our hearts, we build our towers in the sky as monuments of pride, we scapegoat the innocent to alleviate our guilt, and I’m convinced we would crucify Jesus all over again if he showed up today.

The title of this article is: “What Bible should you read?”

Here’s my final answer.

Read the Bible that asserts the primacy of love, the Bible that warns of what we are capable of doing even in the name of God, the Bible that calls us to take up the cause of the marginalized, victimized and oppressed, the Bible that shows what happens when thing devolve into greed, division and hatred, the Bible that reminds us that even one nobody born in a barn has it in them to change the world.

The Bible and Religious Deconstruction

The Bible has been used both as a source of liberation and as a tool of control. When religion becomes toxic, it often weaponizes Scripture to enforce shame, fear, and hierarchy.

The Bible, when filtered through toxic religious systems, can become a source of deep harm. But the harm isn’t inherent in the text—it’s in how it’s weaponized.

Toxic religion often uses the Bible to:

❌ Instill fear and shame: Eternal damnation, original sin, and purity culture are wielded to control behavior and suppress identity

❌ Justify abuse and control: Hierarchical structures, gender subjugation, and authoritarian leadership are often backed by selective verses

❌ Suppress critical thinking: Questioning Scripture is framed as rebellion, creating dependency and spiritual gaslighting

Common tactics for weaponizing the Bible include:

⚡Out-of-context quoting: Verses like “Judge not” (Matthew 7:1) are used to silence critique, while others are cherry-picked to condemn specific groups.

⚡Selective emphasis: Scriptures such as “wives submit” (Ephesians 5:22) is used to enforce gender hierarchy without mutuality.

⚡ Proof-texting for control: Leaders cite “Touch not mine anointed” (Psalm 105:15) to avoid accountability or spiritual abuse exposure.

⚡ Redefining terms: Grace, salvation, and faith are reinterpreted to fit rigid doctrinal molds.

⚡ Silencing dissent: Scripture is used to suppress questioning, doubt, or theological evolution.

I have shared my criticisms of modern theological scholarship in articles such as A New Theology: 10 Failings of Theological Scholarship in the Modern World, and Theology's House of Cards: Is Bad Theology Killing Us? (Can good theology save us?).

For the person who leaves the Christian faith, there are several factors to kind in mind as it relates to their relationship to the Bible in their religious deconstruction and reconstruction process. I’ll mention a few:

➡️ A person is not obligated to use or involve the Bible in their religious deconstruction process. They might choose to, but it’s not mandatory. Right? Every person is entitled to autonomously cultivate their own post-religion path in whatever way is meaningful for them.

➡️ In many cases a person has been so victimized by a toxic misteaching of the Bible that it’s not currently possible or advisable to pull the Bible forward into their religious deconstruction and spiritual reconstruction process. Perhaps somewhere down the road they might change their views of the Bible… or not. For some, the most healing move is to walk away from scripture entirely—at least for a time. Nature, poetry, and embodied experience become new sacred texts.

➡️ There are others who will cultivate a more liberal or progressive Christian orientation, and find a different interpretive lens through which to understand the Bible, particularly its more difficult sections. For example, treating miraculous or supernatural elements as mythic narratives that express spiritual truths, not factual claims. Prophetic texts can be reinterpreted as calls to resist empire, economic injustice, and religious hypocrisy. Jesus can be viewed as an archetypal figure, seen not as divine savior but as mystic, disruptor, and wisdom teacher—an embodiment of radical love and justice.

➡️ Carl Jung saw biblical stories as expressions of deep psychological archetypes, not divine truths. Even stripped of divine authority, the Bible still functions as a mirror of human complexity—a vast archive of myth, poetry, law, lament, and longing. It’s not the presence of God that makes the Bible meaningful to all people; it’s the depth of its engagement with what it means to be human.

I previously published an article in which I discussed ways of approaching the Bible in one’s deconstruction process, Five Reasons Not to Read the Bible (and Five Reasons To Reconsider) Should We Toss or Rethink History's Bestselling Book.

What is Systematic Theology?

Systematic theology is a discipline that organizes religious doctrines into a coherent, logical system—especially within Christianity. It arranges doctrines into categories like God, humanity, salvation, and the end times.

Systematic theology offers a big picture grasp of the doctrinal teaching of Christian Scripture. It’s typically a synthesis of what the entire Bible says about a topic of faith, and is summarized with a concise statement or definition. Here are a few common categories of systematic theology:

• Theology proper (the doctrine of God)

• Bibliology (the doctrine of the Bible)

• Angelology (the doctrine of angels and demons)

• Anthropology (the doctrine of humanity)

• Hamartiology (the doctrine of sin)

• Christology (the doctrine of Christ)

• Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation)

• Pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit)

• Ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church)

• Eschatology (the doctrine of the end times)

In seminary, I learned systematic theology from Wayne Grudem. He published several scholarly works in the field of theology.

This book in divided into seven major sections:

🧾Part One: The Doctrine of the Word of God

🧾Part Two: The Doctrine of God

🧾Part Three: The Doctrine of Man

🧾Part Four: The Doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit

🧾Part Five: The Doctrine of the Application of Redemption

🧾Part Six: The Doctrine of the Church

🧾Part Seven: The Doctrine of the Future

Grudem wrote:

“I believe that theology should be explicitly based on the teachings of Scripture, in each chapter I have attempted to show where the Bible gives support for the doctrines under consideration.”

The Problems with Systematic Theology

It’s no secret that I have serious concerns with traditional Christian theology. I have expressed these concerns in previous articles such as:

• A New Theology: 10 Failings of Theological Scholarship in the Modern World

• Theology’s House of Cards: Is Bad Theology Killing Us? (Can good theology save us?)

• When Theology is Privilege: Too Metaphysically Minded to Be Any Earthly Good

Systematic theology can function as harmful religious indoctrination when it prioritizes doctrinal conformity over critical inquiry, suppresses pluralism, and reinforces hierarchical control. Its structured approach to belief can become a tool for shaping thought and behavior in rigid, exclusionary ways.

How Systematic Theology Becomes Harmful Indoctrination

🚫 Doctrinal Gatekeeping

Systematic theology often defines what is “orthodox” and what is “heretical.” This binary framing can silence dissent, marginalize alternative interpretations, and punish theological creativity.

🚫 Presuppositional Control

It begins with assumptions—such as the Bible’s inerrancy or divine authorship—and builds a system that reinforces those premises. This can discourage questioning and lock believers into a closed epistemic loop.

🚫 Educational Infrastructure

Seminaries, catechisms, and doctrinal manuals teach theology as settled truth rather than evolving wisdom. Students are often trained to defend the system rather than explore its limits.

🚫 Emotional and Social Conditioning

Systematic theology is often embedded in rituals, sermons, and community norms that reward conformity and shame deviation. This creates psychological pressure to internalize beliefs without critical engagement.

🚫 Suppression of Lived Experience

The system may ignore trauma, embodiment, and pluralistic voices—especially those of women, queer people, and colonized communities. It privileges abstraction over lived reality.

More specifically, you could summarize some of my disagreements with traditional Christian systematic theology as follows:

Flawed Premises

Traditional Christian systematic theology is based upon what I believe to be several false premises. I’ll mention a few.

➡️ The belief that the God of Christian theism supernaturally orchestrated the writing of the Bible, ensuring the authors conveyed God’s message accurately, making the scriptures an authoritative source on all subjects and matters of faith discussed. For starters, I refute the legitimacy of the entire construct of God conceived by Christian theism. I summarized Christian theism in the article, Is Christian Theism Dead?

➡️ The assumption that the Bible is internally consistent and can be harmonized into a single doctrinal system. The reality is that the Bible contains diverse genres, voices, and tensions—poetry, law, lament, prophecy, and parable that resist synthesis. It is not possible for someone to construct a unified systematic theology from the Bible, which is one reason why there are over 45,000 different Christian denominations around the world with different and opposing beliefs.

➡️ Systematic theology can be guilty of circular reasoning and create presuppositional loops. For example, by starting with the premise that the Bible is inerrant and divinely inspired, it then builds doctrines from scripture that reinforce this premise, without allowing for external critique or alternative epistemologies. In other words, the Bible is true because it says it’s true. Circular reasoning also occurs through doctrinal self-validation. Doctrines like the Trinity, original sin, or penal substitution are often treated as settled truths. Scripture is interpreted to support these doctrines, even when texts are ambiguous or contradictory. The system validates itself by selectively reading the text.

Doctrolatry

I invented the word “doctrolatry” to mean the worship of doctrine. Systematic theology can substitutes system for scripture. The system itself can become the authority, subtly replacing the Bible. This leads to idolatry of the framework and discourages fresh engagement with the text.

In my view, systematic theology is often guilty of doctrolatry in the following ways:

🧨 Systematic theology often operates with epistemological rigidity. It often begins with fixed premises (e.g. biblical inerrancy, divine sovereignty) and builds a system that reinforces those assumptions. This discourages questioning and limits theological imagination.

🧨 The belief that theological categories (e.g., “soteriology,” “eschatology”) are timeless and culturally neutral, ignores the reality is that these categories often reflect Western, Enlightenment-era frameworks that may not translate across cultures or lived experience. Many theological systems are shaped by Western metaphysics or Enlightenment rationalism, which can exclude non-Western voices and reinforce colonial or patriarchal assumptions

🧨 The notion that doctrinal coherence is a sign of truth is dismissive of how mystery, paradox, and ambiguity are central to many biblical texts. Over-systematizing sacred writings is a perilous path. In its quest for doctrinal consistency, systematic theology may resolve tensions prematurely—like divine sovereignty vs. human freedom—leading to trite or reductive conclusions

🧨 The premise that theology is a neutral, rational discipline is problematic. All theology is shaped by context—historical, cultural, political. For example, early Christian theology was influenced by Greek metaphysics; modern theology by Enlightenment rationalism. Systematic theology frequently performs as a hegemonic discipline—one that excludes non-white, non-male perspectives and reinforces dominant power structures.

🧨 The notion that the Bible provides clear answers to all theological questions is highly problematic. Systematic theology often speculates where scripture is silent, risking distortion or overreach. In its quest for clarity, it tends to resolve tensions prematurely, ignoring paradoxes that are central to spiritual life. Systematic theology faces a perennial epistemological problem. When trying to speak about a divine object that definitionally exceeds speech, it continues to build systems that claim to explain the ineffable.

🧨 Systematic theology distorts scripture through doctrinal grids. It often interprets biblical texts through pre-existing categories, which can flatten nuance and misrepresent meaning. Instead of letting scripture speak on its own terms, it forces texts to fit a system.

🧨 Systematic theology often privileges certain texts (e.g., Romans) while ignoring others (e.g., Ruth, Psalms). This creates imbalanced theology and spiritual malnourishment.

🧨 Exegesis and eisegesis are two contrasting approaches to interpreting sacred texts. One seeks to draw meaning from the text; the other reads meaning into it. The below diagram summarizes the difference:

Because it’s built to preserve orthodoxy, systematic theology often resists new insights from science, philosophy, or marginalized communities—making it slow to adapt or reform.

It’s often the case that theology is not the free search for truth, but rather a defense of an already held position. Rather than seeking out the truth in and of itself, it is designed to vigorously propagate and defend an already determined theological proposition.

For example, if your presupposition is a theistic conception of God, everything else in the system will be made to reinforce this view. Likewise, if your presupposition is a panentheistic conception of God, everything else in the system will be made to reinforce that view.

Systematic Theology and Religious Deconstruction

Systematic theology and religious deconstruction exist in creative tension: one seeks to build coherent doctrinal systems, the other seeks to question, unravel, and compost them.

Systematic theology often represents the architecture of inherited belief—the scaffolding many are now dismantling. Systematic theology aims to:

• Organize belief into coherent categories (e.g., God, salvation, church, end times)

• Preserve orthodoxy by aligning with tradition and scripture

• Provide clarity for teaching, preaching, and apologetics

• Reinforce authority through logic, hierarchy, and consistency

It’s often taught in seminaries as a way to form ministers and theologians within a specific tradition.

Religious deconstruction, however, is about the composting of belief. It’s the process of critically examining inherited beliefs—often triggered by trauma, disillusionment, or ethical rupture. It involves:

• Interrogating theological assumptions (e.g., patriarchy, exclusivism, inerrancy)

• Naming epistemic harm and spiritual abuse

• Disentangling identity from doctrine

• Seeking new meaning through grief, embodiment, and symbolic rewilding

It’s not always linear or intellectual—it’s often somatic, emotional, and relational.

I created the below diagram to show the tensions between systematic theology and religious deconstruction:

The Bible inside Religious Deconstruction

When people talk about “religious deconstruction,” they often mean dismantling inherited beliefs, interrogating power structures, and healing from the psychological, communal, and symbolic wounds of institutional religion. But the Bible sits in a strange place within that process: it is both the architecture of the old world and a reservoir of mythic, poetic, and existential insight that can be remixed into something new.

What follows is a framing for re-thinking the Bible in the post-religion space:

🌿 1. The Bible as a Cultural Ecosystem, Not a Rulebook

Instead of treating the Bible as a monolith, deconstruction reframes it as:

• A library of competing voices

• A record of human attempts to make meaning in crisis

• A mythic archive shaped by trauma, empire, exile, and longing

• A symbolic ecosystem that can be composted into new growth

This shift alone breaks the spell of inerrancy and opens the text to reinterpretation, remix, and reclamation.

🔥 2. Deconstruction as a Rite of Passage

Leaving religion is rarely an intellectual exercise. It’s a liminal initiation:

• Separation from the old symbolic world

• Descent into ambiguity, grief, and identity rupture

• Re-emergence with new meaning-making capacities

The Bible becomes part of the “old skin” that must be shed—but also a source of archetypes that can guide the transition (Exodus, wilderness, exile, resurrection-as-metaphor). I am often mapping existential crisis as a rite of passage; the Bible is full of those same patterns, once freed from dogma.

🪶 3. The Bible as Mythic Material for Post-Religious Spirituality

When the literalism dissolves, the text becomes available again as:

• Poetry of human longing

• Mythic templates for liberation, grief, justice, and renewal

• Symbolic language for ecological and communal re-rooting

For example:

Genesis becomes a story about humans awakening to moral consciousness, not “original sin.”

Exodus becomes a collective liberation myth, not a historical claim.

The prophets become voices of social imagination, not fortune-tellers.

Jesus becomes an archetype of radical solidarity, not a metaphysical transaction.

This is an example of symbolic rewilding—turning inherited myths into communal tools for healing.

🧩 4. Deconstruction as Hermeneutical Justice

I’ve named hermeneutical injustice as a core challenge. Deconstruction restores interpretive agency:

• People reclaim the right to interpret their own experience

• Marginalized voices reinterpret texts that once harmed them

• Communities create new rituals and meanings outside clerical control

The Bible becomes one voice among many, not the final word.

📖 A Post-Religion Biblical Hermeneutic

A post‑religion biblical hermeneutic is an approach to interpreting the Bible after the collapse of traditional religious authority, doctrinal obligation, and supernatural belief. It treats the text not as a divine command system but as a cultural, mythic, psychological, and political archive that can be re‑read for human liberation, existential insight, and communal imagination.

It’s not “anti‑religious.” It’s post‑religious—meaning it moves through religion, metabolizes it, and reclaims its symbolic power without returning to dogma. Think of it as hermeneutics for people who have left the church but not the hunger for meaning, myth, or communal ritual.

Here’s a map of a post‑religious hermeneutic for reading the Bible. Think of this as a framework for reading the Bible after belief, after dogma, and after the collapse of inherited authority—yet still with depth, reverence, and creative agency.

📖 The Hermeneutic of Decentering: The Bible as One Voice in a Vast Chorus

Instead of treating the Bible as a singular, privileged revelation, this hermeneutic begins by:

• Removing the Bible from its pedestal of exclusivity

• Placing it alongside other mythic, cultural, and ecological texts

• Seeing it as a human artifact shaped by trauma, empire, longing, and imagination

This decentering is not dismissal. It’s contextualization—the first step toward interpretive freedom.

📖 The Hermeneutic of Composting: Letting the Text Decay into Fertile Soil

Post-religious reading treats the Bible like organic material:

• Some parts nourish

• Some parts need to decompose

• Some parts become mulch for new symbolic growth

This approach allows:

Harmful texts to be metabolized rather than obeyed

Liberatory texts to be reclaimed without literalism

Ambiguous texts to be held with curiosity rather than fear

Composting is a ritual act: you let the text rot so something new can root.

📖 The Hermeneutic of Mythic Sensitivity: Reading for Archetype, Pattern, and Human Truth

Instead of asking “Did this happen?” or “What does this doctrine require?”, the post-religious reader asks:

• What archetype is at play here?

• What human experience is being symbolized?

• What existential crisis or communal longing shaped this story?

• What pattern of liberation, rupture, or renewal is encoded here?

Examples:

Exodus → collective liberation myth

Genesis 3 → awakening to moral consciousness

Prophets → poetic resistance to empire

Gospels → archetypes of solidarity, healing, and social imagination

📖 The Hermeneutic of Multiplicity: Embracing Contradiction as a Feature, Not a Bug

The Bible is not a unified voice. It is:

• A debate

• A collage

• A record of evolving consciousness

• A library of competing theologies

Post-religious reading honors this multiplicity:

Contradictions become invitations to nuance

Tensions become sites of creativity

Divergent voices become models for pluralism

This is a transcultural, postdisciplinary remix.

📖 The Hermeneutic of Liberation: Reading with the Margins, Not the Center

Instead of reading from the standpoint of institutional religion, this hermeneutic reads:

• With the oppressed

• With the exiled

• With the silenced

• With those harmed by religious patriarchy

• With communities seeking mutual liberation

This transforms the Bible from a tool of control into a resource for justice, healing, and solidarity.

📖 The Hermeneutic of Embodiment: From Belief to Practice, From Doctrine to Ritual

Post-religious reading asks:

• How does this story invite us to live differently?

• What ritual, practice, or communal act might emerge from this text?

• How does this passage speak to ecological belonging, grief, or communal repair?

📖 The Hermeneutic of Rewilding: Returning the Text to the Earth

This final movement reconnects biblical symbolism to:

• Nature

• Seasons

• Cycles of death and renewal

• Ecological interdependence

Examples:

Wilderness as a site of transformation

Water as cleansing, boundary-crossing, and rebirth

Mountains as thresholds of vision

Gardens as metaphors for tending the inner and communal life

This is the Bible after religion—returned to the soil, to the body, to the communal imagination.

A post-religious hermeneutic moves through seven movements:

1. Decentering — the Bible as one voice among many

2. Composting — metabolizing the text for new growth

3. Mythic Sensitivity — reading for archetype and existential truth

4. Multiplicity — embracing contradiction and plurality

5. Liberation — reading with the margins

6. Embodiment — translating text into practice and ritual

7. Rewilding — returning the text to ecological and communal meaning

This is a hermeneutic that honors: pluralism, ritual depth, symbolic rewilding, and communal healing.

A Framework for Atheist Biblical Interpretation

An atheist could find in useful or meaningful to read the Bible. Not to believe it. Not to obey it. But because it’s one of the most influential symbolic, political, and psychological texts in human history.

A method for reading the Bible without belief, without dogma, and without surrendering its symbolic power could include:

1. The Hermeneutic Stance: “Human, Not Divine”

The foundational posture is simple: Everything in the Bible is a human attempt to narrate experience.

This means:

• No supernatural assumptions

• No divine authorship

• No doctrinal authority

• No obligation to harmonize contradictions

Instead, the text becomes:

a cultural artifact

a mythic archive

a psychological mirror

a political document

a record of trauma, hope, and survival

This stance frees the atheist reader from apologetics and opens the text to honest critique and creative reinterpretation.

2. The Four Lenses of Atheist Interpretation

A. Historical–Material Lens

Ask: What was happening on the ground—politically, economically, socially—when this text emerged?

This lens treats the Bible as:

• resistance literature under empire

• patriarchal law codes

• trauma narratives of displaced peoples

• mythmaking in the face of ecological precarity

It grounds the text in real human conditions.

B. Mythic–Symbolic Lens

Ask: What archetypes, motifs, and symbolic patterns are at work here?

This lens reads the Bible like:

• Homer

• the Upanishads

• Indigenous creation stories

• contemporary speculative fiction

It extracts:

exile

wilderness

covenant

apocalypse

rebirth

liberation

These become symbolic resources, not theological claims.

C. Psychological–Existential Lens

Ask: What human experiences, fears, desires, and dilemmas are being metabolized?

This lens sees the Bible as:

• a record of grief

• a map of meaning-making

• a chronicle of moral imagination

• a mirror for existential crisis

It allows atheists to read the text as a human psyche externalized into story.

D. Ethical–Political Lens

Ask: How has this text been used—to liberate or to oppress?

This lens examines:

• patriarchy

• slavery

• colonialism

• heteronormativity

• empire

• class hierarchy

But also:

prophetic justice

liberation narratives

communal ethics

resistance to domination

It allows atheists to critique and reclaim simultaneously.

3. The Three Moves of Atheist Interpretation

• Move 1: Deconstruct: Expose the power dynamics, mythmaking strategies, and ideological assumptions.

• Move 2: Discern: Identify the symbolic, existential, or communal insight that remains meaningful.

• Move 3: Rewild: Remix the symbol into a post‑religious, pluralistic, ecological, or communal context.

This is turning inherited symbols into living, communal resources.

4. The Atheist Reader’s Questions

A practical set of interpretive prompts:

Historical

• What crisis or conflict produced this text?

• Who benefits from this narrative? Who is harmed?

Mythic

• What archetype is being activated?

• What universal human pattern is encoded here?

Psychological

• What fear, longing, or trauma is being expressed?

• What does this reveal about the human condition?

Ethical

• How has this text been weaponized?

• How might it be reclaimed for liberation?

Creative

• How might this symbol be reimagined for today?

• What ritual, story, or communal practice could emerge from it?

An atheist biblical hermeneutic reads the Bible as a human archive—historical, mythic, psychological, and political—and transforms its symbols into resources for liberation, meaning, and communal re‑imagining.

Over the years I have written quite a bit about the intersection of Christianity and atheism. If this interests you, two of those articles to start with are:

In Summary

• The first misconception about the Bible is that there is only one.

• If the Bible is something to be “right” about we are in trouble because we have different legitimate frameworks for interpreting the Bible.

• Maybe the Bible is telling a story we all find ourselves in.

• If you don’t find the message of the preeminence of love in the Bible, maybe you are reading the wrong one.

• A person is not obligated to use or involve the Bible in their religious deconstruction process.

• The Bible can be meaningful for religion leavers and atheists, if it is approached from a different lens.

• It’s not the presence of God that makes the Bible meaningful to all people; it’s the depth of its engagement with what it means to be human.

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
- Flannery O'Connor