23 March 2011
Dear Friends,
In light of our efforts to live as disciples of Christ, I have a few comments to make in response to further reading in Rick Warren’s popular book, The Purpose-Driven Life.
I can understand the author’s use of popular language and terms to reach a wider audience, but I often find myself asking, “Does Warren believe what he is writing, or is he just saying this for an effect?” In particular, he keeps writing, “The Bible says...,” as if the Bible were a particular person or even God, and could communicate directly to people. If he wrote, “The author of Genesis tells us,” or similar words, I would be less perplexed. But the very frequent use of “The Bible says” seems to come out of a fundamentalist environment, and appeals to biblical fundamentalists, who teach the sacred texts as a single work. Rick Warren draws from poetry, story, law, as if it can all be interpreted in the same way: “The Bible says, and that is that!” In other words, there is no attempt to question the meaning or validity or time-relevance of particular quotations; all of “the Bible” is treated as just true, and that is that. When Rick Warren mentioned Noah built an ark, and had in sitting “in his front yard,” I really wondered if he is not in some ways playing with his readers.
More to the point, as an example of biblical fundamentalism that ought to be disturbing to a human being who knows that we are obliged to think and to question, Warren discusses obedience as part of divine worship. On that, nearly any Christian would agree. But then he slips in a very clever appeal for money which really startled me by its audacity: To attend church without “tithing” is an act of disobedience to God (p. 76). He lifts the Hebrew practice of “tithing” out of its original context, and assumes that Christians must “tithe.” Well, the same Jewish context insists on worshiping God on the Sabbath, which is Friday sundown to Saturday sundown; and the same context insists on keeping all the kosher laws. But Warren says nothing of these things, which are part of the same original setting in Jewish worship.
Insistence on “tithing” (giving a tenth of one’s wealth to the religious authorities, presumably) reinforces my conception of a televangelist: a Bible in one hand, a rake (for money) in the other hand. I wonder, “How dare a minister of the gospel lay on people a claim that if they are not giving the church 10% of their wealth or earnings, that they are openly disobeying God?” It is no wonder some of these “Bible-centered” churches become so large and prosperous, if they can draw on 10% of each person’s net income, or real wealth. Again, understand that Rick Warren is lifting out of its context in ancient religious practice one particular custom (tithing), and omitting the many other practices that apparently would not be so lucrative for his church (Sabbath worship, reading Torah in Hebrew, bar-mitvah for all boys, keeping strict kosher laws, and so on.)
To be honest, I find the kind of fundamentalistic reading of sacred texts, in this case, “the Bible,” that Warren practices to be nearly blasphemous. He can twist the text to say what he wants it to say, and often does so by using some twelve different translations, some of which are very lose and strange paraphrases far divorced from the original meaning. He picks and chooses passages to cite as if they are “the truth,” and does not acknowledge that he is omitting many passages which say things contrary to what he wants his readers to learn.
Where are the human beings who remember that as human beings we must engage in genuine inquiry, in an open search for truth, in the simple act of questioning, and not just fall back on, “the Bible says?” Is it not a real shame if one seeks to be “a good Christian” and forgets that he or she must be a good human being, and seek truth wherever it can be found? We have a duty to think, to question, and not to fall back on easy, simplistic answers, such as, “the Bible says.” That approach to life is insufficient and misleading. But Rick Warren illustrates that fundamentalism can be very lucrative.
In the wise words of Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worthy of a human being.”
Respectfully yours,
Fr. Wm. Paul McKane
