In his book The God Delusion, atheist Richard Dawkins writes, “We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories. Such picking and choosing is a matter of personal decision…” (p. 269). Note the implicit contrast; according to Dawkins, Christians either “believe” scripture – by accepting it literally – or “write off” scripture – by interpreting it any other way. The unstated assumption is that the fundamentalists and literalists are the “true Christians,” and that everyone else is merely compromising in a hopeless attempt to reconcile scripture with reality. (Elsewhere, Dawkins has suggested that “[i]t is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise.”)
Never mind that “everyone else” includes…pretty much everyone. Ironically, it even includes modern-day fundamentalists, (almost) all of whom reject the literal interpretation of scriptures that describe God as having a body or the Earth as flat. Dawkins still seems to believe that the very same fundamentalists whom he describes as having “mind viruses” are the ones with the greatest understanding of ancient Near Eastern religious texts – the ones who “believe” scripture rather than “writing it off.”
Unfortunately, Dawkins is far from alone in his opinion – not merely among non-Christians, but even among believers.
Contrary to popular opinion, George Orwell was not fascinated with porcine sociopolitical engagements.
I have a joke I like to tell about George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It’s not particularly good, but it’s based on a true story. Whenever someone mentions having read novels at a young age, I say, “I read Animal Farm in the second grade. I thought it was about animals on a farm. I was wrong.”
My second grade self notwithstanding, it is clear to pretty much everyone that George Orwell did not intend Animal Farm to be a reflection on the trials and travails of farm animals; he intended it to be a dystopian satirization of Stalinism. To stop at the “literal reading” of the text, in other words, is to miss the point.
My point does not apply only to Orwell’s writings; with almost any text, we are willing to allow for the possibility of metaphor, symbolism, allegory, and multi-layered meaning. Why not the Bible?
One quick rejoinder is that the Bible, unlike Animal Farm, was not written as a work of fiction. And my response would be that the terms “fiction” and “non-fiction” do not encapsulate all dimensions of literary genres. It is overly simplistic to say that the Bible is a book of fiction or non-fiction, because the Bible is a book of many things: prophecies, histories, poems, epistles, philosophies, laws, etc. It was written by several authors at several points in time; it, in fact, is a library rather than a book.
I am not arguing that these considerations entail, in and of themselves, a non-literal understanding of Genesis or of any other part of the Bible. I am only saying that there is no prima facie justification for preferring a literalist interpretation of the Bible to more nuanced readings. We are called to take scripture seriously – not (necessarily) literally.
Why, then, do so many of us – Christian or not – share this underlying suspicion that fundamentalists are the only ones honestly engaging the biblical texts? Why are so many non-Christians dismissive of moderate or liberal Christianity as inauthentic? Why are so many Christians who believe in evolution wary of it? I believe there are multiple reasons.
1. Perhaps most important is the impression that Christians are (in C.S. Lewis’ words) “always engaged in the hopeless task of trying to force the new knowledge into moulds which it has outgrown. … [I]t seems to [the non-Christian] clear that, if our ancestors had known what we know about the universe, Christianity would never have existed at all…” (Lewis, “Dogma and the Universe”). The perception is that Christians who reject certain literal interpretations are retreating from historical Christianity. I cannot emphasize enough how incorrect this notion is. To retreat from nineteenth-century American Protestantism is not to retreat from “historical” Christianity. To retreat from nineteenth-century American Protestantism is not to retreat from “historical” Christianity. On the contrary, Christian thinkers throughout history have endorsed all sorts of cosmologies. It is fundamentalism that is anachronistic in its dogmatic insistence on particular readings of Genesis.
2. Fundamentalists can be the most vocal Christians and, to many non-believers, the most annoying. There’s a reason Fred Phelps is better known than Rowan Williams. This means that more attention (and, strangely enough, legitimacy) is given to fundamentalism than to other varieties of Christianity.
3. Fundamentalism is simpler. It is easier for non-Christians to engage (or dismiss), and it is easier for everyone to understand. Christians, in turn, are afraid of a “slippery slope.” If Genesis 1-11 is figurative, what about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This is a legitimate concern – some Christians have re-imagined their faith beyond recognition – but fear cannot dog our exegetical steps.
I know several people who have devoted their lives to comprehending the Bible, most of whom I would not consider “fundamentalists.” These men and women may be completely incorrect in their interpretations of the Bible, but they certainly have not “written it off.” Instead, it is they who have been written off by Dawkins and others who (intentionally or not) implicate them with the fundamentalists. I pray that we will not repeat their mistake.
Love it, man. I agree “fundamentalism” is an almost useless term given its complicated history and almost endlessly flexible usage in modern parlance, both within and without the church. However, I do think it is helpful (and fair) to distinguish between evangelicals and fundamentalists (though many would see themselves in both camps), as well as theological liberals. To me, the major difference is that, above all else, evangelicals want to engage the Scriptures from a position of humility and obedience, listening to the original intention of the texts (from both human and divine authors, which of course gets tricky). Fundamentalists and liberals both have certain non-negotiables, a priori, that–simply put–Scripture isn’t allowed to contradict or disagree with. Genesis/creation is the perfect example today, where in light of both modern science and (especially) in-depth reseach into Ancient Near Eastern culture and literature, it is profoundly inappropriate to read the text as “intending” to give us scientific answers ahead of time. That’s simply not the point, when read genre-appropriately in light of other creation stories of the time. I’d love to write some posts on this at some point, but the best I could do is point people to John Walton’s new book which will surely become a landmark in the field:
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248458795&sr=8-1
Just a few other brief thoughts. I think the term “literal” needs to be carefully nuanced in these discussions. There are, when we pay attention, two very different ways this term is used. The first (and most widely used) seems to mean that we read all genres as if they were strict historical accounts, similiar to a word-by-word, detail-by-detail report on CNN of a foreign word. Of course, this is often the case, even in Scripture, but just as often it is not. The “Left Behind” series of novels conjures up this use of “literal”, as extremely symbolic and metaphorical elements of apocalyptic literature (i.e. Daniel, Revelation) are read unsymbolically and unmetaphorically. I think it was with respect to this usage of the word “literal” that C. S. Lewis–when approached by a contemporary British academic who was not an orthodox Christian who asked if Lewis was one of those [fundamentalist] Christians who actually read the bible ‘literally’–responded by saying, “No, I read it seriously–by which I mean that when Jesus said his followers should be as innocent as doves, I don’t understand him to mean that we should lay eggs” (that’s my paraphrase:)
The second use of literal is the one I am not so ready to leave to either the fundamentalists or the liberals: namely, to read a text “literally” (in classic usage) means simply to read it in historical context, and to seek out the intention of the author (exegesis) rather than to read in your own presuppositions/convictions into the text (eisegesis). During the Reformation, the reformers often were at pains to distinguish this literal “sense” of the Scriptures from three other “senses” or hermeneutical devices: the moral, allegorical and anagogical (all of which were put under the heading “spiritual” sense). In this, I am very much a “literal” reader of the Bible–and I think Genesis says nothing about science, and Revelation says nothing about specific details about the end of the world.
Thanks for the comment, Nick!
There certainly is a difference between “fundamentalists” and Evangelicals, which is something for people unfamiliar with the nuances of Protestant Christianity to understand.
Examples of the second meaning of “literal” can be found in Aquinas’ Summa (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q1_A10.html). I think the main thing for people (both Christians and non-Christians) to keep in mind is that the fundamentalist interpretations of scriptures such as Genesis 1-11 is by no means the only historical interpretation.