One of my summer reading projects has been Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water and Loving the Bible Again, by Rachel Held–Evans. If you have difficulty relating to the Bible, or determining exactly what role it should play in guiding our lives as follower of Jesus, this book may be helpful. I have read a number of books about the Bible as Story before, but Rachel’s writing challenged me to see the Bible from a vantage point that is different from my own.
Rachel was born into a conservative evangelical congregation, but over time her theology has become more progressive. I fear some may sneer liberal, at this point, and not consider reading the book. I think that would be a mistake. While there are a few places where Rachel gives her personal opinion, I believe the overall message of the book can speak to Christians across the theological spectrum if we will allow it. It addresses an important topic to all who follow Jesus. Contrary to how we sometimes view it, the Bible is not the “fourth person of the Trinity”; Jesus—not the Bible—is the Word of God (logos)—John 1:1. However, that doesn’t mean we should “forget” about the Bible. Not at all; it is sacred writing, inspired by God, and so we need to learn to properly handle it—2 Timothy 3:14-17.
My personal journey of faith is a little different from Rachel’s. I sometimes feel that, with due deference to Bilbo and Frodo, the story of my journey could be called "There and Back Again: A Methodist's Tale" I was born, baptized, and confirmed United Methodist (UM). I went away to college and got involved in more evangelical, non-denominational churches, before eventually “coming home” to the UM church when I married a UM pastor. Because I wasn’t a cradle evangelical, and because the church I attended for most of my years “in the middle” of my spiritual journey to date was more progressive evangelical, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced quite the same faith crisis that Rachel describes in the book, when I became exposed to different ideas as I ventured out into the world. I think I have always been comfortable in the via media that Methodism strives to obtain—which derives from Anglicanism. I don’t think I’ve ever viewed Scripture as an inerrant transcript from the Divine, but rather as inspired writings from human beings earnestly seeking to faithfully interpret God. In their specific context. I never felt I had to choose between evolution and Scripture, for example, but clearly Rachel’s experiences growing up in more fundamentalist churches resonate with many readers and writers.[1] I’ve encountered just enough conservative dogma to know it’s out there and can be toxic to faith when we feel we have to “check our brain at the door of the church”.
A more significant difference in our perspectives is our genders. As a woman, Rachel has a lens to interpret the stories of God’s people that I, as a male—and a white male in particular—do not possess. She clearly experiences a connection with the people encountered on the pages of the Bible (and with other followers of Jesus throughout history)—who the vast majority of time were an oppressed minority in the times and places they lived—more easily than I.
Those two differences notwithstanding, there is one thing Rachel and I do have in common that hooked me to the book from page one. Like her, I fancy myself a storyteller, and I resonate with her view of the Bible as God’s Story. Before we can recognize the Bible for what it is, we have to recognize what it isn’t. It isn’t meant to be a science textbook or legal document or a book of magic. No, the Bible is—first and foremost—the Story of God’s people as they journey with God from Creation, to the Cross, to New Creation, and on into Eternity.
In the Introduction, Rachel shares a bit about her spiritual journey, and how her view of what the Bible was to her changed over time: from a book of children’s stories, to a handbook (or instruction book) as a teenager, to an answer book as a young adult, to a stumbling block to her faith for a time in her mid-twenties. Though she doesn’t say it explicitly, I think she’s come to a point of seeing it as story once again, but one for “spiritually mature” audiences only. I for one could relate to this description of an evolving views of Scripture—and even of God—as I have grown.
As a memoirist as well as a theologian, Rachel recognizes the power of story and she views the Bible a series of individual stories of God’s people told through a variety of voices in a variety of genres. To fully appreciate the writing in the Bible, we need to understand the places and spaces where those voices originated. We need to resist the temptation to force-fit the text to fit our contemporary setting, and cherry-pick verses to prove whatever point we want to make. Instead, we need to let these ancient texts speak to us on their own terms.
Inspired is really a series of stories. The content is organized into series of reflections on the many types of stories found in Scripture. There are Chapters on Origin, Deliverance, War, Wisdom, Resistance, Gospel, Fish (discussing the Miracles of Jesus), and Church stories. Each one contains anecdotes from Rachel’s experience, as well as thought-provoking theological reflection. Before each chapter, there in an interstitial containing a piece of creative storytelling that relates to the topic she is about to discuss. Prior to the chapter on Gospel Stories, for example, there is a retelling of the Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well—John 4:4-28.
To me some of the strongest writing is the chapter on Deliverance Stories. Again, as a woman author, I think she is able to empathize with these stories perhaps better than a white male author would. For example, because she was pregnant with her own firstborn child during the period she wrote the book—and especially because she had experienced a miscarriage prior to the current pregnancy—Rachel experiences particular solidarity with Mary’s experience as theotokos—the God bearer. She reflects on the implications of the verse: And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered—Luke 2:6, King James Version. I thought the following excerpt from Chapter 2 of the book was powerful.
What volumes hid between these lines! The morning sickness, the hormones, the round ligament pain, the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the fear, those first startling kicks and those first piercing cries—all the quotidian challenges of pregnancy, punctuated by the considerable risks of first-century maternity and the momentous prophecy surrounding this particular child.
Did Mary ever doubt what she’d been told by the angel? Did she wake one night to blood too early or pain too sharp and wonder if her song had been nothing more than foolish ramblings of misplaced hope?
There are few doctrines of the Christian faith more astounding to me than the incarnation, the remarkable notion that the God of the universe was once as vulnerable as a fetus and hungry as a baby. Mary knew the humanity of Christ more intimately than anyone, from the moment that humanity manifested itself in the swelling of her breasts, a sudden sensitivity to heat and smell, that strange aversion to eggs and inescapable craving for lamb.
The days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
Two millennia later, in the longest hours of my own unremarkable pregnancy, this little string of words from the gospel of Luke invited me to press on, to fear not. It reminded me that whether it’s a forty-year journey through the wilderness or a forty-week gestation, the most important tasks of life are accomplished a day at a time. Deliverance is not as much a transformation of the heart as it is a transference of the body—Inspired, Chapter 2, pp. 46-47.
Now, I’ve reflected on the implications of the incarnation before, but I guarantee I didn’t write anything like this! I couldn’t… I physically feel this scene. Well, I feel it as much as any man—who has never experienced pregnancy and childbirth—can. Of course, the scene has such power to her because Rachel has lived a similar scene herself. She has entered into it in a way I never could. She got Deliverance because she was living through her own personal “deliverance” at the time.
Probably my favorite chapter (at least at this time) is the one on Gospel Stories. I think it’s because this chapter really drives home the idea of the gospels being composed of stories—including a lengthy discussion of parables, which are stories Jesus told to help people understand his favorite topic of conversation: the kingdom of God. He uses things his first-century audience would have been familiar with as metaphors (word pictures) for how life in the kingdom of God works.
When I read some of this I found myself thinking of the wisdom Sophia Petrillo used to offer her roommates in the 1980s-90s TV series, The Golden Girls. Now, granted, Sophia’s tales tended to be a bit “taller” than the down-to-earth stories Jesus told his followers, but there was always a moral at the end, or a lesson the other girls (including her daughter, and the two other ladies she lived with, whom she viewed as daughters) needed to learn.[2] She always started by saying: “Picture it. Sicily—1922…” Next time you read the parable of The Good Samaritan, try to imagine Jesus saying to the disciples: “Picture it. Jerusalem—AD 22. A young man sets off on a journey toward Jericho…”
I like Rachel’s discussion here about the scandalous particularity of the gospel. She discusses how there are probably as many unique answers to the question, “What is the good news of Jesus?”, as there are people on the planet to ask. She lists a whole series of examples, giving both intimate and epic answers. In the end, she concludes all of them are correct, each as unique as the individual answering the question; but you will find among those answers common themes.[3]
If you will, the gospel stories in the Bible read like a good memoir. There’s a mosaic of personal stories of individuals and groups encountering Jesus that thread together to emphasize more universal story the author wishes to tell about Jesus—and each gospel writer’s focus was different. We thus end up with four unique (but not completely different) stories of Jesus, and his significance. We bring all four of them together to get a more complete picture of Jesus.
I think this quote sums things up: “The good news is as epic as it gets, with universal theological implications, and yet the Bible tells it from the perspective of fishermen and farmers, pregnant ladies and squirmy kids. This story about the nature of God and God’s relationship to humanity smells like mud and manger hay and tastes like salt and wine. It is concerned, not simply with questions of eternity, but with paying taxes and filling bellies and addressing a woman’s chronic menstrual complications. It is the biggest story and the smallest story all at once—the great quest for the One Ring and the quiet friendship of Frodo and Sam”—Inspired, Chapter 6, p. 150.
I could say more, and discuss other sections, but I don’t want to give away the whole story. Suffice it to say, I really did like this book and I highly recommend it.
[1]Indeed Rachel’s journey is not unique among progressive authors that I have read. Both Diana Butler–Bass and Mike McHargue (a.k.a., Science Mike)—describe similar bumpy journeys from conservative toward more progressive theologies in their writing. Like Rachel, Diana left behind conservative churches and seminaries, and is now an Episcopalian. (She tells her story in Strength for the Journey). Mike was born a fundamentalist, had a period where he became an atheist, and last I knew, was attending a United Methodist church, (He tells his story in Finding God in the Waves.)
[2]These "Picture It" anecdotes usually also involved historical figures, with Sophia claiming to have had trysts with Pablo Picasso, Sigmund Freud, and Winston Churchill, among others. She also claims to have befriended many famous people including Golda Meir, Mama Celeste, and accidentally claimed that Robert Frost was always "nipping at my nose" (she was confused with Jack Frost).
[3]Of course, this is hyperbole; not every answer given to this question will be correct. We have to exercise discernment. The point is that it’s really hard to reduce the “good news” to a single catchphrase or slogan. As Rachel says in the book, “It strikes me as fruitless to try and turn the gospel into a statement when God so clearly gave us a story—or more precisely, a person”—Inspired, Chapter 6, p. 151.
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