mbjones

Maybe it's education. Maybe you need a liberal arts college education to be properly shocked by the bible.

Maybe it's life experiences. On the margins life is more brutal and violent. There, in the midst of that social location, the bible doesn't sound strange at all. It seems to fit. And this seems to be the case worldwide. The bible speaks to the third world, it is alive and powerful. But in the educated and liberal Western world the bible is a shock and a scandal.

Or perhaps something else is going on. But if either of these two factors are in play then it seems that offense at the bible is associated with privilege. Whenever I've heard complaints about the bible being horrible I've generally been talking to a person of advantage and privilege. Generally White. Generally educated. Generally rich (by the world's standards).

And it's likely that my privilege is blinding me in certain ways in how I'm listening out of the margins. I may be really missing the boat on this. 

Regardless, does any of this mean that the privileged concerns about the bible should be dismissed? No, I don't think so. Being a privileged person myself I share these criticisms about the bible and wrestle with them. But given where I'm reading the bible I'm increasingly less obsessed with these sorts of questions, issues, and criticisms. Mainly just because these objections aren't coming up.

I'm not wholly dismissive of the complaints of the privileged regarding the bible, but I am, generally speaking, much less interested.

From Richard Beck's blog. Thought provoking, and something I've discovered to be pretty darn accurate. Incidentally, his blog is one worth bookmarking.