About a month ago I was listening to the radio and John MacArthur was ripping on Brian McLaren and the emergent church movement. MacArthur admittedly was not able to follow McLaren's arguments saying, "how can you make an argument against someone who does not make sense." He then went on to make statements against the emergent church movement saying that those in the movement have created a new god for themselves. As he was speaking, he was continually saying that his beliefs are based on the Bible, that church needs to be biblically based, he kept pushing that everything came back to the Bible. With this continuous rhetoric of getting back to the Bible and basing everything on the Bible I realized something, it appeared that he was making a new god for himself. He appeared to be making an idol of the Bible. As I mentioned this to others and began observing churches and Christian conversations, this is not an idol which is limited to MacArthur. I believe that the biggest drawback of evangelicalism is that it has begun (or has been) worshiping the Bible and not the God revealed through the Bible. Since developing this conclusion I have seen this everywhere and have been bringing it up everywhere, this tends to be a sub-theme of my posts and conversations. I am now making it the theme of this post and this conversation.
This idolatry is found everywhere. When you look at the doctrinal statements of most churches they begin with their #1 statement being something to the tune of, "we believe scripture to be the authoritative, inerrant, word of God." Then after that comes either their statements on christology or the trinity. I think it is ridiculous that the godhead is not listed as #1 on every doctrinal statement. I know that most churches would agree that the order is not done because of priority, however it does say something when the first thing mentioned of what is important continues to be the Bible not God.
Another place where this idolatry is found is in the way Christians speak. When discussing theology or preaching we almost always support our arguments by saying, "in the Bible it says," or simply, "the Bible says," both of these show that we are trusting a book not God. The authority of scripture comes from it being the word of God. Why don't we say, "in the Bible God says," or simply, "God says?"
Another way this idolatry is found in our conversations is how we label things. We have, "biblical theology," "biblical leadership," "biblical seminaries," "Bible churches," "Bible schools/colleges," and the list goes on and on. The emphasis is put on the Bible not on God.
One more example came up in an evangelism class which I had. The professor asked if someone could be saved with out knowledge of the Bible. The class tended to think that a person must have at least some understanding of the Bible to be a Christian. I found this to be outrageous. Being a Christian is about having a relationship with God, not about reading a book, even if it is the recorded word of that God (which I believe the Bible is).
I do not want you to misunderstand me. I think that the Bible is the written word of God. I think that the Bible is inerrant. I believe that the Bible is inspired by God. I even believe that Paul wrote all the epistles credited to him, and that Jonah spent some time in the belly of a big fish. However I do not think that the Bible is the crowning achievement of Christianity. I think that that belongs to Christ who was sent by the Father in the Spirit, who reigns and will reign forever. I think that if we are going to get back to authentic Christianity it means that we need to get back to the authentic Christ not back to the Bible. I think that if we are going to get back to the heart of worship and not continue in idolatry we need to realize that it is all about Him, we need to worship God and God alone. As the Israelites thought they could control God through the ark of the Covenant, and began worshiping the ark, we as Christians are in danger of trying to control God through the Bible and worshiping the Bible. If we do fall prey to this form of idolatry we may be found without a god like the Israelites after the Philistines took the ark.
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