She’s 20, and headed away from faith toward agnosticism. And surprisingly enough, her slide toward unbelief was fueled in large part by reading the Bible!
How can that be? The
Bible has had such a profound impact on us as believers that its hard to imagine
someone could read it and not respond with faith.
I was done with my grocery shopping and decided to reach out
to a fellow shopper before going to the checkout line. She turned out to be Bella, 20, who said she
grew up Catholic but is now leaning toward being agnostic. She isn’t sure what to believe anymore, and
has come to accept that religious faith is something one can never be sure
of.
She mentioned three reasons that fueled her doubts in our
short conversation: her belief in science as a way to know truth; her belief
that she is a good person regardless of religious belief; and her reading of
large parts of the Bible in a recent “Bible as Literature” class.
It seems innocent enough to read the Bible from a critical
literary perspective. After all, we
believers often think, at least people are reading the Bible. Even though it is a major part of the
foundation of Western culture, most people are biblically illiterate and need a
basic knowledge of its contents.
And the Bible is indeed a literary work that can be
critically analyzed. We can see the
impact of its many authors’ personalities, culture, education, and historical
context in its pages. We see major
themes develop over time and communicated in different genres of
literature. But what the secular
approach fails to see is God’s impact in the midst of all that. A secular reading is to rely on man’s ability
to speak to the Bible, rather than God’s ability to speak from the Bible.
I think that’s what Paul was referring to when he praised
the believers in Thessalonica for the way in which they approached the
Scriptures: “And we continually thank
God that in receiving the word of God from us, you did not accept it as the
word of men, but as the true word of God--the word now at work in you who
believe.” (1 Thes.2)
For a young adult like Bella, just beginning her college
education and already with a secular approach to the Bible, this can only mean
that the Bible will be shelved and gather dust as just another work of
literature; that science will be elevated as the primary source of truth; and
that her belief in her own moral goodness and lack of need for a right
relationship with God through faith in Jesus will go unchallenged.
I pray that Bella and others like her will take a different
approach to the Bible – as the ultimate source of spiritual truth that it is
meant to be by the God who inspired its human authors, and as Paul wrote in 1
Corinthians 2: “That your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the
power of God.”
Thanks for allowing me to record our conversation
Bella! It can be seen HERE
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