Misuse, Abuse and Idolatry of Scripture

“Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm…” (Psalm 93:1; 96:10).  “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken…” (Psalm 104:5).  “And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place” (Ecclesiastes 1:5).  “The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved…” (I Chronicles 16:30).  So the Holy Bible says.  

On the basis of such scripture, the Christian church took exception to the views espoused by Copernicus and Galileo, who suggested on the basis of their observation and experimentation that the earth was not the center of the universe (geocentrism).  This was viewed as heretical because it contradicted the sense of Holy Scripture which implied that the earth was at the center “immovable and firm,” which “never can be shaken,” and where “the sun rises and sets and returns to its place.”  Galileo was charged with heresy because he said the earth revolved around the sun (heliocentrism).  Martin Luther, father of the Reformation, was no less forgiving than the Roman Inquisition, calling Copernicus a fool for saying that the earth moved.  Luther then made himself a fool trying to prove his point by quoting the scripture that Joshua made the sun stand still and not the earth.  It is silly to use biblical texts to disprove facts, but it is a common practice.  

Noam Chomsky wrote, “One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the U.S. population does not see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. About the same percentage,” Chomsky says, “ believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago.  If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science…”

Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird, has Miss Maudie say, “Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of (another)…There are just some kind of men who—who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”  

The misuse, abuse, and idolatry of the Bible has long been an impediment to the world’s spiritual and intellectual growth.  At the same time, the proper use and application of that same Bible has given that same world much of its foundation (both spiritual and intellectual) and its most treasured values.  

We need to understand the nature of the God about whom the Bible tells, rather than making the Bible that God.  Then we will say with Galileo:  “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, has intended us to forgo their use.”