Radio Sweethearts

I grew up in church; I started college with the intention of becoming a pastor at some point. I took it all entirely too seriously (there are people I owe apologies concerning this). But here’s the thing: I took a Bible class that first year.

My system of belief up until that point had a single, undying concept tying it together – as much as I valued rational thought and understanding multiple viewpoints – I understood the Bible as a unified document, as The Inerrant Word of God.

It turns out I should have maybe read it before I decided that.

Which is not to say that I never read the Bible; I read it all the time, but neither closely nor critically, until it was assigned for me to do so. By a preacher. At a Christian college.

That simple act meant that I noticed contradictions for the first time.

Which meant that I had to rebuild my entire system.

And I was able to do that for a while. There are contradictions in life, and so anything that claims to be truth, to accurately reflect life at all, must also, therefore, contain contradictions.

This is a beautiful thing.

It sounds like, from his interview on Fresh Air, that the same thing happened to Bart D. Ehrman. He wanted to study the Bible out of a love for God, but that process exploded his faith.

I’m an agnostic; I can neither get myself to believe what I once believed, nor shake it entirely – no matter what I currently believe about the Divine, I once honestly felt that I had a relationship with Jesus. Not quite in the cartoony, conservative evangelical sense, but not entirely dissimilar from that, either.

Since then, I’ve developed a similar personal relationship with the idea of uncertainty.

I’ve become familiar and comfortable with the fact that I can’t know anything for certain. Every argument can and will be argued against. Every argument relies, if not on circular reasoning, on an infinite process of proof by other proof, which then requires additional proof.

It’s proven good for me to realize that a sense of knowledge about something that can’t be proven has caused me more harm than good. Where I am now, I cannot be shaken by new information. It simply gives me a more full picture of the inherent and beautiful contradictions in life.

But the real point of bringing this up is the commenters on this story.

I’m not sure why I’m so offended by people dismissing those they’re offended by – except to say that what was important to me then remains important to me now, even if I no longer share the actual beliefs about those things.

And those commenters are nasty, from line one. The very first comment I saw got me on my defenses immediately:

 I listened to this broadcast on my way home from work and was struck again by how bold NPR is in taking every opportunity to disclaim conservative Christian values – but far worse than that, to mock Christ. This person claiming to be a highly credentialed expert on the Bible claims that it is full of false teachings and conflicting messages – which begs the question if it is so worthless, why have you spent your life focusing on it? It must have had a significant effect on you to dedicate your life to its study????

Odd syntax aside, Ehrman goes out of his way to discuss the Bible’s merits as a historical document (not in the ‘history book’ sense, but like the Magna Charta or the Constitution). At no point does he come close to calling the Bible ‘worthless’ – and therefore he begs no such question. Of course it had a significant effect on his life. And mine. I didn’t dedicate my life to studying the Bible, but I do still find it fascinating.

By dismissing the life experiences Ehrman had before his shift in thinking, that commenter is also dismissing mine. Which is completely uncalled for.

And one of the other comments just makes me stabby.

Although it seems that Mr. Ehrman had a long relationship with the religion of Christianity, I am highly doubtful that he had a relationship with Jesus Christ at all. Perhaps somewhere along the line Mr. Ehrman missed one vital step – submission.

The least Christlike thing I can think of is to be so hung up on yourself that you’re willing, in a feeble attempt at swatting away the nagging fact that your entire conception of the universe is prone to change entirely at a moment’s notice, to discount someone else’s entire life.

If, as Jesus delineated, the two greatest commandments are to love God and then love others, At least Bart Ehrman gets the second. The commenters are failing the first by so flagrantly ignoring the second.

Note: Comments on NPR.org do not have permalinks, thus the lack of links in this piece. You should be able to scroll through the story and see the offending comments.

That said, I ask that you NOT report them as abuse – though the implications of their statements are offensive to ex-believers, these are well-intentioned people just trying to make a point.

And they get off on feeling persecuted, First Amendment be damned. I know. I come from their ranks. Blocking them will only make them more annoying.