bible

Is the Bible “God’s love letter” to us all?

I sat in a service the other day, and listened to a guest chaplain speak about how the Bible is God’s love letter to us all. I struggled to hear her greater message within her sermon because my own trauma started to surface. I understand that the intention behind using the Bible often points towards the good. However, I know far too many people who have been abused by religion, specifically the Bible and Christianity.

Personally, I do not view the Bible as God’s love letter. In fact, I find viewing it in this way to be quite problematic. No matter how you slice it, the Bible is riddled with passages that condone violence, rape, slavery, abuse, discrimination, death, etc. In fact, there are stories that justify all of these horrific human conditions. And this is not because others have abused the Bible, or misinterpreted it, though that does add another layer to it all. I think we all have a personal responsibility when handling biblical, and other religious texts. We must honor the text, context, and ourselves when interpreting holy books. I find viewing the Bible as a “love letter” to be innately harmful to anyone on the margins of society that experiences violence, of any form. For me, I struggle to hear, and accept God’s “love letter” because I am a woman. I am a white woman who has admittedly been both the oppressed and the oppressor because of my privilege. However, in the theological world, I find myself often objectified, and dehumanized because of my God-given vagina.

With this responsibility in mind, many theologians have created a specific feminist hermeneutic in which they choose to read the Bible to honor the sanctity of the female divine. This hermeneutic typically reimagines, or reinvents biblical stories in the interest of gender equality. It is an attempt to bring about positive meaning for women out of biblical texts that are inherently harmful. I struggle to redeem biblical texts as authoritative, or life giving. I find it harmful to omit pieces that are innately oppressive— even if we pretend the passage doesn’t exist; the behavior/stigma/expectation is still present in society today. For example, if we choose to eliminate the submission passages in Ephesians (5:22-24) because it is characterized as a “pseudo-Pauline” (written in the name of Apostle Paul, but not by Paul himself), does that make the oppressive patriarchal structure disappear? No, absolutely not. We see within our own world that it is still alive and oppressing others.

In Genesis 34, and Genesis 38, you see Dinah and Tamar being raped, by their own family members. They are objectified, treated as property, and essentially sold into sexual slavery. In the New Testament, we see that women are told to cover their heads, emulate the wife in Proverbs 31, and continually place the male’s needs ahead of her own. Granted these stories took place in the Near East, at a time when it may have been customary to do so, but herein lies the bigger problem; this attitude is STILL reflected in the Church, and the rest of the non-secular world today. Just because it is in the Bible, or any other religious text, does not necessarily make it right. It does not give anyone the authority to rape, kill, or commit other acts of violence against other human beings.

My life over the past three years has been a constant process of unraveling my embedded theology, and relearning everything I’ve been taught within the walls of the Church. I quickly learned last May that many of the biblical narratives I was learning about in the classroom are still a painful reality in this world. Last May, I was raped. Someone that I knew, someone that I trusted, and had known since high school, raped me. As I look back, maybe the stories of Tamar and Dinah were stories that were recorded in the biblical canon as a warning to young women. Maybe it was a warning that rape is often pursued by people that you know well, and trust, rather than the myth of strangers. When I confronted my rapist, I was made into an object, his object. I no longer belonged to myself, but I was his property. He penetrated me. He held the power. He was the head of the household. And I worked within the system, let it happen, because I felt there was no other option but to get it over with, just like Tamar.

After this experience, I had some people suggest it may have been my fault because I was slightly inebriated, or because my clothing was a little bit too “revealing and scandalous”. This was similar to what I had heard when I worked at Jesus camp, “You must cover your shoulders, chest, and your shorts must be modest, so you don’t tempt your brothers in Christ to stumble and fall.” As if my “brothers” were victims, and I was a temptress. These thoughts and beliefs seemed to pollute my internalization of the rape without a hesitation. This is what I had been taught to believe. I made the mistake of viewing myself through the lens of the Bible after my rape. It was detrimental to my mental health, my personhood, and my identity in something bigger than myself. I started to justify my rape— my self-talk and embedded beliefs started to tell me that it was my fault, or I deserved it, or God willed it. After all, rape was represented within the bindings of the Bible.

I see much of rape culture shaped by biblical narratives. I see the same struggle for power in the act of rape. I know it, because I experienced it from a man who continues to identify as a “strong Christian believer”. The Bible is often seen as the “ultimate authority” as everything that is written in it is at least “inspired by God”, if not, the infallible word of God. If the Bible justifies it, or does nothing to oppose rape, does that mean that God wills it? Is that God’s way of showing me that I am loved, since it is in the Bible?

I quickly learned that my worth was not found within the Bible. I did not deserve to be raped. I did not disobey God’s will. It was not God punishing me for being slightly intoxicated as a 21 year old, or for my scandalous clothing choices. I do not feel God’s love in most biblical stories, and I refuse to redeem them, because they are of little value to me. I read them as a collection of stories, narratives, or fables concerning the human condition. They represent the greater human experience. They demonstrate some truth that we experience in this world, just as other books seek to illustrate.

Females and males, you are all deeply loved children of God. If you value yourself as such, I encourage you to engage critically with your religious text of choice. Ask questions of it. Explore doubt. Liberate yourselves from abuse, harm, and oppression by resisting the urge to allow these texts to define your worth and value. You are more than a book written over 2,000 years ago. Explore God’s love in other ways that are life-giving. Be careful how you use the Bible, because your love letter may be justification for someone else’s rape.

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Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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