Left Behind

Warning: Thinking out Loud.

I've begun to read novel called The Red Tent. It's a story about Dinah, Jacob's only recorded daughter in the Old Testament. One of the new believers in our church told me she'd read it, so I decided to give it a whirl. So far, it’s a pretty good novel, but critiquing it is not my purpose here. Instead I’ve got some thoughts rattling around my brain which I’ll now inflict on you, my unsuspecting reader.

I was raised on the Old Testament and I’ve grown really tired of how it is always viewed as a book of "principles" and "promises." Evangelicals loathe reading story simply as story. We somehow feel the need to tie up all loose ends, explain every detail in light of the new covenant and keep everything nice and tidy. We’re uncomfortable with the ambiguities of real life and prefer instead to make the Bible merely a textbook for theology, not a story of God's love affair with the human race.

The problem is, in so doing we tell only part of the truth at best, and sometimes obscure the very truth we seek to proclaim. We minimize the fact that God works in a full palette of colors, not simply black and white – no matter what we’d like to believe. Beyond that, not only do we misread truth in the process, but we also fail to see the power of story – all by itself – to bring about the very transformation we desire.

For instance, I believe God hates divorce, and that it’s rarely if ever what God wants. But how do I reconcile that conviction with this fact from my life: if my wife's parents had never divorced, I would likely never have met her?

What am I to make of that? Am I to think that divorce was God’s plan for her parents? Am I to think that she and I were never supposed to meet? Am I to believe that God was going to bring us together anyway if her parents hadn’t divorced? (Which is ludicrous, by the way.) What theological construct allows for both the wrongness of their divorce and the rightness of our marriage?

If you’re from my background you know I’m not making this up; these are legitimate questions from my spiritual journey. I know the “principles” informing the discussion: God is able to work despite human sin; God’s grace extends even through our failures; even though divorce wasn’t plan “A” God is still able to work out plan “B”. Yada, yada, yada.

Poppycock. It’s not merely that the answers are inadequate; it’s that the questions themselves reflect a wrong view of reality. Life is a story, not a formula. It is not tidy, it’s complicated. It’s got rough edges. It’s not linear. You can’t reduce life to principles and promises, tips and techniques. It’s deeper and richer than that. It just is.

But my theology has rarely accounted for that. I’m beginning to think the theology of my background seeks to make our lives a “paint by numbers” affair rather than affirming the rich tapestry of colors God meant for it to be. (Note to self: that's a pretty good analogy!)

Some of my readers may think I’m slipping into liberalism by the mere mention of this question. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If I dare to read the Bible simply and honestly (without my “systematic theology” lens) I see a wild story of drama and passion, love and betrayal, guilt and grace. I see a God who told Hosea to marry a prostitute as a human object lesson! What’s that all about? How do you systematize that?

Or consider Bathsheba. Was she meant to be Jesus’ great…grandmother? She entered the family line through King David’s adultery and murder. Was that God’s will? Why, among David's many wives, was Bathsheba the one through whom Jesus was born? How do I view that through a principles and promises lens?

I can’t. (Some of you are already formulating a theological construct for this question. And your arguments, though true, will miss the point.)

When evangelicals read the Old Testament they have to sanitize and systematize everything. In so doing they make it sterile. Solomon’s sexual love for a young woman gets reduced to an allegory for Christ and his church. Maybe Solomon was just horny! Maybe God really did want to kill his people before Moses interceded on his behalf. Maybe God’s relationship with his people is as complicated as love and just as difficult to figure out.

I know I’m just ranting here. I guess what I’m saying is this: God knows life is messy; and God embraces the messiness that it is. He gave us a book of stories, not principles, and he doesn’t need us to tidy it up with textbooks. He knows that stories teach truth better than “truths” do. (Or was Jesus’ style of teaching was wrong?)

But we’re uncomfortable with that kind of ambiguity. We’re like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day: so concerned to protect the law that we end up missing the point. Straining at gnats, swallowing camels.

What does all this have to do with The Red Tent, a biblical novel written by a devout Jewish woman? Maybe nothing. As I said, I’m only in its opening chapters. Thus far I see a story deep in character development, filled with imagination and wonder, unflinchingly reflecting the primitive and pagan roots of our spiritual ancestors. Whether it evolves into a healthy monotheism or not at the end, I do not know. But I wonder: what kind of book would an evangelical have written?

Judging by what I’ve observed, evangelical authors would not carefully craft a story rich with ambiguity and wonder, love and betrayal, drama and passion. Instead, if recently successful Christian fiction is any indication, our version of Dinah’s tale would be stale, heavy-handed, preachy and poorly-written. We no longer have authors like Tolkien and Lewis, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Chesterton and MacDonald, Sayers and O’Connor.

Perhaps I should say it like this: if we continue to minimize the role of the imagination in communicating truth, we’ll have to leave effective storytelling (and its life transforming capabilities) to others. In the quest to say something meaningful about God’s continuing love affair with the human race we’ll be, sadly, left behind.