When I was first becoming a Christian, I remember attending church with some people who stressed the importance of having your bible with you at church. I think this is important, it is good to make the connection with what is being taught and where to find it in scripture.

The major reason given to me was that by having your Bible open to the passage being preached or discussed, you could make sure that nothing was being changed. You wouldn't have to just believe the pastor, or take the church's word for it, you would know it for yourself. Again, I thought it was very important to know what the scripture said for oneself. Being familiar with the bible is part of how we understand God.

When I began my journey into the liturgical branches of the church, often the lectionary readings were printed in the bulletin. Some of my friends then, and even some now, would comment on how much better it would be just to have people use their own bibles, because that way you would know for sure that nobody had corrupted the real words of the bible.

I have to say that this struck me as being a bit overzealous. Why would you assume that your clergy would misrepresent scripture? If you are trusting them with exegesis and spiritual guidance, with the leadership of the congregation and family problems, why distrust them? If you suspect they are tampering with what the bible says, then all that other trust is misplaced. If you are that unsure that they are teaching directly what scripture writes, then it is time to leave to find a new congregation.

Several years ago, I read The Gift of Fear, and in it the author replies to some parents questions of whether or not to get hidden cameras to use as surveillance of a nanny or babysitter. He basically said, if you are already seriously considering surveillance, it's time to get rid of the sitter. For one thing, if you don't catch anything on film, it doesn't guarantee that nothing happened, just that it didn't happen there, so it wouldn't necessarily calm your fears, for another, if you did catch someone harming your children, what kind of relief would it be that you have it on film? Better to get your child out of that situation early on, or before anything happens, than to get the evidence.

This is the impression the whole make sure the pastor is really reading the exact words from the bible makes on me. We are to submit ourselves to our godly leadership. If we cannot submit, then it is either from rebellion in ourselves, or the result of an ungodly leader. If it is the first, we need to get over it, and if it is the second, we need to go through the proper channels to try to correct the leadership and, failing that, get our families out to another congregation.

By teaching this kind of distrust, we help to undermine the authority of the church both for ourselves, and for our children. Rich and I had to face this when we realized that the leadership in a church we attended did not believe in the truth and authority of Sacred Scripture. To make matters worse, the person who was in outright apostasy was the head of children's education. We spoke with our leadership, asked for their views, tried to do our best where we were. Eventually, though, we came to the conclusion that if we had to spend the drive to church explaining to the kids that not everything they heard would necessarily be in line with Scripture and Tradition (let alone Reason), and the drive home cross examining them on what theological errors might have been passed on to them, and telling them why we don't really believe that, we were undermining not only the authority of the Church, but also their own faith. If mom and dad say we don't have to believe this part of what we're taught, why do we need to believe any of it? The world is hard enough on our faith, we didn't need to add trouble to our children.

So, the value in knowing the scriptures, and how the Church has read them and taught historically and universally, isn't so you can catch the leadership getting it wrong and go home knowing you weren't hoodwinked, but rather that we can see an error coming and try to gently correct it, or at least inquire about it, in case it wasn't an error, but a misunderstanding. We don't feel the need to stand guard, waiting for our priest to try to trick us, but this is because in everything he's said and taught, he shows that he respects the Church, the Scriptures, the authority of God. If we didn't have this trust, we could not submit to his authority.

Labels: Faith and Morality