The Problem With the Bible

Pastor Sara's Pastoral Rant

As a pastor, I prepare worship and sermons, I visit people and I listen to them. I think it is important to be in conversation with anyone who is willing to engage. Even people I fear.

I’d always seen the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as cross-burning, white-hooded monsters spouting white supremacy slogans who made appearances on Geraldo Rivera and threw chairs at the audience. After sitting down at a park bench with a member, I realized they are just people—however theatrical their exploits.

A week before the Reconciling Ministries Network Convocation (read: pro-gay caucus group in the United Methodist Church) in North Carolina last year, I got news that the KKK was planning a protest. I had mixed feelings. I was scared but I knew I was doing something good by going to this convocation just because the KKK wouldn’t like it.

A few days before the convocation I received an e–mail informing me that the Reconciling Clergy would be fasting lunch every day as a form of prayer for our protesters. I had so much internal angst that prayer seemed like a very good idea.

It turned out that the KKK was only allowed to protest between nine o’clock and four o’clock on Friday and Saturday. So many levels of law enforcement protected us that the protestors were not even visible from our convocation site. But I was curious and I wanted to see them; so, after lunch on Saturday my fellow seminarians and I slyly took a walk in the direction of the protest.

I was pleasantly surprised when the KKK was willing to talk to us. I introduced myself to a member named "Chris" and told him that I was interested in listening to their reasons for protesting. Chris asked if I was going to stab him from behind or anything and I assured him that I was peaceful. We were led into their protest area, defined by yellow caution tape, and sat down at a picnic table. I asked why they were there. Chis prefaced his answer by asking if we were gay. I said, "I'm not comfortable answering that." And so he assumed we were. I let them go with that.

The gist of Chris’s answer was "gay people are OK, but they have no right be in churches when they are sinners." The members asked me how I could "do what I do"—i.e., be a lesbian and be in the church. I said that the Bible isn't a law book for me. I explained that, while there are laws in it, most of them are historical in nature. They define the laws of the people at the time of the stories. As the stories were told over and over, they were edited by the oral tradition and again later on within the written tradition. I read these stories through the lens of the great commandments—laws that are universal as well as a-contextual: "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your strength, and all your mind." Which, actually, I think are the same thing.

Chris did not agree. He told me that the KKK reads the Bible as a law book. (Shocker.) I asked if I could read it my way. They weren't sure. That is the best contribution I think I made to them, asking a question they didn't know how to answer. On the other hand, they blew my mind.

They talked about being ostracized and sworn at, and frightened of being hurt due to an association with violent KKK groups. (Which, they assured me, they're not. And the cross burning—that's sacramental.) They told me that KKK is a public-domain name and any group wishing to use it can do so. Thus, there is little or no uniformity among the 350 organizations clumped under the KKK title. I asked why they choose to associate themselves with that name. The answer was striking, "Would you be here if we were just another white supremacy group?" Almost a year later I'm still trying to grasp the phrase "just another white supremacy group." So it comes down to power—there is power in the name and they admitted to exploiting it. It is often true that individuals who feel disempowered by society bind together to gain power... and create fear.

By using the name KKK, they became "the enemy" to me (and others). Whenever we make a clean us/them separation and dehumanize the other, we lose a piece of our being. Whatever we fail to acknowledge in others, we cut out of ourselves. So it was important for me to meet the KKK members and find their humanity. When I spoke to them, they became people again. I realized that, though the members of this group seek shelter behind the powerful mantle of the KKK and the ghoulish Klansman image, these are ordinary people dealing with ordinary problems. One of the members passed our table and asked Chris if he was still on welfare. He said, "No, I got off it last week, but I'm still on food stamps." I'd already learned that he had five kids under twelve. Chris had become a person for me, whether I liked it or not.

The KKK and I did not agree on anything. We did not reconcile our views of the Bible. We did not come to a decision about gays in the church. I did not change their opinions and they did not change mine. But by some miracle we were able to listen to one other instead of jumping down each other’s throats. On a personal level, I accomplished some important things. I faced a fear, satisfied a curiosity, and left a few people with a question that might lead them to growth. I came away with a deeper understanding of the opposition and expanded my concept of humanity.

As I rose to leave, I asked if I could take a picture of Chris. He agreed, if he could take a picture of me. An older KKK member lounging nearby made the gruff comment, "Next you two are going to get married!" I suspect that the hesitant, frightened respect that Chris and I were able to offer to each other (combined with the curiousity of wanting pictures) was disconcerting for the old guy. So, perhaps his joke was an indication that change is possible—and an attempt to avert that potential.

As we left, a man who had been off on a lunch break climbed onto the stone entrance pillar and held a sign "God hates Gays." We took a picture of him too.

We need to look beyond hate and protest and try to understand the beliefs of the individuals involved. When dealing with sensitive concerns like gays in the church, abortion, and any other issue that affects our society as a whole, we need more face-to-face interaction, more listening. We need to be less self-righteous and more gracious, which doesn't mean passive—it just means hospitable. This concept is based on a deep conviction that all people are of value, which is, indeed, a fundamental teaching of the Bible. The stories of the Bible were originally told to help people understand experiences of the Divine. Today, it is the most studied book of all time. Millions of people over the past few millenia have worked to understand it, offer commentary on it, and find the Divine through it.

But despite all these efforts at clarification, the Bible is still open to interpretation and individual experience. We may share the same God and we may read the same Word, but we may not have the same interpretations. The problem with the Bible is that the KKK has as much right to it as I do. Drat.