Is it Heresy to Question?

Maybe it’s a “mid-life crisis” or maybe the last year and a half have just led me to being contemplative about long-held beliefs. I find myself thinking about the meaning of life as I get older. I once thought I knew, but I now realize it was a house of cards, and somehow designed to be so. The resulting dilemma is that if you question any item, the rest will crash and your entire belief system collapses.

No need for vaguity though, I can cut to the chase. I grew up in the church and saw a lot of disagreement among people on theology, but there were certain “fundamentals” that if you didn’t accept, you couldn’t really be part of the faith or you were excoriated as a radical or heretic. A few of those included the Bible as the literal word of God, with all elements as holy and true no matter the contradictory nature. Another was Jesus as the son of God, and also God incarnate, that the two are one and the same (the holy trinity really, but more about Jesus). There are a few others, but really are all part of those two.

To be honest, I always struggled with the contradictory nature of just those two fundamentals. The idea that Jesus is God, but the God of the old testament is nothing like the Jesus/God of the New. And I know the theology around sin nature and the need for atonement before humankind could be reconciled to God. But the nature of Jesus, as he is illustrated, in the New Testament doesn’t seem like something that could just be turned on upon becoming human. Jesus regularly said things like “the scriptures say” or “you have heard it said” but… “but I say unto you…” This happened multiple times, including incidences that relate to Mosaic law. In both word and deed, Jesus was saying that he was a greater authority than the scriptures and that they were wrong (at least in certain instances). He didn’t say, “after I die, you should turn the other cheek.” There are also stories and laws from the old testament that cannot possibly be seen as Godly. Read Numbers 5:11-31 if you need an example. To summarize, if a husband suspects his wife of being unfaithful and is jealous, he should take her to the priest. The priest would then make her drink a “bitter water” and if she was guilty, she would miscarry or her womb would become swollen and she would suffer and become a curse. Please tell me how that aligns with the Jesus who forgave the accused adulteress or talked with the woman at the well. Even more, how should we feel about the men in the Old Testament (King David or Solomon) who had multiple wives and mistresses, like a thousand. You can’t tell me that every word is divine and also that the Jesus of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old Testament.

I’m not saying we should toss the Old Testament. There were prophets, historians, and poets who wrote those books. Some of them were very likely divinely inspired. In Matthew 9:13, Jesus actually pointed to Hosea 6:6 when he said “Go learn what this means: 'I want mercy, not sacrifices.’ Which was one of those contradictory statements from the Old Testament that seems divine. But some of them were not. And some of the stories… are just stories. And that is ok.

Here’s something else I struggle with. The religious leaders of Jesus time fell so far from the mark that Jesus spent a lot of time chastising and correcting them. Are modern Christians any different? Jesus gave a few main “commandments” which were to love God, love your fellow man, and to follow in his example. What absolute failures we are on all of these elements. But that’s ok because of grace, right? Sure. But when asked to illustrate grace, we’re right back to acting the opposite of Jesus.

Long story short, I believe that God gave us free will and intelligence and the ability to discern. If you are reading your Bible and something seems really out of place, do you just accept everything? If God loves all of his children, would he make a woman suffer humiliation just because her husband felt jealous? And if that jealousy or suspicion was justified, forced abortion and sterility? Think about that now. Let’s head to Texas and put this into practice: woman cheats on her husband and becomes pregnant. Legally, (under this biblical law) he could force her to have an abortion… or have her stoned. Is that the God we serve?

It’s not the God I serve, Old Testament or New. So let the cards fall if they must and I’ll build something better. I do not believe that the whole Bible is divinely inspired or true necessarily. The story of Noah is so full of holes that it’s impossible to believe it. Take ten minutes to read creation scientists try to explain some of the inaccuracies and quickly begin to scratch your head. Just the timing, with nothing else, is enough to call into question. Documented civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt had their origins and history predate the flood (2348 BC according to creationists) by thousands of years. We could get more into the existence of dinosaurs alongside man or the number of animals needed to be housed on an ark in order to have biodiversity, but do we really need to? Alright, just one. I’ve seen creationist rationalize down the numbers by saying “kind” of animal is an upper level classification. So instead of taking lions and tigers and housecats (oh my!), Noah only needed to take one kind of cat and from that pair, the entire feline family came about (38 species plus however many have already gone extinct). This in a few thousand years is the theory that is put forward by the people who say that evolution is preposterous, but could postulate that all of the world’s biodiversity came from 1,400 “kinds” of animals (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds). There are currently nearly 6,500 species of mammals alone.

Follow that up with the fact that Genesis was likely written by Moses who didn’t live until a thousand years after the flood and you begin to see why this story might not have been exactly “first-hand”. Additionally, several deluge/flood stories exist in other cultures with striking similarities. So maybe something did happen, and maybe there’s a lot to learn from it. But is the biblical account accurate? Na, so let’s practice a little discernment and quit making heretics out of people who look for some sense.

I wanted to end this article here, and you may already have given up on reading to the end, but I’ve thought more about it and have an addition. Judeo-Christian tradition, along with several other religions, put emphasis on an afterlife. As Christians, we’re told regularly that “this world is not our home.” Though, I appreciate what people are trying to say, I think it can also be very harmful (think of rental homes and bad tenants). If this world was our home, and this life was all we got, maybe we could appreciate it more. I know death is a scary thing. No one wants their flame to be extinguished permanently, and I’m not saying you should believe that it will be. But maybe, if our goal wasn’t to escape life for something better, but to make heaven on earth and be present with those we love (and make that group larger!), wouldn’t that be better for all of humanity, not the mention the earth? Honestly, Christian theology allows for those sentiments. Love your neighbor as yourself, and neighbor could include future generations. If life is eternal, and I hope that it is, do you think the God that created it all wants you to spend your time on Earth hating people and abusing his creation? If God and Jesus are love, then I am a Christian. But if Christianity is just another patriarchal system designed to promise better life (not now) to the powerless and keep them in check, I’ll pass.

Obviously, this is a lot. And not everything is fully explored. Before reacting negatively or positively, just think on it a little bit. I’m really not trying to tear at anyone’s faith or lack of. But maybe ask some questions like “what if?” and “how come?” And if your house of cards is so weak that you can’t ask questions, maybe it’s time to move.