The Inquisitive Snake

Much has been made within the emerging/emergent/post-evangelical debates over the importance of questions. That church should be a place where questions are welcomed and encouraged because they help us in our quest for truth.

This I agree with. Blind, and indeed bland, acceptance of perceived truths will inevitably lead to disaster. Questioning and examining can help us to be watchmen and guards, being careful with scripture and thorough in our faith.

Yet recently something has struck me from the third chapter of the Bible:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
 4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

In the first two chapters of Genesis we see God speaking and creation bursts into light. As soon as God’s will is spoken, light and life spring up. Then we are confronted with this chapter - where the snake questions God’s word.

One of the things that is beginning to trouble me most about many of the debates that are taking place in the wider church through the blogosphere and podcasts (as well as plain old books) is that they start with this question:

“Did God really say.....?”

Did Jesus really say that He is the only way?
Did God really say that homosexuality is wrong?
Did God really say that we have to tithe?
Did Jesus really say that He was the Son of God?
Did God really say that the church is His body and His bride?

It is one thing to look at scripture and to wrestle with the details, nuances and deeper meaning of what God has said. It is another thing entirely to question if God said what he clearly did say and if He meant it at all. We must not get in the habit of questioning what we have heard Him say and seen Him do - but we must continually question whether we have understood it all fully. This difference is important. It puts the emphasis not on the truth of the Word but upon our capacity to understand.

In order to engage with, and appeal to, British 21st Century culture I would find it incredibly helpful if God had not consistently insisted on sexual activity being confined to a husband and wife throughout scripture. But it does say that - which makes it harder for us to appeal to those outside of the church without offending them or putting them off. That is tough for us - but anything else is short change; it is not the truth as He would have it told.

The issue of sexuality is complex and requires difficult questions. The issue of sexual activity is not....

The issue of God’s view of money, how we manage it, how we earn it, how we spend it, is complex. The issue of tithing to the church is not....
The issue of truth that is found within other religions, faiths and world views is complex. The issue of Jesus being the Way, the Truth and the Life is not....

....And they are certainly not as complicated as many would make out in the name of “dialogue”.

There is the obvious danger in believing you have it all sewn up - that I, and I alone, fully understand all that God has said and what He means. Yet in an effort to avoid that pitfall many are left questioning whether or not they even exist? Or if God is really God? Or if He is really good? Or if everything we have in our faith is unstable, unsure and unreliable?

God has spoken.

So which do we want to be more like: a faithful child or an inquisitive snake?

dg