Is It How We Read the Bible or If We Read the Bible?

By John Lomperis, CP Op-Ed Contributor Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The simple fact of the matter is that I have yet to see a single progressive United Methodist stand up and say, "GBCS, I agree with your political agenda, but you really should amend the way you cited Scripture here, because that misrepresents what those verses are actually talking about, and as a church-related group, it is important that we get our Scripture right."

To benefit-of-the-doubters, I ask: where is the concrete evidence that progressive United Methodists actually care about such things as getting Scripture right if a sloppy proof-text does the job for what they most care about, their lefty political agendas?

5. One particular anecdote remains prominent in my mind.

I attended the annual conference session of a large, theologically mixed United Methodist annual (regional) conference session in 2009, when some controversial Constitutional amendments were being voted on. I ended up having a pleasant chat with a young fellow who was sent as a lay member from one of the most prominently, outspokenly liberal congregations in that annual conference. He particularly wanted to know how I could oppose the liberal-pushed Constitutional amendment to impose on all United Methodist congregations a new "open membership" system in which anyone who demanded immediate church membership (and eligibility for church leadership positions) would be automatically entitled to it, regardless of their lack of commitment to basic Christian belief and practice. At one point, I asked him what he thought of the situation in 1 Corinthians 5, the first instance of a church taking a "reconciling" stance towards sexual sin, in which Paul commanded the (temporary) excommunication of a member for sexual immorality. My conversation partner admitted that he had never read that part of Scripture.

It speaks volumes about the how much this very activist-liberal UM congregation values ensuring a biblical foundation for its agenda that it would select someone who has not even read the whole Bible for the very important job of deciding major structural decisions to impact the ministry of United Methodists around the globe.

6. If you'd ever like to test for yourself the lack of Scriptural literacy of most (though not all) adherents of "progressive Christianity," just try talking to a self-described progressive Christian friend about why Christians should never say "everyone is a child of God," and watch how your friend reacts.

And no, the progressive habit of claiming, rather non-humbly, the broad language of Micah 6:8 as some sort of a clear mandate for all sorts of left-of-center political agendas does NOT count as evidence of progressive Christians' deep engagement with Scripture.

But those of us who consider ourselves evangelical, Bible-believing, and/or theologically orthodox should not be smug.

While evangelical biblical literacy is better than that of liberal mainliners, we still need to face the problems of biblical illiteracy among our own ranks.

Engaging the big theological arguments of the day is as important as it is unavoidable.

But so much of the spread of false teaching in churches of all denominations could be stemmed if we would just redouble our efforts to promote Scriptural engagement and biblical literacy in our churches.

John Lomperis is the United Methodist Director at the Institute on Religion and Democracy. He has an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School and is the co-author of Strange Yokefellows: The National Council of Churches and its Growing Non-Church Constituency. Connect with him on Twitter @JohnLomperis.