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My whole cultural-religion life was based on The Bible as taught by those qualified in God. Those qualified in God have degrees in God-knowing.  Degrees in God-teaching.  Degrees in running God-churches.  Those qualified in God are those on whom Jesus builds his church.  The bible says.

The Bible.

With the greatest respect it has become The Idol to be worshipped for it’s The Very Word of God.  I have never thrown a bible at anyone or anything.  Superstition.  I have never knowingly damaged a bible. Superstition.  I have been given a bible and received it as the gift from a lover.  Superstition.  Even now I have this superstitious fear of bad things happening if I do “bad things” to the physical Bible.  That is cultural religion Christianity.

And that is what I was born into and brought up with.

As a kindergarten introduction there is much good in that approach.  And if one journeys beyond kindergarten one is free to forge a unique and personal relationship with this God of The Bible.  Many Christians do.  Many Christians journey beyond the bible with The Bible.

But to become truly bible-blind means to journey not alone – but choosing to leave behind the cultural superstitions of taught Christianity – and travel with God herself.

I learned to read with Janet and John books.  And I was never given any superstitious fear of Janet or John.  They were a resource for teaching reading.  Janet and John were not factual figures.  Their written adventures were devised to engage my interest and nurture my excitement in exploring the written word.  They helped do all of that.  Yet I remember them fondly without any desire to look at them again.  Now they would demonstrate only the intellectual process of learning to read.

Just like much bible teaching.  Just like much in the bible.

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This is the Word of The Lord.  Thanks be to God.

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Becoming bible-blind is not something anyone of the church has ever advised or taught.   Christian life is of The Bible – never NOT of The Bible.  Janet and John must be revered and worshipped until the day I die and sit for all eternity with Janet and John.  And, for me, there is much to fear in that.

If the greatest is love, if God of The Bible is Love, if the process of committing to love without condition here and now is the process taught by The Bible … then Janet and John have done the best they could and the rest is now down to me – down to us.  The “journey” is a journey of excitement in Love.  The Bible can light that fire of excitement if we are taught well and if we allow – but that excitement isn’t in The Bible – that excitement is in me – in us.

If I – if we – allow.

Jesus journeyed. The Bible journeys.  Those in The Bible journey.   Not with Janet and John but with themselves and a Living God.  The bible is a devised God-resource to fire an excitement to journey in Love.  And that journey cannot be in The Bible if it is my journey.  My journey is every day and every moment exploring more and more what it is to Live in Love.  Love that is unconditional.  Love that is now.  Love that can only embrace those who touch me and I them.  Just like Jesus.

I haven’t read the bible in ages.  I find too many superstitious and fearful conditions.  I find more and more an intellectual curiosity and frustration. I find more and more Janet and John and how I should pronounce on this, that or the other.  How I should approach this, that or the other.   How I will be rewarded or punished for this, that or the other.  How I should do and be.  How God is and I am not.  How Love is God but not me.

Being qualified in God comes with many conditions qualifications.

Becoming bible-blind, I believe more and more, is the teaching of The Bible.  Becoming excited to journey in Love is the reason for The Bible.  But Love is not of words.  Love is now … this second … in my life and living.

And a thought …

The standard atheist claim that “Christians don’t know their bible” (as well as atheists) – always provokes the “Christian response”: find one qualified in God to rebut the (true) allegation …

Doesn’t that illustrate perfectly why we must put down Janet and John and become bible-blind?  Or does the superstition fear hold us too tightly?

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