The Contorted Reasoning of Biblical Literalists

I used to be a Biblical literalist. That is, I believed that everything in the Bible meant exactly what the words would mean to a twentieth-century reader. And I belonged to a church (the Church of Christ) that was fundamentally and absolutely based on this assertion. There are numerous branches of the Church of Christ; this branch was one that insisted that instrumental music could not be used in worship (a rule not found in the Bible) and that only a single cup could be used for the whole congregation during communion.

Various New Testament passages describe “a new heaven and a new earth” which will be established after the apocalyptic return of Jesus (the “second coming”). The wording leaves very little room for literal misunderstanding. I was excited about this, because I was a nature-lover, and this passage meant that God’s heavenly eternity would include the beautiful (and sinless) trees and birds that I loved so well.

I was a meek high school student. Shortly after I joined the Church of Christ, I was giving Sunday night sermons, and an occasional guest sermon. In one of these sermons, I preached about the new heaven and the new earth. One of the men listening to my sermon was our local evangelist, Bro. Bob Sanders. He said nothing to me about the sermon, but the next week he got up at the pulpit and denounced me as a sinful misleader of souls. My crime: I had defended the idea that God would create a new earth after the Apocalypse. Please note that I was given no warning of this. At that young age, I was deeply wounded by this public denunciation.

You may wonder, as I wondered, how I could get in trouble for preaching something that was straight out of the Bible. Here was Bro. Bob’s line of reasoning:

• Heaven is where God dwells. God dwells within Scripture. Therefore the New Heaven is the New Testament.
• Earth is where man dwells. Man will dwell in heaven. Therefore the New Earth is heaven.

I am telling you about this because it is an illustration of how “Biblical literalism” is not; it is a contorted and twisted mode of thought that the “literalist” uses as a weapon against others, even helpless young high school kids. It took me years to realize that Biblical literalism is not honesty or truth; it is a perverted way of thinking that fundamentalists use as a weapon even against meek and harmless people.

I am still waiting to discover any literalist-fundamentalist who is truly honest and who is not vicious. How can I take fundamentalism, and the creationists who defend it, seriously? Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” I suppose fundamentalists have some twisted reasoning to show that hurting people is actually a way of showing love to them.