I've chosen to accept the labels 'progressive Christian' and 'post-modern Christian,' because I think they suit where I am on my journey. But I'm beginning to wonder if 'biblical Christian' or 'evangelical Christian' are labels I'm interested in holding onto anymore.
I certainly look to the Christian canon for wisdom and inspiration. As a Jesus follower, I've reordered my entire life according to his teachings as presented in the gospels. I'm one of the few Christians I know -- 'Bible believing' or otherwise -- who actually loves the Hebrew Scriptures and can give you a thorough reading of Jonah (or Genesis or Judges or Esther or...) complete with references to the Hebrew puns and wordplay. I'm even a strong advocate for taking Paul seriously, and see him as one of the first people to really understand the implications of Jesus' Law of Love. However, claiming to be a biblical or evangelical Christian seems to involve idolizing the text above God's active Spirit, and accepting the falsehood that the Bible is of one voice, and I'm not willing to do either of those things.
If God really intended to convey an Absolute Truth to the world, as evangelical Christians claim, then the Bible was a poor vehicle for doing it. One of the things I love about the Christian and Jewish canons is that they argue amongst themselves. I'm not talking about the usual nitpicks that atheist fundamentalists like to use to rile up Christian fundamentalists ("If the Bible is accurate in every word, then tell me how many times did the cock crow before Peter wept? Matthew disagrees with Mark. Gotcha!") I'm talking about more fundamental arguments.
Read the end of Deuteronomy, and then read the book of Ecclesiastes. Then tell me what the Bible says about whether or not God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. Read Romans and then read James, and tell me if a Christian is saved by faith alone or if holy living is also a requirement. Read Mark and read John, and then tell me what purpose I should find in Jesus' death. The author of Ecclesiastes argues against the teachings of Deuteronomy, which were widely believed at the time of his writing. The author of James was a Jewish Christian who didn't like Paul's loose relationship with the 613 Jewish rules for living, and wasn't afraid to disagree with Paul. And the authors of Mark and John, writing in very different times and places had different interpretations of the meaning of Jesus' death.
When Martin Luther set aside the Church's reliance on papal teachings with a cry of "Sola Scriptura," he was trying to find a Christianity that was more pure, free from the corrupting traditions of Rome. However, the evangelicalism (from the Greek euangelos or 'gospel') that followed gave up too much in favor of a rigid certainty. The fact is that Christianity is not monolithic and neither is the biblical canon. I'm not a biblical Christian, because I'm not sure what that would even mean, and I think it leaves out too much of the real ambiguity of life in the Spirit.
As a Christian, I'm invited to join a multigenerational conversation. That conversation includes the ancient Mediterranean who told a story of YHWH making people out of mud, and a later priest who told of Elohim speaking the world into being. It includes the Deuteronomist who tells us the person who follows God's law will be blessed, and Qoholet the proclaimer of Ecclesiastes who observes that he has seen the righteous perish while the wicked live long and prosper. It includes Hildegard of Bingen with her mystic poetry, and John Wesley with his insistence on rationality and method. And, of course, it means following Jesus who argued with the biblical literalists of his day, asked Peter, "What do you think?" and promised an Advocate who would lead us into more truth than can be contained between the covers of a book.
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