Sermon: The Bible and World Peace (UU)
This is the recording, transcript, and manuscript from a sermon I recently offered at Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church in Hayward, California.
Given that I approached the setting as something of an outsider with a particular affection for the Bible, I preached with the question,
“what, if anything, does the Bible have to offer, on the way toward world peace?”
and considered that question through Durkheim and Foucault (and in an earlier draft, Michael Cavanaugh’s Migrations of the Holy), landing on an argument that the Christian Scripture’s polycultural nature is part of its gift to humanity.
Sermon Recording link »
(Here are the transcription and original manuscript of the sermon. I prefer the transcription, since it’s more representative of the actual sermon as delivered)
Transcription
(see below for the original written manuscript)
Scripture: Matthew 6:9–13 (First Nations) and Habakkuk 2 (CEB)
Before I go back to the written manuscript for today, I want to let you all know that Peeps, the Marshmallows, come in Dr. Pepper now. My spouse and I, they’re there in the back, and we tried a few of the different colored ones, but it's really those branded ones with the copyrighted flavors — and they're half off. Anyways, I was listening to Reverend Eric's sermon yesterday and I was like, we need to follow up on that thread, because that's important.
Hello.
Today I'd like to talk about myth and justice, and this question of what, if anything, can the Bible offer on the journey toward world peace.
I'm focusing on the Bible not because I think you all need it. If you all don't have it in your life, keep on going that way. But in my tradition, my upbringing, it's a central part of our conversations. So that's what I'm offering today — a glimpse into those conversations.
And I know that you and I are in different branches of this big spiritual lineage, but we do share a common value for peace that's achieved through justice and celebration of differences.
So to find some answers to this question about the Bible and justice, we have a lot of defining to do.
I'd like to first look at what is the Bible. And let me be specific. When I say the Bible, I'm referring to a collective transmission tradition of canonical Jewish and Christian scriptures.
That is all very familiar words, so I'll just say it again because we know it so well. Ready? The Bible is a collective transmission tradition of canonical Jewish and Christian scriptures.
And I phrase it this way because I find it useful and fascinating to note that there is no single manuscript and no single canon that authoritatively claims to be the Bible.
The Bible is very fluid in two respects: the canon, and the language.
Regarding canon, what's considered a Bible can range anywhere from 24 to 81 books. For example, the Jewish Tanakh contains 24 canonical books. A typical mainline Protestant Bible contains 66 books, but a Swedenborgian Bible contains about 34. A Catholic Bible has about 73. And Orthodox Bibles vary, but tend to be around 75 to 80 books in their canons. But the largest biblical canon is the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible, with 81 books.
I do want to get more into that, but there's so much good stuff to talk about.
Biblical canons typically contain ancient Hebrew stories, histories, laws, and prophecies. And some biblical canons also contain some stories about a specific Jewish prophet who gets called Jesus. And some also contain correspondences written between the early followers of Jesus.
And what I noticed yesterday — y'all ever noticed that a huge majority of biblical stories are written by people under captivity? I haven't figured out what to make of that, but I think it's cool.
So there are two varying things about the Bible: the canon and the language. As for the source languages of the Bible, the Bible isn't even close to being English. The Bible is not even close to being American. The earliest books in a given biblical canon are written mostly in Hebrew with kind of a poetic dash of Aramaic — and it's not because Jesus spoke Aramaic; it was just the right language for the context. But the books about Jesus, if they are included in a canon, are typically written in Greek. All that being said, most readers are not versed in ancient languages, so some version of a Bible has been translated into over 3,500 languages.
So that's an overview of what I mean by the Bible: a tradition of canons including anywhere from 24 to 81 books, written in two or three languages, and translated into thousands of languages.
So to continue along our question of what, if anything, can the Bible offer on the journey toward world peace — this is at least what the Bible is. And next I'd like to consider what the Bible does, or rather, what the Bible can have to offer.
The Bible is known for having countless purposes, reasons for existing. And I really don't think there is one agreed-upon purpose for the Bible. I'm not hedging politely. That's just the nature of the book.
When we're thinking about what the Bible is and what it can offer, it really doesn't have any one agreed-upon purpose. But here are some that I've heard. I've heard the Bible described as the word of God — and that is a big claim, and it necessitates believing in a god. So it might work for you. Cool. I've also heard the Bible described as an acronym — actually, this is not true, but I've heard it described as an acronym: B-I-B-L-E. Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I don't hate it.
But I think the purpose of the Bible and what it offers depends on two things: the passage, and the reader.
For the purpose of our conversation — considering the Bible and world peace — I'd like to go on a little journey of a few philosophers. Will you all buckle up your philosophy brains and do this with me?
I'd like to go on a journey of three philosophers from the last 200 years who've discussed myth and meaning-making: Émile Durkheim, Ernst Cassirer, and Michel Foucault. And we're going to consider these three philosophers because they give us a way to understand religious scriptures in a broader context of human life, beyond just insider Christian perspectives.
So we'll start with Émile Durkheim. Durkheim was a French sociologist in the late 1800s and the early 1900s — you know, just a few years ago. And he was a scholar in what we refer to as the modern era. Being a modern-era scholar, he was largely concerned with this idea of modern man. A lot of modern scholarship was about what is this generalized concept of humanity, and what can we say that's generally true about people? So rather than focusing on just the Bible, Durkheim was trying to gather as many data points as he could to understand what is generally true about humans and religion.
And something that Durkheim observed to be generally true about humans in his data is that even as societies become more advanced and scientific, we basically stay religious.
So Durkheim concluded that religion isn't just this old way of thinking that we come to outgrow. Rather, it's a useful part of how humans interpret and engage with the world. And for Durkheim, particularly as a sociologist, he considered that religion serves social functions — primarily reinforcing social bonds and expanding one's sense of family beyond their immediate circle.
And what I think is really critical about Durkheim here is the idea that religion isn't necessarily good or bad or primitive or advanced. Rather, it has its uses.
And since Durkheim's work, there's been a growing belief that religion is actually a fundamental part of being human.
Ernst Cassirer was a German-Jewish philosopher who lived from 1874 to 1945. And Cassirer was known for developing this idea that humans are intrinsically symbolic creatures.
Cassirer argued that we humans experience the world through symbols and stories and meaning-making structures, and that myth is the most basic type of that structure. Myth is the broad category that includes language, religion, art, science, and politics.
So for Cassirer, symbolic mythmaking isn't merely a resource that we get to turn off and on. Rather, mythmaking in Cassirer's view is an intrinsic part of human cognition — and it's a strength.
Human perception is limited. We get to see — oh, what — 50 feet out, maybe? But human comprehension is vast, and this happens through symbolic meaning-making structures, through myths. Humans, in Cassirer's view, can interpret and understand way further than what we can perceive, because we organize our realities into bigger constructs — myths.
So let's take for example: have you all heard of this idea — sometimes called Dunbar's number — that humans can only maintain about 150 relationships? It's quite credible. And it brings up this question: what do we do to accommodate for the reality of more than 150 relationships? Or, putting the number aside, what do we do to accommodate for the reality that there are more people than we can afford to build relationships with?
Well, Cassirer might suggest that a very human way of growing one's social awareness is through meaning-making structures, which can include religion, the nation, the village, sports team — any number of myths. So we expand beyond our relationships, we think bigger than our perceptions, and that expansion is myth.
So all this talk about myth — I keep on reiterating this claim that religion is kind of natural — which brings up a really good natural question: what about people who aren't religious? You can't just call somebody religious if they're not. And I'd like to consider what else might count as religion outside of traditional bounds.
And I'd like to consider one more philosopher: Michel Foucault. Quick question — has anybody here actually met Michel Foucault?
Okay. Anyways — there was a possibility of overlap, so I had to ask.
With Durkheim, we considered how religion is useful, and with Cassirer we considered how mythmaking is intrinsic. Michel Foucault helps us to consider this question: what else counts as mythmaking? What is the Bible up against, or up along with?
Foucault was a French historian — kind of. But he was arguably a principled anarchist by the end of his life. As a formerly self-described homosexual, Foucault made his found family in the 1970s kink scene of San Francisco. I say all that because he comes up in philosophy papers a lot, but we miss that human side.
Anyways, Foucault was attuned to how social structures invisibly shape behaviors. He was especially suspicious of large-scale institutions that claimed to be neutral while modifying the actions of others. Foucault was concerned with prisons, but also with hospitals, and also with schools and churches and nations.
And Foucault worked on this idea of the totalizing system. A totalizing system is a structure that makes meaning from reality, classifies people into groups, commands allegiance, and manages uncertainty.
One really easy example of a totalizing myth — a totalizing structure — is America. You all heard of this thing. Not the real peoples of the Americas, but this idea of America. When things happen, we can interpret them through what is good for America. America classifies people as valid or not valid, commands allegiance, and manages uncertain moments through faith. A lot can be justified in the name of America.
And there's another totalizing structure, another big myth present in our lives, and it's called the economy. We live in a collective belief system in which the market economy helps to make meaning from world events. It classifies people as credible or risky, expects compliance or prescribes failure, and provides a sense of comfort during uncertainty. You know — don't worry, the economy will correct itself.
So, the Bible — we are back to the Bible, people. The Bible does these things too. It makes meaning from meaninglessness. The Bible classifies people into groups. The Bible carries an expectation of reverence. And the Bible offers clarity during times of uncertainty.
So to our question of what, if anything, can the Bible offer on the journey toward world peace — here's what we've established so far: the Bible addresses the intrinsic myth-oriented way that humans understand the world beyond our perceptions, and it exists alongside other meaning-making structures.
Do your brains need to rest? Because that is so much big concept. We get it — you went to school, but do you need to say all this? Let the shoulders rest. I love this stuff, and I'm so grateful that you're going with it.
Now, we're going to take a shift. Because here's why I think the Bible gets really specifically helpful.
If mythmaking is an intrinsic part of humanity, I believe that humans benefit from mythmaking systems that do three things:
Address modern traumas,
Supersede modern divisions, and
Contain truly conflicting beliefs.
Let me say that again.
If mythmaking is an intrinsic part of humanity, I believe that we benefit from mythmaking systems that:
Address modern traumas,
Supersede modern divisions, and
Contain truly conflicting beliefs.
And here's why I believe all of that. It's about the last part of our question. It's about world peace.
I don't know if we'll accomplish world peace. I've read a lot about humanity that's not that positive — and some that is. But whether or not we're going to accomplish world peace, I think we need to try.
And if we do somehow achieve world peace, a complete eternal ceasefire, I believe that we have a lot of owning up to do. I believe that in order to achieve world peace, we need world justice. And to achieve justice, we need to be able to tell all of the stories of how we've been harmed.
A prerequisite for world peace, in my view — a prerequisite for world peace is that each person on every side is able to say how they've been harmed, so that the wounds can be healed.
And I say this because peace without justice and truth-telling is just acquiescence. So world peace — real, true, just peace — requires immense truth-telling.
And truth be told, I don't think we can do it. I don't think we have the capacity to hold all of that truth-telling. But there's the asterisk: I don't think we can do it without a little bit of help and a little bit of work.
I don't think the human mind is automatically capable of perceiving the full enormity of the suffering of the world. World peace requires accounting and organizing for far more than the suffering of 150 or so relationships.
So to that end, I think the human mind might need a way of organizing vast stories about those who have been harmed.
For world peace, we need ways of understanding how we've reenacted — and hopefully revised — our inherited traumas.
For world peace, we have to move beyond our perceptions.
For world peace, we need ways of understanding how hurt people hurt people — and how occupied people pray.
And in doing all of these things, we need to think in ways that come together and supersede modern divisions.
As we come together for world peace, we need ways of coming to the table that aren't just based on modern East/West divides or conservative/liberal divides.
A quick aside — I do believe that things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe are helpful mythmaking tools, but we can't use them for every side.
We need myths that belong equally, or else it's just another victory and another defeat. And bluntly, if we want to achieve world peace, we need ways of comprehending the ancient conflicts between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.
And the Bible offers all of these things. It offers ways of interpreting cross-generational feuds, ways of understanding how trauma ripples forward, the prayers and cries of oppressed peoples. It contains perspectives that predate our modern divides, and ancient insights that predate — but also kind of predict — modern conflicts.
But here's what I really want to emphasize with all of that. All of that builds to this.
Of all the Bible's finest attributes, the best thing about it — in my view, the best thing about the Bible — is that it doesn't make sense.
Okay, hear me out now. The Bible doesn't make sense. It contradicts itself. Have you read the first page? It talks about the creation of the universe, I guess, and then gives a completely contradictory narrative a few pages later. It mentions that Noah takes two of each animal on the ark, but then makes a burnt offering. Was that a unicorn? It's contradictory. It's weird.
And then there's David. He's King David. Maybe. Maybe he writes poems. Maybe nowadays David is becoming a queer icon — and I love that.
And then this Jesus guy — the book gives us four contradictory accounts. The dates are different. The people are different. It's weird. It's contradictory.
And rationally, this is the Bible's clearest flaw. This is why we can look at it as scientific minds and say the Bible doesn't make sense. Something with internal inconsistency can't be useful.
But mythically — I'm contending here — the internal inconsistency is its greatest strength.
Because think about what happens with a myth that makes too much sense. A myth that is clean and consistent and points in one direction — it becomes so easy to control. A controllable myth is a dangerous myth, because whoever controls the story controls the people inside of it.
The myths that make sense — the economy, the nation, technology — those myths can be owned and weaponized, and they can be totalizing. They have one interpretation, and that can control how others think.
And that is true about the Bible — people can use the Bible to control other people's thoughts. But only if you don't look at it. It's so weird. You can't genuinely say it says one thing.
When we're thinking about myths where you can genuinely say there's one meaning — that's a monoculture. That's a crop. That's a genetic line created and manicured for unilateral control. And a monoculture isn't just fragile — it's controlled.
But the Bible is not a monoculture. It's weird. It's a field. It's tangled and contradictory and untidy, and nobody really gets to have any final word over what it says or means.
You want to use the Bible to justify war? You can do that. But the Bible says, "Blessed are the peacemakers."
You want to use the Bible to enforce obedience? You can do that. But you all saw Habakkuk earlier. That stuff is weird.
If you want to use the Bible to win arguments, you can — unless you actually read it. It gives you puzzles, not answers.
Empires have tried to own it. They can't. Kings have tried to own it. They won't.
The Bible escapes every closed reading in the way a wild ecosystem escapes having any one phenotype. Its contradictions aren't flaws — it's what keeps it free, alive.
And that matters for peace.
Because peace cannot be built on a myth that only belongs to the winner.
Peace cannot be built on a myth that has a side.
Peace requires a story that nobody can fully control.
So — what if anything can the Bible offer on the journey toward world peace?
I think it's weird. That's it. Amen.
Original written manuscript:
Today I’d like to talk about myth and justice,
the question of what, if anything,
the Bible has to offer on the journey toward world peace.
The reason I'm focusing on the Bible
is because it's something I'm very familiar with,
and even though we reside on
different branches of spiritual lineage,
I know that you and I share in a desire
for peace through justice and celebration of differences.
So to find some answers about the Bible and justice,
we have a lot of defining to do.
I'd like to first look at "the" Bible.
And let me be specific, when I say the Bible,
I'm referring to the collective transmission traditions
of canonical Jewish and Christian scriptures.
I find it fascinating and useful to note
that there is no single agreed upon manuscript or canon
that authoritatively contains "the" bible.
The Bible is very fluid in two respects: the canon, and the language.
Regarding canon, what's considered a Bible
can range from 24 books all the way up to 81.
For example, the jewish tanakh contains 24 canonical books,
and a typical mainline protestant bible contains 66 books,
but a Swedenborgian collection has about 34 books
A Catholic Bible has 73 books,
and Orthodox canons have around 78 books.
But the most expansive canon
is The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible, with 81 books.
Biblical Canons typically include ancient hebrew stories,
histories, laws, and prophesies,
but may also include some stories
about a Jewish prophet named Jesus,
and some correspondences
written between some of the early followers of Jesus.
These stories are almost entirely written by people
under military occupation or captivity.
As for the source languages of the Bible,
the Bible is not even close to being English.
The earliest books in a given Biblical canon
are written mostly in Hebrew with a poetic dash of aramaic,
and books about Jesus are typically in ancient Greek.
All that being said, most readers
are not versed in ancient languages,
so some version of a Bible has been translated
into over 3500 languages and counting.
So that's an overview of what I mean by "The Bible."
a tradition of canons including anywhere from
24 and 81 ancient books,
written in two or three ancient languages,
and translated into thousands of languages.
So to continue along our question of what, if anything,
the Bible can offer on the journey toward world peace,
I’d like to consider what the Bible does, or rather,
what the Bible offers.
The bible has been assigned countless purposes.
and I don't think there is one agreed-upon purpose for the Bible.
I've heard it described as the word of God, or, kind of comically, i've heard the bible described as an acronym B-I-B-L-E,
"basic instructions before leaving earth."
And honestly, I don't think there's one purpose for the bible.
It depends on the passage and the reader.
But for our purpose of considering the Bible and world peace,
I'd like to go on a little journey of philosophy with three thinkers: Emile Durkheim, Ernst Cassirer, and Michel Foucault.
And we're going to consider these three philosophers because they give us a way to understand religious scriptures
in the broader context of human life,
beyond insider christian perspectives.
So Emile Durkheim:
Durkheim was a French sociologist in the 1800s and early 1900s, and being a scholar in the modern era,
He tended to put an emphasis on all of man.
Modern scholars often tried to understand things in ways
that could apply to people everywhere.
So rather than focusing on the Bible,
Durkheim was trying to gather as many data points as possible
to understand what's generally true about humans.
and something that Durkheim observed to be
generally true about humans,
is that even as societies become
more advanced and more scientific,
they basically stay consistently religious.
So Durkheim concluded
that religion isn't just an old way of thinking
that we'll come to outgrow.
Rather, it's a useful part of how humans interpret
and engage with the world.
And for Durkheim as a sociologist,
he considered that religion serves social functions,
primarily reinforcing social bonds
and expanding one's sense of family beyond
their immediate circle.
And what I think is critical about Durkheim's influence here,
is the idea that religion isn't necessarily
good or bad or primitive or advanced.
Rather, it has its functions, its uses.
And, since Durkheim’s work,
there's a growing belief that religion is
actually a fundamental part of being human.
Ernst Cassirer was a German-Jewish philosopher
who lived from 1874 to 1945,
and Cassirer was known for developing the idea
that humans are intrinsically symbolic creatures.
Cassirer argued that we humans experience the world
through symbols, stories, meaning-making structures.
Myth is the most basic of those structures.
It's the broad category including
language, religion, art, and science.
For Cassirer, symbolic myth-making
isn't merely a resource that we can turn off and on.
Rather, myth-making in Cassirer's view
is intrinsic to human cognition.
and its a strength.
Human perception is limited, but human comprehension is vast, and this happens through symbolic meaning-making systems, through myths.
Humans in Cassirer’s view can interpret and understand
far more than we can fully perceive,
because we organize our realities into bigger constructs.
Let's take for example,
have you all heard the idea
that humans can only maintain about 150 relationships?
Well what do we do,
to accommodate for a reality of more than 150 people?
Well Cassirer might suggest
that a very human way of growing one’s social awareness,
Is through meaning-making structures,
which can include religion or nation or village, or sports team,
and many other myths.
We expand beyond our 150 relationships
by thinking bigger than our perceptions,
and that expansion is myth.
Now all this talk about myth and religion raises a natural question:
"What about people who aren't religious?"
So I'd like to consider what else might count as a religion,
outside the traditional bounds.
And to consider what else might count as a religion,
I'd like to consider Michel Foucault.
Actually, quick question,
has anybody here actually met Michel Foucault?
So with Durkheim we considered how religion is useful,
and with Cassirer we considered how myth-making is intrinsic.
Michel Foucault helps us to consider the question
of what else counts as myth-making.
What is the Bible up against, or up along with?
Foucault was a French… historian(?)
and arguably a principled anarchist.
As a formerly closeted homosexual
who made his found-family in the 1970s kink scene of San Francisco,
Foucault was attuned to how social structures
invisibly shape behaviors.
He was especially suspicious of large-scale institutions
that claimed to be neutral while modifying the actions of others.
He was concerned with prisons and hospitals , but also schools, churches, and nations.
And Foucault worked on this idea of the “totalizing system.”
A totalizing system is any structure
that makes meaning from reality; classifies people into groups; commands allegiance, and manages uncertainty.
One easy example of a totalizing myth is the myth of “America”.
The concept of America, makes meaning from reality,
classifies people into groups, commands allegiance,
and manages uncertainty.
A lot can be justified in the name of America.
But another totalizing structure, another big myth,
is “the economy.”
The collective belief in the market economy
helps to make meaning from world events,
classifies people as credible or risky,
expects compliance or prescribes failure,
and provides a sense of comfort in uncertainty.
Don’t worry, the economy will correct itself.
The Bible does these things too.
It makes meaning from meaninglessness,
classifies people into groups, carries an expectation of reverence,
and offers clarity from uncertainty.
So to our question: what, if anything,
does the Bible have to offer
on the journey toward world peace,
here’s what we’ve established:
The bible is a transmission tradition of ancient hebrew and jewish stories, histories, prayers, and prophesies
mostly written from the perspectives of political captives,
and It addresses the intrinsic myth-oriented way
that humans understand the world beyond our own perceptions,
and it exists alongside other meaning-making structures.
Now! Here's where I think the Bible gets specifically helpful.
if mythmaking is an intrinsic part it humanity,
i believe that
we humans benefit from mythmaking systems that
address modern traumas,
supercede modern divisions, and
contain truly conflicting beliefs
let me say that again.
here’s where I think the Bible gets specifically helpful.
if mythmaking is an intrinsic part it humanity,
i believe that
we humans benefit from mythmaking systems that
address modern traumas,
supercede modern divisions, and
contain truly conflicting beliefs
and here’s why i believe that:
It’s about world peace.
I don't know if we’ll accomplish world peace,
but I think we need to try.
and, if we do somehow achieve world peace,
a complete eternal ceasefire,
i believe that we have a lot of owning up to do.
I believe that in order to achieve world peace,
we need world justice, and to achieve world justice,
we all need to be able to tell the stories
about how we’ve been harmed.
A prerequisite for world peace, in my view,
a prerequisite for world peace is that each person
on every side
is able to say how they’ve been harmed,
so that the wounds can be healed.
I say this because peace without justice and truthtelling
risks becoming acquiescence,
so world peace, world justice, requires immense truthtelling.
But truth be told, I don’t think we can handle it.
I don’t think the human mind
is automatically capable of perceiving the full enormity
of the suffering in the world.
World peace requires accounting for,
and organizing for, far more than 150 people.
To that end, I think the human mind
needs ways of organizing vast stories of who have been harmed.
For world peace,
we need ways of understanding
how we’re reenacting
and hopefully revising,
inherited traumas,
beyond human perceptual limitations.
for world peace,
we need ways of understanding how hurt people hurt people.
for world peace,
we need records of the prayers and cries from occupied peoples.
And in doing all of these things,
we need to think in ways to come together
that supersede modern divisions.
As we come together for world peace,
we need ways of coming to the table
that aren’t based on modern east/west divides
or conservative/liberal divides,
we need myths that belong equally
or else it’s just another victory and another defeat.
And bluntly, if we want to achieve world peace,
we need ways of comprehending the ancient conflicts
between the mediterranean and the jordan.
and the Bible offers all of those things:
-ways of interpreting cross-generational feuds
-ways of understanding how trauma ripples forward
-the prayers and cries of oppressed peoples
-perspectives that predate modern divides
-and ancient insight into modern conflicts.
But here’s what I really want to emphasize:
of all of the Bible’s finest attributes,
the best thing about it,
the best thing about the Bible, is that it doesn’t make sense.
Hear me out.
The Bible doesn’t make sense.
It contradicts itself.
It tells two creation stories back to back.
It gives contradictory facts about Noah’s Ark.
It gives us David — poet, war hero, king,
and an up-and-coming queer icon.
It gives us Job,
who does everything right and loses everything anyway,
It gives us four different versions of Jesus’s life.
with contradictory facts.
And rationally this is the Bible’s clearest flaw,
But mythically, this is its greatest strength.
Because think about what happens when a myth does make sense —
when it’s clean and consistent and points in one direction.
It becomes controllable.
And a controllable myth is a dangerous myth,
because whoever controls the story controls the people inside it.
The myths that make sense —
the economy, the nation, the hero —
those myths can be owned. They can be weaponized.
They can become totalizing.
One interpretation, one authority, one meaning —
and if you don’t fit, you’re out.
That’s a monoculture.
One crop, one genetic line, optimized, unilateral.
And a monoculture isn’t just fragile —
it’s designed to be controlled.
But the Bible is not a monoculture.
The Bible is a wild field.
It’s tangled and contradictory and untidy,
and nobody gets to be its final arbiter.
You want to use it to justify war?
It gives you “blessed are the peacemakers.”
You want to use it to enforce obedience?
It gives you prophets screaming at kings.
You want to win an argument?
It gives you puzzles.
Empires have tried to own it. They can’t.
Kings have tried to claim it. They won’t.
The Bible escapes every closed reading
the way a wild ecosystem escapes a single phenotype.
Its contradictions aren’t a flaw — they’re what keep it free, alive.
And that matters for peace.
Because peace cannot be built on a myth that belongs to a winner.
Peace cannot be built on myth that has clearly chosen a side.
Peace requires a story that no one can fully control.
So —
what does the Bible have to offer
on the journey toward world peace?
Well,
it addresses the intrinsic myth-oriented way
that humans understand the world.
And it does that by offering
ways of interpreting cross-generational feuds,
Ways of understanding how trauma ripples forward
prayers and cries of oppressed peoples,
Perspectives that predate modern divides,
And ancient insight into modern conflicts.
And on top of all of that,
it’s too weird and too conflicted to ever belong to any one person, party, or family, except, perhaps, the human family.
amen.
