Conservative Evangelical Bible scholar Dr. Bruce Waltke has resigned from his
teaching position at the Reformed Theological Seminary.  He made the mistake of saying the
evidence overwhelmingly supported evolution.  Many of his co-religionists are unforgiving.  Ken Hamm, CEO of the ‘Creation Museum,’ objected, “I believe what he
[Waltke] is saying ultimately undermines the authority of God’s word.” Other spiritual egotists made similar assaults on Waltke’s intellectual
honesty.   

This
spat is of little concern to Pagans. 
But it exposes the irrational core at the heart of so-called “Biblical”
religion within which many of us had our initial religious roots, an
irrationality that is infecting our entire society with attitudes inimical to
freedom and democracy.  Those who
reject reason and evidence about the most important things will sooner or later
reject it about other important things. 
We live today with the consequences.

Biblical
scripture considered as a sacred authority have two basic weaknesses. 

First, historically the language of poetry and myth has
been used in religion to try and illuminate the meanings in reality, meanings
that cannot be put adequately into words. 
So myths take you as far as words can go, and launch you a little
farther, like poetry.  Many
Christian traditions are open to this kind of interpretation – but not
so-called conservative “Biblical” Christianity.  There that approach has been eliminated in favor of
literalism, thereby shifting religious discussion to science’s turf – a turf
that cannot identify internal meaning because it focuses on what is observable
and measurable.  Insofar as they are rational, Waltke’s habits of thought that he used in Biblical interpretation also led him to recognizing the reality of evolution.

Second, there has always had a tension between scripture’s
reporting of others’ real or claimed experiences of the sacred, and the
experiences people are having today, be they their own encounters, or simply
the evidence that lies around them. 
In addition, writing scripture always takes place in a particular time
and place, and addresses a particular audience.  To explain such a text we HAVE to put it in our own words
and the farther removed we get from that time and place, the more difficult it
can become to grasp the writer’s intent. 
In his book Misquoting Jesus,
 Bart Ehrman who started out in life as a “Biblical” Christian, writes (p. 217)

Once readers of a text have put a text in other words, however,
they have changed the words.  This
is not optional when reading; it is not something you can choose not to do when perusing a text.  The only way to make sense of a text is
to read it, and the only way to read it is by putting it in other words. .
.  And so to read a text is, necessarily,
to change a text.

Since
these folks have rejected myth, which offers a poetic kind of interpretation
focusing on meaning, and replaced it with modern science’s standard of
objective and impersonal data, they make themselves hostage to science.  Having done so, when their allegedly
literal facts are no longer supported by the facts as science identifies them,
they have no choice but to fall back on the will to believe.  That is all they have left.

“Because
I believe it, this is God’s message.” 
No other reason exists as to why someone should prefer one version over
another.  This is all that is left to “Biblical” Christians confronting the problem that their argument for only literal interpretation means that, when the evidence is examined, taken literally the Bible is wrong.  This is narcissistic
egoism tarted up in sacred garb.

Being
itself irrational this kind of religion lacks the capacity to respond
rationally to different points of view. 
It can think only in terms of denunciation and suppression. And so,  hidden in its core, is the threat of
violence, a violence that always surges to the surface when the opportunity
arises.  Its adherents believe
their message applies to everyone but they lack the tools or evidence to make a
rational case that this is so.  Nor
can they make a poetic/mythic case. 
And they confuse their limited human understanding with the will of
their god.  This is an explosive
mixture of ingredients, one that has killed millions in the past. Like
Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, they are dangerous neighbors.

I
think only religions that focus on the experiences of their practitioners
today, and that find the spiritual within the world and not bestowed from above
it can coexist amicably with science, democracy, and freedom. Those that reject
these approaches are at best volcanoes, waiting only adequate power to explode,
spreading death and destruction all around them.