A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .
What about Slavery in the bible and the koran?
Philemon, Preached at Congregational Church of
The Pope was in the middle of an audience when his principal
advisor whispered in his ear, "Your Holiness, I hate to interrupt, but the
Messiah is on the phone and he wants to talk to you." The Pope excused himself
so he could take the call in private. A few minutes later he came back out with
a somber expression. He said, "I have some good news and some bad news. The good
news is that the call was from the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, our Savior, and the
time of the second coming is at hand. The bad news is that he was calling from
I apologize before I begin about this message. It’s not going to be your normal sermon. I understand that you come here to be helped with your daily struggles, to find some inspiration, and to be given some direction in life. I don't think that is precisely where we are headed this morning. I do believe this is an important message, or I wouldn’t be saying what I am about to say. I trust it is so important that you will give me the benefit of the doubt, extend me some charity and listen.
Back in college, my sophomore year a fellow student, a fellow Christian, used to talk to me and ask me how someone could be a Christian, if you believed that even one little thing in the Bible was incorrect. This is called inerrancy of the Bible: the Bible commits no errors. His point was that if one thing is wrong, then anything and everything could be wrong. And who are we to figure out what is to be kept in Holy Scripture as truly from God, and what should be discarded as no longer God's Word. The concern continues: Once we start to interject human judgment on God's Word, we have opened the possibility of turning scripture to our own use, making it say what we want it to say. Yes, this is true.
We want to know what God wants us to do: “Please, God, just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” But since God doesn’t talk to each of us individually in this way, we look to someone to whom God has revealed this, and what that person writes down, or someone writes down for him (Sorry, so far it has only been men). We can then open the book, in our case the Bible, read what it says, and do it. We want instructions on what it means to live a life that is right, good, and acceptable to God. And we don’t want it to change from one year or century or millennium to another, or from one culture, society, or people to another because if it does how are we supposed to know what stays the same or is supposed to change. If this makes sense, if this is your kind of religion, then actually your religion of choice should be, well, Islam, at least Islam as it is traditionally understood.
Obviously by saying this I have said two things: first that Islam thinks of itself as the perfect religion in this way, and second that I didn’t say Christianity. I will speak to the first in just a moment; as for why I didn’t say Christianity, the reason is that no matter what my college friend wanted to believe about scripture, the Bible at the very least has contained hundreds of imperfect things within it, mostly little things, like spelling errors and omitting words. Historically, before the Bible became the Bible, and I'm only talking about the New Testament, it was in hundreds and hundreds of different pieces, in different locations, slightly different texts, with certain variations; and none of these texts that survived were the originals written by Paul, or Mark, or John. They were copies of copies, the earliest being a copy copied more than a hundred years after the original author wrote his text. This is why you see at the bottom of a page a different possibility for some word, or portion of a verse.
But even if we take today's Bible as the Bible, forgetting about its past, (which is what Islam does with the Koran, but that’s a more involved story), what we still have in our hands has lots of interesting moments in it. I used to ask that college guy about the story in Mark 4, when Jesus wakes up, stands up, stills the storm, and then tells the disciples not to be faithless cowards. And then I would ask him about Matthew 8, when Jesus wakes up, asks them why they are such faithless cowards, stands up, and then stills the storm. One version has him stilling the storm first, before talking to his disciples; the other has him talking to his disciples while still lying down, then standing up and stilling the storm. Granted, this is a little thing, but if each and every thing has to be historically accurate for the Bible to be the Bible, then which one was it: did he stand and still first, or did he stay down and talk first? The college guy's answer to my question was to ask another question: “If you don’t believe the Bible is perfect, then how can you believe in it at all?” My point is that this doesn't end the discussion. He has simply asked the question that ought to be answered. That’s what we are doing today.
One crucial truth about the Bible is that while it is almost always used for good, it contains some very negative thoughts concerning certain people, such as Jews and homosexuals. The same goes for the Koran, in which one can read very negative requirements against Jews, unbelievers, pagans, and Christians, though sometimes tolerant proposals as well. Our scripture is still used today to say that God disapproves of, if not despises, certain people. Clearly, some Muslims use their holy words against us. No longer however is it as acceptable for Christians to use scripture against Jews, and that's mainly because of the Holocaust. The Bible is still used to support the rejection of women to ordained Christian ministry, as well as discrimination, hatred, and by some real nuts, even the killing of gay men.
The question of how to interpret or deal with scripture is not just a Christian thing, nor is it just a Muslim thing. It is a human issue, a very important issue, because it concerns how or whether holy words permit societies to change over time. The fact is societies do change, and in many, many cases for the better. They change frequently enough in contradiction to what was considered unacceptable or acceptable way back then that simply repeating what was thought and done back 2,000 years ago and calling it faith or God's way isn't good enough. It isn't good enough for any religion.
Let's take slavery as our example. The fact is both Bible and Koran present slavery as a politically, economically, and socially acceptable form of relationship between people. How is it possible then for us today, us reading the Bible and them reading the Koran, to view it as probably the most heinous system humankind ever created? If fundamentalism, or so-called literalistic interpretation of these books—in which what was once said will always be the only way God sees people, and always the way it is acceptable to treat others—is the one and only right way to read scripture, then we should still be able to keep slaves. We should still view slavery as acceptable; we shouldn't see it today or for awhile now as totally unacceptable and contrary to God's will for human beings. The truth is a literalist reading of Scripture, and the Koran, cannot be the right way.
There is a significant difference however between Islam and Christianity when it comes to what we are talking about. Even if my fellow college Christian wanted to hold to the belief in the Bible's inerrancy, as do millions of others, the truth is Christianity has never made the lack of errors the first, foremost, primary principal of our religion. Rather, Jesus Christ is; not the Bible. Jesus Christ is the one who is the revelation of God with us; not the Bible. And this is the major difference between Islam and Christianity when it comes to slavery, holy books, and interpretation.
You see, for Muslims, the Koran is perfect. It is without error. It is the final revelation of Allah to the world. The Koran, Muslims believe, is an exact word-for-word copy of God's final revelation, which is found on the original tablets that have always existed in heaven. Every letter and every word is free from any human influence, which gives the Koran a holiness that must be revered as such. This final revelation, according to Islam, is transcendent, and consequently, beyond the capacity for conjecture, or criticism. Muslims believe that the Arabic language is the language of Allah. They also believe that the Koran, because it is perfect, is the exact representation of Allah's words. For that reason only the Arabic Koran can be considered as authoritative. When the Koran is translated into another language, it's not called a translation. It's referred to as an interpretation; meaning it's not the actual Koran. This is clearly not how we view our Bible, nor should it be.
The bottom line is that because the Koran cannot be wrong in anything, nothing can have changed between the time when Muhammad spoke the sayings and today, or a thousand years from today. This is an incredibly high bar, and in reality an impossible burden for any writing, no matter how inspired, to bear. Let me put it plainly: if slavery was acceptable to Allah when the Koran was first written, either it still must be acceptable, or the Koran cannot be perfect, that is, without error. But the fact is obviously slavery isn't acceptable today, not by Christians and God, not by Muslims and Allah. For Islam, this is a huge issue, and undercutting of the foundations of the religion itself. This is why there are so many articles and books written by Muslims about the relationship between slavery and Islam, trying to defend the Koran’s stance on it.
But having said this about the Koran, the same must be said toward those who try to squeeze the Bible into the same mold of perfection. Fortunately, Christianity is not a religion dependent on the perfection of the Bible, no matter how much we want to have something telling us exactly what to do, who to accept, who to reject, all without change from one society to another or one century or millennium to another.
The human mind and heart cannot be removed from reading scripture, interacting with the words, and making judgments. Everybody does this; it's just that some are more willing to accept this fact. I think we should be willing to accept it. With all our flaws but also with all our selfless principles, we are the ones who in our own culture, society, and era, encounter God's Word, listen to it, and grow because of it. No doubt there is a risk that we will not adhere nearly enough to what is good within scripture; but without this freedom we also run the risk that we will hold too tightly to what must now be set aside as unacceptable. I believe Jesus makes it clear that he would have us err on the side of freedom, humanity, healing, saving, caring, and doing what is good for those in need today.
So after all this what is left of our scripture? Or, how do we
answer my college friend's question, "if one thing is incorrect in the Bible
then how do you know what is or isn't wrong?" First, what we read in the New
Testament is what Christian faith looked like at that time. When the first
Christians, the
Things have changed significantly since then. Christians today are the most populous religion in the world. We are trying to find our way faithfully in a nuclear-tipped, computer saturated, egalitarian-leaning, global and consumerist economy in which our natural environment shows serious signs of wear and tear, and over which we American Christians have the most influence of any single group of people. I can't think of a more opposite set of circumstances than what the first Christians lived through 2,000 years ago.
And so second, obviously we can't be divinely or legitimately beholden to mimic the expression of Christian faith we find in the New Testament. Again, each generation, culture, and age must find its way to faithful Christian life and expression. To do this requires the Holy Spirit. What God revealed to us was Christ, the Word of God, but how we live Christ or how Christ lives today is known because the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. Jesus said this is the way it was going to be. During his last night with his disciples, Jesus tells them he is going, but the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, the Spirit of truth, will come in his place. Jesus makes it clear he's speaking not just of his disciples but of his disciples’ disciples, and so on for as long as communities believe in him and want to live their lives as his followers. He says, “And when (the Holy Spirit) comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment….” (Jn.16:8)
It is the Holy Spirit’s job to show each generation of Christians what is good and what is bad, revealing for us today what should be judged wrong, even if in the past it wasn’t, or judged right, even if in the past it wasn’t. A spiritually interactive reading of our Bible is the foundation of a bible-based, Spirit-led, Christ-centered Christian faith.
After all this, what is a bottom line? What is a take away for you this morning? It’s this: Unfortunately, the Bible and the Koran are used even today as support for hatred, which leads to killing. Now I don't know how to get certain Muslims who believe they’re right to kill innocent people because of the Koran to change. What these Muslims, and we certainly should differentiate hate-filled Muslims from other Muslims, have done and are doing is a crime against humanity, and against God. I do know however how Christians ought to understand scripture so they might be freed from hating those whom they in error believe the Bible permits them to hate. They need to be Holy Spirit-led. There is no doubt that in the 21st century nobody has divine support to hate someone else, and especially to plan their deaths for Allah’s or any god’s sake. Nobody today has divine authority given to them by their holy words to kill Americans, to denigrate women, and hate or even discriminate against homosexuals.
And that is, as Jesus would say, Good News.
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