(This column originally appeared in the Rio Grande Sun and Artesia Daily Press.)
In 1996 I took a year off from journalism to attend seminary in Atlanta. The plan was to cram as much theology, sociology of religion and church history into two semesters to return to a newspaper to cover the intersection of religion and politics.
It was obvious even then that understanding the white evangelical Christian constituency that would propel George W. Bush and Donald Trump into the White House would come in handy for a political reporter.
After a year, however, I decided I liked reading philosophy, theology, ethics and history and the conversations they had prompted, so I tacked on another two years and earned a Master’s of Divinity degree.
After graduating, I got a newspaper job in Connecticut an hour from New York City just in time to cover the 9/11 terror attacks, anthrax, and several political scandals. I never got to report on the mix of religion and politics like I’d hoped.
However, the topic is an abiding interest. For example, this week the use of the word “biblical” in American politics is of keen interest.
At its annual meeting in Indianapolis earlier this week, the Southern Baptist Convention entertained a question of whether to ban women from serving in any pastoral roles at a church. Supporters defend the proposal as “biblical,” meaning they trace its authority to the Bible itself.
“If we won’t stand on this issue and be unapologetically biblical, then we won’t stand on anything,” the Associated Press quoted amendment proponent Mike Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia, as saying.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the country and is made up of mostly white evangelicals, a constituency that overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and likely will again this year.
When I say I’m bewildered by the phrase “unapologetically biblical,” this is not coming from a casual observer of American Christianity or American politics: I’ve been around the Bible since childhood and have covered politics for more than 30 years.
Contrary to the pastor Law’s fervently held belief, the Bible does not speak definitively on the question of women as pastors. People on opposite sides of the question have found support biblically for their respective stances for decades.
That’s the thing about the Bible; it’s not as clear as many people purport it to be. In fact, it can be extraordinarily vague, which is why there exist so many competing interpretations of the Bible.
Interpretation is not a bad thing. We humans do it every day, to make sense and derive meaning from both trivial and profound matters in our lives.
The Bible is no exception.
Perhaps this point is meaningless to you as you cite the country’s increasingly secular turn. But it does matter. In some corners of America, the Bible remains a source of authority and certainty, even solace and comfort, at the same time many of these Americans who revere the Bible seem increasingly not to really know what’s in it.
The irony, then, is that the word “biblical” holds a certain power even as more Americans sever their ties to organized religion. The use of “biblical,” then, offers a glimpse into the perennial power of faith and religion in American politics.
To say an idea or belief is “biblical” is shorthand for many Americans that the idea or belief is grounded in truth. And to say something is true with a capital T can sway people to vote a certain way even if they’re not sure what the Bible says themselves. People who use the word “biblical,” in fact, often count on this biblical illiteracy. They can say whatever they want without challenge.
Full disclosure so you know my bias on women pastors and the importance of knowing the Bible, especially journalists: I was raised Southern Baptist. Reading the Bible and church going were at the center of my life growing up. In addition to three weekly services, I participated in Bible studies and “sword drills,” a game in which an adult called out a Bible verse to a group of children who competed to locate it in the Bible.
Later came seminary, with classes in all the subjects mentioned above as well as classes in ancient Hebrew and Greek. The thinking was, and still is, that pastors should be able to read the Bible in the original languages they were written. It’s more of an aspiration than a reality for most graduating seminarians, but it’s a notable goal.
I am also a preacher’s kid. In my case, it was my mother who was the minister. A lifelong Southern Baptist, my mother departed the denomination in the 1980s when she was dissuaded from pursuing a call to ministry after a fundamentalist takeover of the denomination. (The same players would help to strengthen white Evangelical and fundamentalist power and influence over the Republican Party years later.)
Not one to let men stand in the way of what she considered a calling from God, my mother attended a Presbyterian seminary and became a minister in that denomination.
I am not writing this column to litigate whether the Bible supports women as pastors or not.
It’s a free country. Those who oppose women becoming pastors by quoting the Bible have a right to their opinions, as do I and many others who find ample evidence in the Bible to support the opposing view.
I just wish more Americans stopped to think before believing what someone says is in the Bible or simply shrugging and saying it doesn’t matter.
Whether you believe in God or think religious belief is a bunch of hooey, the mix of religion and politics helps to shape our public life in the United States. Sometimes it even influences who sits in the White House.