The Bible as Justification

The featured image reflects the renewed emphasis on religious observance in nineteenth-century education and its close association with discipline, obedience and the preparation of children for their expected place in the workforce.

When I was teaching, a colleague once commented on my relationship with my pupils. “You do not suffer fools gladly,” she said. I was surprised, because I had rather thought that the relationship was the other way round. On reflection, however, there may have been some truth in her observation. I remember my investigation of Amway years ago and, most recently, my examination of the Bible. I have little patience with claims which do not withstand examination. Once something begins not to make sense, I find it difficult to leave it alone. I want to know what lies behind it and how it came to be accepted in the first place.

A friend recently described my interest in the Bible as an “obsession” and asked what lay behind it. I have thought about this a great deal. In the end, I would say that the Bible deserves close examination because it has been one of the principal foundations of Western civilisation. Its language, morality, laws, institutions, art and assumptions about human life have all been shaped by it. Whether one believes its religious claims or not, its influence is too great for it to escape scrutiny. In my own case, it was not so much the Bible as Christianity that left its mark. Much of what I was taught in my youth I later came to experience as damaging nonsense. Curiously, it was through my contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses that I eventually sat down and read the Bible from cover to cover seriously for myself. That was a revelation. It began a much wider enquiry into what the Bible is, how it came to be written, how its ideas developed and what those ideas have meant in different periods. The study of the Bible has given me not only insight, but a considerable degree of liberation from what I now regard as foolishness.

It is not the teaching of Jesus which I reject. Much of it makes pretty good sense to me. What troubles me is the use that has repeatedly been made of the Bible to justify human interests: power, privilege, exclusion, violence and, not least, selfishness. Leaders throughout history have been remarkably adept at finding divine authority for what they already wished to do.

The following passages were among those that have been used to justify such attitudes, although in several cases the interpretation imposed upon them goes well beyond what the text itself actually says. The third column presents the counter-principle found elsewhere in the Bible.

Issue / attitude justified	Biblical texts used to justify it	Biblical texts pointing the other way
Slavery and racial hierarchy — some peoples could be treated as naturally inferior, enslaved or placed beneath others.	Genesis 9:20–27; Leviticus 25:44–46; Ephesians 6:5	Human equality and brotherhood — people of different ethnic and social backgrounds are presented as sharing equal standing before God. Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 23:15–16; Galatians 3:28; Philemon 15–16
Class and social hierarchy — the poor and labouring classes should accept their station and obey those placed above them.	Romans 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13–18; Titus 2:9–10	Justice for the poor and criticism of privilege — exploitation of the poor is condemned, while wealth and social preference are treated with suspicion. Isaiah 10:1–2; Amos 5:11–24; James 2:1–9; Luke 6:20–25
War and conquest — violence, conquest and even extermination could be represented as divinely authorised.	Deuteronomy 20:10–18; Joshua 6:20–21; 1 Samuel 15:2–3	Peace and reconciliation — war is envisaged as something to be overcome, enemies are to be loved, and retaliation rejected. Isaiah 2:4; Matthew 5:9, 44; Romans 12:17–21
Religious persecution — those who rejected the approved religion could be suppressed, punished or even killed.	Deuteronomy 13:1–10; 17:2–7; Exodus 22:18	Tolerance and restraint — coercion and retaliatory violence are rejected, and believers are warned against condemning others over disputed matters. Luke 9:52–56; Matthew 13:24–30; Romans 14:1–4
Subordination of women — women should remain under male authority in marriage, worship and public life.	Genesis 3:16; 1 Corinthians 14:34–35; 1 Timothy 2:11–15	Spiritual equality and active participation — women appear as disciples, teachers and prominent members of the early Christian movement. Galatians 3:28; Luke 10:38–42; Romans 16:1–7
Human sexuality — sexual behaviour outside an approved heterosexual framework could be condemned as sinful or unnatural.	Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10	No direct counter-text. The Bible contains no clear endorsement of non-heterosexual extra-marital relationships. Its sexual morality reflects the Jewish society in which these texts developed. At the same time, Greek and Roman societies operated with different sexual conventions, indicating that the biblical judgements belonged to a particular cultural and religious setting rather than representing a uniform morality shared throughout the ancient world.
Foreigners and outsiders — outsiders could be regarded as dangerous, impure or obstacles to a chosen people’s destiny.	Deuteronomy 7:1–6; conquest narratives in Joshua	Welcome of the stranger — foreigners are to be loved and protected, and an outsider can become the model of neighbourly behaviour. Leviticus 19:33–34; Deuteronomy 10:18–19; Luke 10:25–37
Environmental exploitation — humanity’s “dominion” over creation could be taken as permission to exploit the natural world.	Genesis 1:26–28	Stewardship and restraint — humanity is also portrayed as responsible for tending and preserving creation, which ultimately belongs to God. Genesis 2:15; Deuteronomy 20:19–20; Psalm 24:1
Obedience to rulers — political authority could be treated as divinely sanctioned and resistance as morally wrong.	Romans 13:1–5; 1 Peter 2:13–17	Resistance to unjust authority — obedience to rulers is not absolute; biblical figures are praised for refusing commands that conflict with conscience or divine obligation. Exodus 1:15–21; Daniel 3:16–18; Acts 5:29
Wealth and poverty — poverty could be blamed on laziness while wealth and social advantage were treated as morally respectable.	Proverbs 10:4; 2 Thessalonians 3:10	Generosity and responsibility towards the poor — wealth carries obligations, and neglect of the hungry, poor and vulnerable is condemned. Deuteronomy 15:7–11; Luke 4:18; Matthew 25:35–40

There is a striking tension running through the Bible. It contains texts which have been used to justify slavery, war, hierarchy, exclusion and obedience, but also texts which affirm equality, peace, concern for the poor, protection of the stranger and resistance to injustice. These are not merely isolated inconsistencies. They reflect writings produced in different periods, societies and circumstances, carrying different assumptions about God, authority, morality and human relationships.

The result is a collection capable of supporting sharply opposed moral positions. Slaveholders and abolitionists could both appeal to scripture. So could advocates of war and pacifists, defenders of established authority and those who resisted it, those who enforced social hierarchy and those who challenged it.

The difficulty arises when judgements formed within particular historical circumstances are treated as permanent moral laws. Slavery, patriarchy, conquest, social hierarchy and sexual regulation did not originate in the Bible; they were already features of the societies in which biblical writers lived. Morality itself is not formed in isolation. It develops within societies, whose assumptions determine what appears normal, acceptable, shameful or unjust. People do not always begin with a moral principle and then act upon it. Often they act according to what they believe their circumstances require, and moral justification follows afterwards. Where those actions involved conquest, slavery, exclusion or exploitation, the Bible could provide a ready source of justification.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984) argued that what a society regards as normal, moral or deviant has a history: such categories are shaped within particular cultures rather than given in an immutable form. Later generations could nevertheless take judgements formed in one society and treat them as timeless moral truth. The contrast between Jesus and Paul is revealing. Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, offers principles, parables and a vision of the Kingdom rather than a detailed programme for organising society. Paul, faced with the practical problems of maintaining communities, becomes much more prescriptive: he gives instructions about worship, sex, marriage, authority, slavery and communal behaviour. Christianity moved from charismatic teaching to organised communities, and Paul is one of the places where we can watch that transition happening.

Over the centuries the Bible has acted rather like a gripping hand, holding earlier moral assumptions in place long after the societies that produced them had changed. The danger comes when moral judgements shaped by one society are imposed upon another as immutable law.

If morality is shaped by the societies in which it develops, there remains the question of how one moral code can be judged better than another. Jesus offers a possible yardstick, not by setting out a systematic ethical theory, but through the practical examples of his parables and actions. The underlying principle is made explicit in John 13:34–35: “love one another.” The Greek verb is agapaō. “Love” is not a wrong translation, but in modern English it can suggest affection or sentiment, whereas here the sense is of an active commitment to the good of another. Put in less ambiguous terms, it implies responsibility and mutual respect.

That principle is carried further in John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Here agapē reaches the point of self-abandonment. Seen in this light, the crucifixion can be understood as the ultimate act of selflessness: Jesus subordinated even the natural will to live to what he believed was his responsibility to continue teaching in preparation for the coming Kingdom. Moral rules may change as societies change, but they can still be judged by what they do to other human beings. A moral code that respects their dignity, interests and wellbeing has a stronger claim upon us than one that permits their exploitation, exclusion or degradation.

There is an interesting overlap here with some strands of New Age thought, where enlightenment is associated with the transcendence of self. The language is different, but the movement is similar: away from self-interest and towards a wider sense of responsibility. Enlightenment, however, need not be imagined as a final spiritual state, a kind of Nirvana reached once and for all. It may be better understood as a stage in an individual development which begins when inherited beliefs cease to be accepted simply because they are conventional. The search starts when the individual begins to question, compare and seek. The journey is necessarily personal and, for most of us, incomplete. Its value lies not in arriving at some final state of certainty, but in the discoveries made along the way.