#121: What Christians should know about the Bible (with Michael F. Bird)
Michael F. Bird, editor of The New Testament in its World with N.T. Wright returns this week to discuss things that he wishes Christians knew about the Bible. Mike is a scholar and theologian and his new book, 7 Things I Wish Christians Knew about the Bible, provides lots of fodder for thought and discussion. He lays out how the Bible came to be, how to respond to literalist claims about Scripture, examining why people should read the Apocrypha, and then we talk about critical race theory and why it’s important to read outside your own tradition, listening to the stories of folks who don’t look like you.
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Transcription
Michael Bird 00:00
Don't just read books by people who look and sound like you. Otherwise, you're doing theology in a ghetto. Or even worse, you're doing theology surrounded by mirrors, which is a recipe for hermeneutical narcissism. If you only listen to people who look and sound like you, you're never going to be tested, you're never going to grow. And you can you can end up just creating God in your own image. But you've got to be willing to see God in the image of others as well how God works in people who are different to you.
Jonathan Puddle 00:32
Hello, my friends, welcome back to The Puddcast with me, Jonathan Puddle. This is episode 121. My guest this week is scholar and theologian Michael F. Bird. We had Mike on the show last year, I guess, talking about the New Testament In Its World, the massive NT Wright compendium that Mike was the editor for. And so he's back on the show today to discuss his brand new book 7 Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible. It's a really fun and approachable book that just fills in gaps that, you know, I guess, scholars and theologians and folks know, it's really fun: the Bible didn't fall out of the sky; the Bible is divinely given but humanly composed; lots of really helpful things in there. So Mike, and I discuss a bunch of those things. And yeah, as usual, the conversation wanders around in a bunch of different directions. So go check the show notes for the transcription for this and also for links to purchase Mike's book and my book and other related resources. Let's get into the show! Mike bird, I'm so thrilled to have the red-haired, coffee-hating, Australian global theologian back on the show. Welcome back to The Puddcast.
Michael Bird 01:50
It's great to be with you, Jonathan, and long lived the rebellion against the bean industrial complex. I'm here, I'm here to free tongs from the scorched earth taste of coffee as much as to edify Christians around the world through teaching biblical truths.
Jonathan Puddle 02:07
There you go. You've heard it from Mike himself, those causes are of equal weighting and value in his mission.
Michael Bird 02:14
Hey look I'm very much into social justice, and there's no greater justice than freeing men and women from slavery to the bean—the coffee bean—that is,
Jonathan Puddle 02:24
I know, this is not a joking matter for you. But I, I recently started a meme account on Instagram with a friend of mine. And I posted on my main social, I said, that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to start this account. And a friend of mine was very offended at that, that I was suggesting, that that had happened, that God was somehow pleased by my memes. And ahh, we called the account the mighty meme of Jesus so that we could say things like, you know, "in the mighty meme of Jesus," because it was a real thing that my, my eight year old daughter had walked by church, hearing someone say something about the mighty name of Jesus. And she said, the mighty meme of Jesus?! And I thought we got to, we got to keep that.
Michael Bird 03:13
What sounds it sounds like it could be a platform, some from some great memes. As long as you're denigrating coffee in most of them, I'll approve.
Jonathan Puddle 03:22
So Mike, I'm really enjoying your, your new book, 7 Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible. I have been learning all kinds of things, right off the bat. There's lots of stuff here that I'm like, Yes, I already knew that because I've been reading. And plenty of other things that I'm like, oh, that's brilliant. Connecting the Dots. I did not understand that, jump there. This there's a thing you wrote in the first section about the canonization process regarding like observing, which letters and epistles were actually having a bearing in people's lives. And I thought that was just a really interesting to have like, what's, what's actually happening in the people? What are the messages that are bearing weight and bear and producing good fruit? So I'd love to hear a little bit about why you wrote book, maybe the journey to get here.
Michael Bird 04:20
Oh, yeah, a number of things. You know, I've been a Bible teacher now for the better part of 20 years. And I tend to come across two sorts of things in churches or, you know, just in public. You get what I call these pious misunderstandings or pious ignorances about things like, you know, where did the Bible come from? Or these little things, little aphorisms, like, you know, we should always take the Bible literally. Akay, that's the best way to interpret it. And then you get the sort of other, you might call it you know, secular objections to the Bible or Christianity by people who know enough of the Bible, that they can write a meme, but not enough that they have actually wrestled with it in a in a deep way and understand that there's, you know, two sides to kind of everything. So let me give a couple of examples of that, you know, on the more secular side, you know, people who say things like, you know, the Bible was invented by Constantine in the fourth century, okay? Or, you know, in a more academic sense, you know, "It's morally wrong to call the, the Old Testament, the Old Testament, you should call it the Hebrew Bible, because it's not just your Bible it belongs first and foremost to the Jewish people. And you've got to stop kind of Jesusifying it because that's insulting to, to, you know, Jewish people." So you've got that on the sort of academic side, but then on the, you know, the more shall we say, believing side, you've got this idea that the Bible seems to have floated down from heaven bound in leather, the words of Jesus in red, complete with Scofield footnotes and Strong's numbering system, or something like that. And even things like saying the Bible should be obeyed or, you know, we believe in biblical authority, you have to say not everything in the Bible is authoritative for us today. Irrespective of what you think about the conduct of war, whether you're a pacifist or you believe in just war theory, we should not be conducting warfare like they did in, in, you know, in the Old Testament, you know. We don't, we don't enslave inhabitants. We don't say we're going to kill all the Canaanites, the Jebusites, that kind of thing. We would be morally abhorrent to do everything that the Bible does. And that's why you've got to understand which parts of the Bible are descriptive, which are prescriptive, which were just for that time, like, in the case of, you know, this is God look telling the people of Israel, look, if you have to, if you get involved in intertribal violence, which is horrible, it's ugly, it's perverse. But this is what you have to do. Okay? And he tries to, to, to lead and William Webb's got a great analogy. He's another Canadian scholar, he's got a great book on this. I mean, he talks about God leadings his people through the sewer of human existence, okay. And this is this is how you have to survive in this context. It's not to say it's good. It's not to say it's ideal, or this was always the best, the best thing that could happen. But this is basically how you you sanctify or you survive in a, you know, Bronze Age, pagan world of brutality and barbarism. This is how you be the people of God in that context, where there are marauding barbarians at the gate, that type of thing, this is what you got to do. And again, it's that doesn't mean that's how we should be acting in every age. Because we know through Jesus that something better was always planned. And coming. Okay, so I mean, so knowing that the complexities of you know, what's descriptive, what's prescriptive, what was kind of pragmatic, and what's ideal, knowing some of those differences can make a huge difference to the way people read the Bible, and stop them getting, you know, maybe hung up, or, you know, concerned or alarmed when they read certain parts of the Bible.
Jonathan Puddle 08:24
Yes, yes, that's very helpful. The pastor that I grew up under for much of my teen through early mid 20s, was, you know, I remember him telling me specifically, "Well, Jonathan, if you don't believe the Earth, that God created the earth, in seven day, 24 hour periods, if you choose to not believe the Bible about that, then you can choose to not believe the Bible about anything you like. And that's the problem with the postmodern young people." And I remember feeling like that didn't make sense.
Michael Bird 09:05
Ahh, no.
Jonathan Puddle 09:06
But I dind't know what to say...
Michael Bird 09:08
Yeah, well, I mean, the first thing I would say is thinking that, you know, Genesis 1 should not be taken literally is not postmodern. In fact, that was a view that was very common in the patristic era. I mean, St. Augustine, great church, father and Latin theologian of the church in North Africa, he wrote a book on the literal meaning of Genesis, and the first thing he says is you can't take the stuff literally. You know, and that and that's, and that's not a that's not a cop out or a retreat caused by modern science. It's 1500 years before anyone's ever heard of the name Charles Darwin, or anything like that. So Christians for a long time were aware that you know, that the Bible is looked at, again, if I can refer to another Canadian scholar here (not just William Webb) Craig Allert's got a great book about Genesis 1 and the early church. And you'll see there was a number of diverse ways of reading the text all attempting to be faithful, okay, to the text itself, to the voice of God in the text, but did not read it in such a way as if Genesis 1 is telling us what was happening is if you had a camcorder, and you're looking at the very origin of the universe. I mean, they all they all recognize this is, this is poetry. This is story. It's, you know, I mean, the universe did begin and there is, you know, there are human beings. So it's a mixture of, I would say mixture of history and parable. Of course, where one ends and another begins, that's a little bit difficult. It's like the color purple, you know that, you know, there's red and blue in there, but where does the red end and the blue begin? They're kind of all blended together? That's, that's, that's the problem we've got. And I mean, simply knowing that that you know, people before the 20th century were interpreting Genesis one in these ways. Just simply it I find incredibly well, for some will be surprising. But it's also very liberating, it means I don't have to read it just this way, as a reaction against the modernists or the atheists or the you know, pro science, anti-religion crowd. I mean, I don't have to read it in light of that conflict. I can read it the way the saints of old have read it, believing that God made the world and we worship God, we don't worship the world. I mean, in other words, I mean, Genesis 1 really is about, don't worship the stars—worship the one who made the stars. I mean, that's it's more it's not about the mech, believing in the mechanism for how God created the world. It's about understanding you live in a God-centered reality. And you should have a theistic worldview, not a sort of, dare I say, mythical pagan worldview, where the universe was created by a whole bunch of chaos monsters killing each other, and some of the gods beget other gods and the gods joined gangs and faught each other. That's not it. We live in a celestial monarchy, there's one God, who is sovereign overall. And in his goodness, he has made creation, and the creation reflects his goodness.
Jonathan Puddle 12:01
Yes. Yes. That thing of what you just said before about reading in light of certain pushback or reading in light of certain controversies different to each age. I feel like that's exactly like, oh, well, not exactly. I feel like that makes up probably 70% of the way I was taught scripture. It's all a bulwark against whatever the latest liberal fad is that the young people must not believe.
Michael Bird 12:31
Oh, yeah, it is. Exactly. And, you know, and I've seen over the course of my life, you know, what have been the big things was, you know, anti secularism, or it was science. I mean, the latest boogeyman is, you know, critical race theory, that's the latest boogeyman at the moment. I mean, that's, that's that discussions happening in another seminar room, I won't, I won't go into that. But it's about reading the Bible in light of who the new perceived threats are. You know, like I said, critical race theory, Muslims, secularism, I don't know. I mean, it's really funny to see how how the sort of shibboleths that people will make between the good guys and the bad guys... I can use one real funny one from from Anglican church history. That back I think it was at the 16th or 17th century, one of the big issues in Anglican churches in Britain was over—not not inerrancy, not critical race theory, not evolution—it was about vestments. Literally, the clothing the preacher wore in the pulpit, you know. You know, it wasn't, you know, did your, you know, wear sort of like, you know, sort of black and brown dour clothes, or, or did the preacher dress up kind of like Gandalf the White, you know, that's kind and if you dre... and if you dress like Gandalf the White, that that was considered the trappings of the papacy, you know. You know, that it was it was the Papal Stormtrooper uniform to wear all this, you know, you know, stoles and, and robes and all that. And the big issue that separated the good guys from the bad guys was vestments.
Jonathan Puddle 14:13
Yes.
Michael Bird 14:14
Yeah. And I mean, some of that actually is still filters down today. I think in my own colleges, I think rules about our chapel there's certain things bishops are not allowed to wear in our chapel because we're aligned with the more the Protestant or Anglican wing of Anglicanism, but it's it's just amazing how each age can pick these sort of, you know, these shibboleths, these sort of, you know, symbolic issues that define tribes. And you've got to be and you're expected to mark out your view of that. You know, when people ask you things, like when people asked me, "Do I take Genesis literally or not?" I go, "Well, I don't really care all that much to be honest how God made the universe, I'm just more concerned that he did." And people get all, ahh what do you mean, what do you mean you don't have a strong opinion about it, I mean, this is, this is the issue. This is, you know, you know, forces of light to the right, forces of darkness to the left. I mean, which one are you on? You know, and I think it's the vestment issues. I mean, I don't really care what the preacher wears, I'm more interested in the quality of the sermon, I mean, if the guy dress up, like, you know, Gandalf, or whether he wants to kind of dress up by, you know, a bunch of, you know, country boy in some, you know, boots and overalls, it doesn't really bother me, I'm more concerned about the content of the preaching. But yeah, that's that's what happens every age, we we, we want to read the Bible. We want to argue about the Bible, in light of what are the latest fads? And what are the latest fights, and the new divisions of tribalism.
Jonathan Puddle 15:50
Yes. When my wife and I lived in Finland for five, six years, and it was fascinating, just what you described about vestments. Finland is a Lutheran nation, very few Catholic churches. And it was my first time in a Lutheran church. And I remember being like, huh, this is so funny, it looks just like a Catholic church to me. But don't say that to a Lutheran. Oh, god. No. It's like, oh, no, we don't have this. We don't have this. We don't have this. We don't have this. Like, like you said, like those evil Papists over there.
Michael Bird 16:25
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 16:26
But to my kind of charismatic, evangelical, non-liturgical upbringing, plus 400 years removal. I walk in and I'm like, ooh, okay, look, looks all the same to me.
Michael Bird 16:39
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 16:41
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder what yeah, what, what Christians 400 years removed, or even 40 years removed from us today are going to say, oh, it looks all the same to me.
Michael Bird 16:54
Yeah, well, who knows? Or I think they all like to say, What the hell was that about? You know, what is this kind of make America great again!? Kind of what's, what's all that about? And... or all "I identify as", you know, there'll be I think there'll be a whole bunch of weird things that people will wonder about and be concerned about.
Jonathan Puddle 17:15
Yeah. So you break down these seven things, 7 Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible. The first one is, "The Bible didn't fall out of the sky." And I thoroughly enjoyed that you kind of do a full, rapid survey of all the texts and how we got here. What's important about that, why, why is that one one you really wanted to address and start out with?
Michael Bird 17:39
Okay, for two reasons. One, the Bible was not kind of discovered, like golden plates with writing on them, ALA sort of, you know, the Book of Mormon sort of stuff. Okay. So it's, it's a book that God gave to His people and through his people. So there were human authors. There were editors, I believe, there were collectors. And then there were debates about which books should be in our sacred list of literature. Now we largely inherited the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible), from from the Jews. Albeit Christians seemed to have preferred initially, the Greek translation of the Old Testament which had a few extra books in it, which were not in the Hebrew Bible and that's those extra books given you get called the Apocrypha, like 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Sirach, and what have so. So we launched the inherited that from the Jews, and then we kind of work out later what to do with the Apocrypha. But then when it comes to the New Testament, you've got writings about Jesus and the writings of the Apostles. And very quickly, the four gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, and First Peter and First John all became... certainly by the end of the second century, widely read, used, venerated, and these were considered to be the sort of the the nucleus that summed up what Christian faith was about. And and then there was like, some questions about a few other books, like, you know, what about Revelation, you know, end of the world stuff, or Second Peter, pretty good Greek for a fisherman, or then the other books like The Apocalypse of Peter, or The Shepherd of Hermas, which were very popular books in Christian circles. But the what happened was not a sherry of bishops telling people what their books were going to be. It was more like the general consensus across the churches of East and Western, whether they spoke Latin or Greek. About these represent the consensus of our sacred literature. You know, that the books that I that tell the story of Christian faith, and give us the the basis for being a Christian. And books that have been recognized whether you're in you know, Gaul, or whether you're in Syria, type of thing. So that's largely the story of the New Testament. And that's good to know that in case you come across someone who's been reading a Dan Brown or, or someone who says the Bible was invented and it's all fake news, you can say, well, no the people were discussing the Bible for some centuries long before Constantine turned up on the scene. And it also, I think, importantly shows you that there is a close relationship between Word and Church. And this is what I tell my students, how do you know which books should be in the Bible? Because God did not reveal a table of contents. So although you can say the church is what we call a Creatura Verba, a creature of the word, the church is created by the preaching of the Word of God, it's unified by the preaching of the Word. Nonetheless, the church was the instrument that God chose to put the written word of God into its canonical location. In other words, God uses the church to create the biblical canon, which is why I argue the doctrine of Scripture should not be the first thing in your theological system, like your first item in systematic theology is doctrine of Scripture. I think the doctrine of Scripture belongs at the intersection between the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of the Church.
Jonathan Puddle 20:58
Mmhmm!
Michael Bird 20:59
So that that's where I would, in a dogmatic sense, locate the doctrine of Scripture, because because God through the Holy Spirit breathes out, inspires the Word of God, but it comes to through the people of God, who compose it, edit it, and canonize it. And and then it should also be interpreted, preserved and proclaimed, and become internal to the to the church's own thinking and witness.
Jonathan Puddle 21:25
Wow, that is a beautiful encapsulation! I'm going to have to meditate and ruminate on that. Some more. Thank you.
Michael Bird 21:33
Yeah. Well, if you want more, more on that, go read my Evangelical Theology. Second Edition, is where I talk a bit more about church, Word and Spirit, and how the three of them play together.
Jonathan Puddle 21:45
Yeah cause, like I mentioned earlier, like I've grown up in a charismatic movement. And so that's been great for Pneumatology. But it but it's, it's been led by, you know, folks from a previous era, in a very, very reactive kind of mode regarding like what we were saying earlier, all these shibboleths, all these markers of fidelity and faithfulness. And so there was a time I remember about 10-12 years ago in our own movement, where they got very concerned about the Word and making sure that the Word went out with the Spirit, but the only the only tool they gave us for the Word was inerrancy, literalism and...
Michael Bird 22:30
Yup.
Jonathan Puddle 22:30
...and these accompanying things that especially within a North American, especially a very American influence context, lead the way. So yeah, just just to hear you come put that together combine Word in a, in a Holy Spirit church context is yes, I'm going to chew on that one for sure. Thank you.
Michael Bird 22:52
I think there's two things, one is don't mistake apologetics for what should be your own normative expression of faith. By all means, you can deal with people like the Richard Dawkins or the postmodern objections to Christianity, or, you know, just people who just want to burn down churches in parts of rural Canada. You can have your apologetic for them. But that's a different from the task of explaining the role that the Holy Spirit has in the form... and the doctrine of scripture, has in the formation of Christian doctrine, and then how you engage in mission, I think you've got to, you've got to separate those two issues. Because if apologetics is always setting the agenda, you're always going to be reactive. And you're always going to be you're going to allow your critics to set the agenda and determine where your center of gravity is, which I think is always a big mistake. And that the biggest problem with churches engaging in the culture wars is they, they well, 1, first of all, they think that they are... that culture is something that happens to other people, it's not. And they and they allow their cultural opponents to determine the agenda. And thus, they're always responding, I've got a military background, and that means they lose the initiative. Whereas you've got to in any sort of conflict, cultural or spiritual, you've got to you've got to maintain the initiative, get other people reacting to you, rather than you constantly reacting to them. And the best way you can have good good initiative is to keep up with with your mission, doing what you should be do being faithful, being competent, being careful, and you know, being good imitators of Christ.
Jonathan Puddle 24:29
Yes. So something that I run into, this kind of touches on everything we've touched about so far is this statement of this accusation of somebody who doesn't have a high view of Scripture. And it's kind of an easy way to denigrate anybody that you, I would say, actually just don't understand, but perhaps perhaps in some cases they do? So a couple years back, I remember seeing a quote from a pastor and author that I admire and respect saying that, that basically Jesus is the really important thing about the Bible, what the Bible does perfectly and innerantly is pointing to Jesus. And, and so we're all about the Savior, the same savior that the book points to. And I thought that was great. Now the next week I saw an Anglican priest who I also know, saying, "Ughh, this is driving me crazy; I'm just trying to get the people in my parish to read the book. I don't need anti Bible statements like this." I didn't read the statement is anti biblical. But, but I'm not in a parish context where people aren't reading their scripture, if anything, I'm trying to get people to take a sober solemn breath about their Bibles and decide, is this the right way to be reading it, so how does that land for you as obviously like a teacher, and an Anglican, and then someone who reads a lot globally, like, we're all trying to do something here with this book.
Michael Bird 25:49
Yeah. And this, there'll be different issues in different contexts, this goes to show contexts are different. Now it's one thing to encourage Christians to get into their Bible because the Bible is a Jesus centered book. So if you're keen on Jesus, and you should be keen on the book that points to him, that's fine. But then you've got other contexts where you're dealing with a more nominal faith, where people are there often because of a social function, historical family connections where the faith... may not be insincere, but it may not be fully grown or fully formed, okay? And ministering in that context is going to be a little bit different, okay. Or you can have in then, in some cases, outright hostility towards certain parts of the Bible, which... and this is something I get into, into the book 7 Things as well, where people say, Look, if you if you treat the Bible as your authority, then it's basically become a paper Pope. Okay, that's what you turned the Bible into a paper Pope. Okay. And we, you know, "Who cares about the apostle Paul, what he says, you know, he was he was just a white heteronormative, misogynistic male, who cares? We don't need Paul, we have Jesus." So you can throw Paul's epistles in the dustbin. We're just going to focus on Jesus, or those aspects of Jesus's teaching that we like. So I mean, so depending on which context you are going to be about which, which concern that is going to be foremost. Do you want people to make sure they're reading scripture, in a Jesus-centered fashion? Do you want people to be actually reading scripture? Or do you have to kind of try keep it arm's length of those who want to cut the Bible up, throw half of it in the dumpster, and then just to keep the bits that agree with their political ideology? Which by the way, can be done by conservatives and progressives, either way. So depending on your context will depend on on what sort of what battles you're engaged in, and which ones you're willing to undertake.
Jonathan Puddle 27:52
Yes, yes, that's very true. And I don't know, it seems like, it seems like everybody's complaining about biblical illiteracy, but the solution that, that the world I'm closest to has chosen is to just double down on on biblical idolatry. I said that, not Mike Bird, but whatever. What one thing that you encouraged in the first chapter, that I appreciated but was intrigued by was that all Christians should read the books of the Apocrypha. You were like, "Let me be clear, everybody should read this!" And then you can you quote freely from apocryphal books. I, as a good Protestant Evangelical, have never read any apocryphal books, I happen to have a bunch of like, full Catholic NRSV Bibles in my house because my children are baptized Roman Catholic and go to Catholic school. And that's another whole thing. Why? What should I hope to gain? And is there anything that I should bear in mind as a new reader of these books?
Michael Bird 28:52
Okay, well, the first of all, you have to understand that in Protestant circles, we grant them a secondary status, we say they are useful to read read, they're not the basis of Christian doctrine. Now, this this is an ancient view, you know about the status of the Apocrypha, I should also say that the, the American Bible Society printed their King James with copies of the Apocrypha up until the 1880s. And they only stopped doing it largely out of anti-Catholic bias. So it was really an anti-Catholic agenda. But before that Protestant, you know, the King James Bible was usually printed with an apocrypha. Okay, so that that is the historical position of Protestant churches. And now the Westminster Confession, the 39 articles of the Anglican Church, they both make reference to the Apocrypha, the Pressies are a little bit more standoffish with that, the Anglicans say okay, it's useful, but don't make Christian doctrine out of it. Now, the Apocrypha is useful, because there's some sort of some real sort of wise teachings are there. You could say it's, it's shaped by people who have read the Old Testament, and you know what they've come up with. And it's also really great on the history between the Testaments, if you want to know what was happening between the Testaments, certainly reading books like 1 and 2 Maccabees I think I'm very necessary reading. There's also a book called 1 Esdras, which is like a summary of Ezra, Nehemiah, then you got books like Tobit and Judith as well, which was like between the, between the sort of testaments book, or more so with with Tobit. You've got the Wisdom of Solomon, which seems to have had a very big impact on the Apostle Paul and his critique of, you know, pagan idolatry and immorality that you find in Romans chapters one to two. So it is very much for your benefit and edification that you do read the Apocrypha, and I would suggest reading that rather than reading something like a Left Behind novel or a prairie romance novel or The Case for Your Best Life Now Shack Code of the Holy Seven Days of Daniel dieting... Purpose Drivenness Case For... whatever the biggest fad is at the moment.
Jonathan Puddle 31:05
Do you think there's an exercise though, coming back to what you'd said on the canonization that that there's a process of recognizing which of these epistles are bearing good fruit. Okay, not to elevate to the level of Scripture, but is it worth some kind of process like that, where we're even today where we like Okay, let's look at the last 100 years of Christian literature across the church globally. Are there things that are bearing really good fruit that we should hold on to and keep around? Are their books like that... in my head right now it seems there's a much bigger list of like bad stuff so it's like you just blew your way through...
Michael Bird 31:44
Yeah, yes, yes. Um, I don't know I mean, what what becomes classic literature? I mean, the only way you know that is through the test of time. Like you know, I mean, I I've still got a few A W. Tozer books sit around on my shelf, they're kind of spiritual classics. There's a few J.I Packer, things should have to say a spiritual classics. Now. The Knowledge of God, Concise Theology. These are books I think people will still be reading in 100 years or so. It's hard to say. It's hard to say, I don't think Your Best Life Now will be read in 100 years, and probably not The Daniel Diet. But that's another story.
Jonathan Puddle 32:28
I used to run a Christian bookstore. And so you know, you're just hacking and slashing through all my, all my profit right there, man.
Michael Bird 32:35
Yeah, I know. I know. I'm sorry. But, uh,
Jonathan Puddle 32:39
But I know... I'm with you.
Michael Bird 32:41
Or I'm like, "Sorry, not sorry."
Jonathan Puddle 32:43
Yeah I know. We'll take a quick pause to thank my patrons. Thank you so much to everybody who chips into the show. You guys are wonderful. Thank you so much. Friends, if you are listening to this, if you're enjoying it, and you're not currently a supporter, can I ask you to consider it? $3 A month, we'll get you in. Putting the show together as a lot of research, a ton of reading and connecting with folks, preparing interviews, having conversations and countless hours of audio editing. Anyway, if you would love to support the show, that would sure be a blessing to me, you can do so at patreon.com/jonathanpuddle. Thanks very much, back to the show. So is there is there an eighth or ninth thing that you wish Christians knew about the Bible that didn't make it into the cut?
Michael Bird 33:27
Ah, um, I probably go more into interpretation. I mean, I have a chapter on that. But you know, just how to get the most out of the Bible. How to read the Bible, how to read the Bible for things like ethics, spiritual devotion, you know, what are some ways of doing that? Yeah, I think I think so if I had to add like an eighth, it'd be probably something along those lines, probably on the more the spiritual, the probably more of the spiritual disciplines of Meditative Contemplation and different traditions, you know, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Protestant. I have got some ideas on that.
Jonathan Puddle 34:08
Yes, that's fun. I've been reading a bunch on that subject, too. So that's, that's good. And there are there are resources out there. I'm really enjoying this book. As I said, I look forward to finishing it. I'm learning things. It's challenging me. It's growing me. And I'm really looking forward to recommending it to others. So I'm very thankful for you writing it. I wonder if we can come back to critical race theory just for a moment, for a particular reason. Just the I mean, this this interview will air in a few months. So this article will be old by now but you wrote a piece recently, a review of Lisa Bowen's book on African American readings of Paul. And in that review, you mentioned leading a class and a discussion on the shift in theological method, modernity to postmodernity.
Michael Bird 35:00
Yup.
Jonathan Puddle 35:00
You suggested one solution to some of I guess, the pitfalls of postmodernity was, where we don't have any kind of absolute truths, and so on and so forth. But you can summarize yourself but to one of these solutions to listen and learn from folks who have exercised faith in a different context. And you, you gave a thumbs up review to this book. I've read a bunch of your stuff, and I know that you are compassionate. I know that you have concerns just as much about fundamentalism as you do about hardcore progressives. And I appreciate the balanced wisdom that you bring. I sat on a webinar for some leaders in my movement very recently, and I heard three older men, trash CRT, wokeness, intersectionality, BLM movement, and so on. Basically, as signs of the end times moral apostacy preceding the return of Christ. No, no words were, were spilled regarding the causes, the injustices, the evils, that that was utterly devoid from the conversation. And in fact, the conversation was on civil disobedience. And what had prompted it was what is it okay for churches to refuse to wear masks, and to stay open? And I just felt very frustrated. And I was like, Is this the best we can do? And I contacted one of these individuals who I have a personal relationship with, and I, I sort of said, Look, man, if you're going to throw all these tools and methods and people under the bus, like I, you, we can talk all day about whether these are the right tools. But you, but you didn't even didn't even pay lip service to the idea that maybe there is evil and injustice.
Michael Bird 35:00
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 35:16
And, and in dialogue with him, it became pretty clear that basically the only lens he has for understanding any of this is postmodern Marxism. And, and I was like, and that was the end of that. And so I wonder if you can for the remaining time, we have just lecture me very quickly on postmodern theology, and maybe the benefits of listening to others.
Michael Bird 37:15
Yeah, well, I don't know whether this is postmodern or whatever you call it, but I think the church will be or Christians, particularly leaders, will be best served by doing two things: and I call that a synchronic and diachronic reading. Okay, so diachronic: read down in the tradition. Okay. So now, whether that is in your own tradition, the charismatic tradition, you know, read read downward, okay, in the history. You know, going back all the way to as Azusa, I mean, you know, the Azusa Street outpouring, instantly resulted in integrated churches. And it was only led later, sadly, when the AOG separated to become a white Pentecostal denomination. Okay. But, you know, historically, things like the Azusa it was it was a racially and a great innovation, a great, dare I say, work of the Spirit. It was a great integrated racial movement in North America, at least in its earliest phases. Okay, so go down reading your tradition all the way back to, you know, the reformers, the medieval tradition, all the way to the church [fathers]. Yeah, read read downwards. And through things don't don't just read what's on the, you know, the CBD bestseller list, I've just read the latest and the greatest the, you know, the latest mega pastor who's got a great book, you know, before the scandal erupts. You know, go back and read through the tradition, read the Augustines, the Chrysostoms, read the that things, so read diachronically. Then read synchronously and go read books outside of your circle. Now, if you if you are someone who is very conservative, my advice is go read some black liberation theology. You don't have to agree with it. But you will suddenly just learn to think in other people's shoes. What's it like? Why did that person believe that? How did they come to that? Read a bit of read a bit of like James Cone, okay. And you you, you'll read some stuff, you'll say, well, that's just wrong. And that's wrong in a bad way. But you will then come across some stuff where you say, Okay, well, that's sort of true, or Wow, that actually is true. Okay. And you've got to be, you know, discerning and but you know, you will learn stuff by reading, people from out of your group, or even just learning something by African leaders. I mean, you'll find out that in Africa, that debates over CRT are not dividing their churches. I mean, they've got other issues they're dealing with, ranging from corrupt government, or, you know, polygamous marriages, you know, how they deal with that, how they relate to, you know, tribal divisions in their churches, and I don't mean political tribes, I mean, like, proper tribes. So, I mean, they'll be different issues around the world. And so read read synchronically and diachronically Okay, read around you in the global church. Don't just read books by people who look and sound like you. Otherwise you otherwise you're doing theology in a ghetto or even worse, you're doing theology surrounded by mirrors, which is a recipe for hermeneutical narcissism. If you're only listen to people who look and sound like you, you're never going to be tested, you're never going to grow. And there is and you can, you can end up just creating God in your own image. But you've got to be willing to see God in the image of others as well how God works in people who are different to you. So that's why I believe you should read why and have if you can, a wider circle of friends, you know. On the CRT issue, I mean, this has become an issue in Australia, too. We had Australian Senate, kind of disavowed CRT as a great threat. Now, this is my understanding of CRT. CRT, one level deals with some of the injustices of society. For example, if a white man and a black man both commit the same crime, they have no prior records. Why is it that the white man goes to prison for three months, but the black man goes for six months? Okay, this is all at the discretion of the judge or whoever does the sentencing. What Why does that happen? I mean, there's no law that says black men go to prison for longer. And then if they both get out of prison, it takes the white guy one year to find a job. But then the black guy still doesn't have a job after three years. Why is that? Again, there's no law that's actively trying to stop him. But there, there are elements of society that just seem rigged against certain people. And that's what critical race theory does for the most part. It says, Why did what what are the things that seem to be rigged against certain people? Now as a legal approach, or sociological approach, that is perfectly fine. The problem is we have what I call CRT televangelists. People who are kind of a little bit on the CRT bandwagon but then they go in like weird directions. And they go on their Twitter accounts, and they write these ridiculous aphorisms. You know, people who write things like if, if a white couple adopts a black child, that's a form of colonization. And if a black child loves their white parents, then they've internalized their racism, you know, which just is just nonsense. Or even better yet do a search of "the white supremacist origins of" and it's everything, the white supremist origins of math, the white supremacist origins of philosophy, the white supremacist origins of ice hockey, I don't know of maple syrup. I mean, everything is the white supremacist origins of something.
Jonathan Puddle 42:40
Coffee?
Michael Bird 42:41
Yeah, definitely. Definitely coffee. Yes, yes. Think you think of all the poor of the poor people had to work in the coffee fields to get the coffee for the white people? Definitely. I'm definitely into that one. I should write an article on the white supremacist origins of coffee. Yeah, but I mean, that's what you have to differentiate between what I think is the bonafide theory, looking at our our system of law, society, and sociology and race and, and that kind of stuff and how there are, you might say, accumulated or agro aggregate disadvantages that pile up and make things look like they're rigged against certain people. And then, but don't compare that to what do I call the people who are just saying a lot of these nonsense stuff online. But the problem is then kids who get kids who have taken classes in critical race theory, also go on Twitter and follow these other people. So the kids who end up working in HR departments, become policy writers in government bureaucracies, who will end up running for parliament. They've been influenced not just by the bonafide CRT practitioners, but also by what I call the CRT televangelists. And the two can get sadly that I think they can get muddled up together. So that's, that's how I see the CRT debate, you should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. But you know, just if you if you can be discerning and listen to what's reasonable and what's rational. And what makes sense of human experience, okay? Because at the end of the day, all truth is God's truth. You know, that that's what we've got to remember: all truth is God's truth. And you know, you don't have to go too far in Canada, to see what the the history of, of colonization has done in your part of the world, particularly with that horrific finding of you know, 200, was it 200 bodies of children dug up in a children's home? Which is indicative of the evil that happens in the world and to which the emotion of rage is quite normal and natural and dare I say God feels rage at those atrocities, just as much, if not more, as we do. Okay, so you know, there's nothing, nothing to fear there. If you're always on the side of truth, and so I don't think CRT has to be the big boogeyman or the latest, the latest thing we're worried about. You know, it used to be the Muslims. And then it was the secularists. And then it was the postmodernists or whoever it is. Don't don't fall into the kind of boogeyman bandwagon of trying to find the latest enemy, we've got to be creating a bulwalk event because people can milk that for their own advantage, especially politically. And I think you'll you'll get that we get that in Australia, certainly the US and I imagine Canada too. Don't Don't, don't do you know, what I call boogeyman ecclesiology or boogeyman politics, you know, "We're afraid of this group. So let's double down and knock that." And particularly don't ever criticize critical race theory if you've never read anything about it. And if you've got to read about it, don't just read about it from the usual critics. Read it from people who actually at the for... the respectable academic leaders have it, read something about them. Read what they've done, then you can go back and give it a legitimate critique where appropriate.
Jonathan Puddle 46:09
Thank you. Much wisdom, my friend. Love the work you're doing, love your voice, love the global things you're doing, so thankful. I'll have links to the to the book and in the show notes. Mike, would you pray for us as we end?
Michael Bird 46:23
I will do I will do. I pray for Jonathan and all of his congregation and listeners to this podcast, that the Holy Spirit would come upon them, fill them with all the wisdom they need to discern their mission and their purpose in God's world. And they will do it to the glory of God the Father in Christ Jesus, our Savior, amen.
Jonathan Puddle 46:44
Amen. Thank you, Mike. Friends, go hit the shownotes at jonathanpuddle.com/podcast. And you'll find the transcript for this, you'll also find links to Mike's book, and links to the B-Side. Every episode of this podcast now features a B-Side conversation where I sit down with a friend and go into it in greater depth. So if you want to listen to more thoughts on this, head over to patreon.com/jonathanpuddle or jonathanpuddle.com/podcast, it'll all connect you in. Go follow me on social media @JonathanPuddle. Great to have you here. Hope that you'll listen in again next week. Much love. Grace and peace to you. Byebye.