Part 1 of 3: “God is not a Big Bad Meany” series
“Hey Mommy, we need to talk,” my daughter, Trellace, a freshman at Georgetown University was in her first college level religion class and she was not happy.
“Mom! The book of Judges is awful! I never knew all this was in the Bible!”
Baptist church kids from different eras
Cooperative Baptist church kid in the 90s
Trellace, born in 1994 after the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) split from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), was as much a church kid as I had been. But she came along when CBF churches like ours were still trying to figure themselves out; we had not yet created reliable literature to help our volunteers teach kids biblical truths. Determined not to be fundamentalists, some of us failed to teach fundamentals at all. As a result, there’s a whole generation of faithful little Baptists who missed out on the kind of focused Bible teaching I had received in my formative years.
Southern Baptist church kid in the 70s
I was a child in the seventies. I went to Girls in Action then Acteens on Wednesdays; I had Training Union every Sunday night. I competed in sword drills so much that I could turn to a text in Haggai as fast as I could one in Genesis or Revelation. In the churches of my childhood, read-the-Bible-through efforts restarted every January. “Read the Bible Daily” was a tick box on our offering envelopes which we turned in weekly, containing at least 10% of our allowances. Say what you will about old-timey SBC churches; but they taught us how to be disciplined and intentional students of Holy Scripture.
The Difference
Trellace also went to church every Wednesday and Sunday. But our church focused on God’s love, forgiveness, and grace and glossed over some of the nastier bits of the biblical narrative. Trellace had hardly even heard of Satan, let alone realized that God takes a lot of heat for ungodly behavior. Judges caught her off guard.
Disturbing content
“Levite’s concubine?” I asked her.
“What? No. . . who is that?”
“Never mind.” She’d find out soon enough.
“Okay so anyway, Judges,” Trellace continued. “So much war and devastation. How could God call for all that evil?”
Aha. She’d just begun the book then. She had not even met Jephthah’s daughter yet, bless her heart.
“How many times have you read the passages that bother you?” I asked her.
“Um once, why?” She, I suspected, might be experiencing a touch of SMS, otherwise known as “Stoooopid” Mama Syndrome.
“You need to read them again.”
She wasn’t having it.
What we know
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “There are not many things we know with absolute certainty about God. But there are two truths I keep in mind when I’m reading the Bible. First, we know that God loves us more than we can imagine, and mere humans cannot change that, no matter what. Second, we know God is a God of grace and mercy. God is always ready to forgive us, ready to offer us a second—or 102nd chance.”
“So then why did God ordain all this fighting, killing, and just meanness?” Trellace asked, teetering between skepticism and relief.
“Well, that’s why you need to read it again. Maybe you misunderstood.”
“Yeah Mom, I don’t think so.” Eighteen-year-olds—they know so very much, don’t they?
“Here’s the thing: God is NOT a Big Bad Meany. We know that. We know that we know that. This is an absolute. There may be infinite additional truths about God, but this is one we know for certain. So, when it looks like God is being a Big Bad Meany, we know that there is more to the story,” I explained. “So, we need to read it again.”
A couple of examples
This has been a fail-safe method of Bible study for me for decades. Sometimes there’s a nuance in the text that I overlook, or a cultural truth that I’ve missed.
For example, Psalm 109. In this text, the Psalmist is nothing if not a Big Bad Meany. But a close look will remind readers that it is not God pronouncing these evils; this is a psalmist’s honest prayer that his own wicked desires be sanctified. It’s a beautiful example of how to be authentic before God, regardless of how ugly we look in the moment. What we know
Other hard texts might depict antiquity seeking explanations for life’s successes or failures. It’s not like they could check satellite images, order MRI’s, or run blood tests. They made sense of things the best they could. And often that meant throwing God under the oxcart—literally.
Case in point: I remember getting downright furious with God for killing off Uzzah. You’ll find the story in 2 Samuel 6. David and the boys are celebrating the return of the Ark of the Covenant when the ox leading the cart that holds the Ark stumbles. Uzzah reacts reflexively and catches the ark before it falls. Then, according to the text, God strikes Uzzah dead for touching the Ark. That’s some serious Big Bad Meany behavior, right?
What my Daddy said
I tagged the text for future discussion with my father, a retired pastor. In those pre-cellphone days, we had to wait for face-to-face visits for conversation, or at least until after 10 when the long-distance rates went down. So, a few weeks later, sitting in his living room, I recalled the Uzzah story. “Daddy!” I said, “God’s just being petty here. Uzzah was only trying to help. Would God prefer that the Ark fall into the road?”
“Hmm,” Daddy said, hardly looking up from the solitaire game he had laid out on his lap desk. “I always figured Uzzah had a heart attack when he realized what he had done, and the people gave God the credit because they didn’t understand science.”
For parents who are also biblical scholars, we give you thanks, oh Lord.
And then there’s the mystery
Of course, there are also times when the texts won’t become clear upon subsequent readings. Faithful students learn to live with this because contrary to Descartes’ declaration of cogito ergo sum, we cannot always think our way into understanding. Often, we need to sit with our questions, live in the mystery of faith. As difficult as that can be, it’s a lot easier if we remember that God is NOT a Big Bad Meany.
“Oh,” Trellace said. “I get it. Okay. Thanks. Headed to class. Love you Mommy!”
“Love you too Trellace,” I signed off.
Help her to keep reading, I prayed. Help her to keep asking questions. And help her always to find shelter in the truth that you love her more than she can imagine, and that you are not now, never have been, and never will be a Big Bad Meany.
