Undoctrinating

Today I’m starting a series I plan to make a mainstay of this not-a-newsletter: undoing Bible lessons. If you’re reading any of these words, I can safely assume you’ve been taught countless lessons from the Bible, some good, lots bad, small, earth-shattering . . . they come in all shapes and sizes.

And colors.

Yeah, the one we’re going to attempt to unlearn together is the Wordless Book. There are, I’m sure, plenty of variations. The one I remember looked like this:

Green

What they taught: God created the world all perfect and good. We had life, we had food (from plants), and we had friendship with each other and with God.

What they meant: Everything was fine until you got here.

What we can think about instead: Where did this world come from? What else can we learn from science? Why are we so compelled to attribute the existence of this or any universe to the work of an immortal?

Black

What they taught: Sin entered the world and destroyed EVERYTHING.

What they meant:

There’s a lot to this, from the literal black-and-white way it teaches us to look at morality to the implications on our views of race to who knows what else. A lot of people, I’m sure, will roll their eyes about any racial implications, but it’s impossible (read: foolish) to ignore.

What we could think about instead: There is a lot wrong with this world. The amount of it that is your fault is infinitesimally small. The amount you could improve is probably limitless, and the amount we could improve together defies imagination. And if an all-powerful, all-loving being were interested in solving those problems, does it make any sense that it’s so goddamn difficult?

Red

What they taught: The blood of Jesus makes everything better.

What they meant: Shedding blood isn’t just cool, it’s absolutely necessary sometimes. Most of the time it’s bad, but sometimes it’s awesome. We’ll let you know which one applies in good time, my pretty. All in good time.

What we could think about instead: None of this. Eww. Gross. Literally anything else.

But seriously, we have to take some time to think about how much deep psychological and emotional damage blood imagery does in the developing minds of children and how much it affects them (read: us) as adults. “If God says so, shedding blood is amazing” is a powerful little piece of propaganda that has resulted in a whole lot of death throughout history.

White

What they taught: Putting your faith in the saving work of Jesus makes you white as snow, perfect, blameless, and totally pure and acceptable in the eyes of God.

What they meant: White is right. White is superior. White is supreme. You’re only good if you’re white. When you’re white and you’re forgiven, nothing you do can ever be wrong. Everything you ever did and ever will do is justified. Remember how bad and awful black is? Yeah, that’s how good white is.

What we could think about instead: Just how messed up is anyone who learned from the wordless book? And, you know what? You didn’t need to be forgiven. You still don’t. But you could be mindful of how far into your psyche and nostalgia some of these sentiments have crept.

Yellow (read: GOLD!!!!)

What they taught: Accept Jesus’s gift of salvation, and you’ll spend eternity in heaven, where the streets are paved with gold.

What they meant: You’re gonna be rich.

What we can think about instead: Remember how when you’d ask what we would do in heaven all day, they’d tell you that we would worship the Lord for all eternity? Remember how disappointing of an answer that was and how boring it sounded?

There has to be something more to life than spending all of eternity telling God how awesome He is for making the world He made not suck as bad for all but one week of recorded time.

I believe there is. For now, let’s consider this lesson a little bit unlearned and both of us a little bit undoctrinated.