Why Most Christians Would Prefer the Koran over the Bible.

This video would make most of us uncomfortable. For me, it only confirmed many of the things that I have been thinking about lately. I was taught to think in terms of great blanket statements like “inerrant” and “infallible” when it came to the bible. I was to listen for these concepts while discussing issues with other people, and when I caught the scent that someone had a weak view of scripture, my predatory senses were aroused to attack mode. We were taught that the bible didn’t contradict itself, and we were taught pithy explanations for the “supposed” contradictions in the narratival discrepancies, but we were never taught to take a closer look at these discrepancy, which would have honored a great deal more the bible that we were attempting to hold in high esteem all the while willfully ignoring the parts that make us uncomfortable.

It is at this point that I would suggest that most Evangelical Christians, if we follow our logic and then can be honest with ourselves, would prefer the Koran over the Bible.

The Koran is a “book from heaven.” It is at every point the “very words of God.” The words later written down by “God’s profit, Muhammad” do not sound like Muhammad. In fact, Muhammad was illiterate, thus verifying that it was in fact a message from God. The Koran does not “contradict itself.”

These are the same terms we use to describe our bibles. We would like to think that our Holy book is a book that descended to us from heaven. Because it is the very words of God, we must seek to protect Gods character by saying that it is infallible or inerrant. What we say is that, having more than 30 authors, spanning centuries of time and various cultures, our book was assembled together without contradiction. I am afraid this does a great disservice to our Bible.

 As B.B. Warfield pointed out (which almost cost him his career at the time), the bible is at every point the word of God, and the word of man. Have you ever noticed that it is difficult to distinguish in the book of Jeremiah who is talking at times? Jeremiah sounds like the Lord, and the Lord sounds like Jeremiah. The same is true for many of the other prophets. We must at every point acknowledge the humanity of our bibles.

Some of the early church fathers were not happy with having four gospels. It made them uncomfortable, because they could clearly see the distinctions between them. They wanted to harmonize the gospels into one account. While there are clear discrepancies at times, there is a clear coherence to the accounts. If we truly paid attention to this, if we truly gave it some study without being committed to a predetermined outcome, we would have to be honest about this fact. When we see the distinctions, we gain insight however into the authors understanding of their Lord. Have we become so insecure in our faith that we must engage the modern world using its criteria on its terms, rather than reading the scriptures that point to the Lord we love and serve on terms of its own?

I love the Bible, but I am seeking to point out that our understanding of it has been one of the greatest battle grounds which has divided us (and this is a relatively new development, at least in its present form among American evangelicals). We speak in absolute terms to preserve us from having to do any serious thinking or scholarship. We just adhere to the broad categories so that we can, in some oppressive authoritative fashion, point out who is woefully ignorant and who is towing the line. This adherence does the opposite of our intent, it renders us woefully ignorant and causes us to dishonor that which we seek to glorify.