Better ways to read the Bible

LOUISVILLE — In 17 years of church ministry, the Rev.  Zach Lambert has seen Scripture “read and applied in harmful ways.” With the Tuesday release of his book “Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm Into a Tool of Healing,” Lambert discusses how the faith community he leads, Restore Church in Austin, Texas, is working to help bring about one of Jesus’ most important ministry roles: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

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Lambert, the author of “Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool of Healing,” was the guest last month on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” hosted each week by Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe. Listen to their 49-minute conversation here.

Lambert said he’s seen the Bible weaponized “in horrific ways, to subjugate women, justify racism and bash LGBTQ people, cover up abuse and even try to silence anyone who speaks up about those injustices. I became convinced early on [in ministry] that this is the opposite of what Jesus wants.”

At Restore Church, finding better ways to read the Bible began in community, “and I think that’s the most important thing,” he said. “When you’re reading the Bible in a diverse and healthy community, you have a lot less chance of hurting people.” Before and during the Civil War, a substantial amount of defenses for chattel slavery were penned by members of the clergy, Lambert noted. “I can only imagine if it had been a group of both white and Black pastors in a room talking about biblical interpretation, the Black pastors would have said, ‘No, it doesn’t mean that. That’s not how you interpret that passage. I know because of my experience as a Black person in America and because of my loved ones who have been tortured into chattel slavery.’”

Over the years, Lambert and members of Restore Church came up with four healthy lenses for biblical interpretation, which appear in the book:

• Jesus, the Christo-centric lens. “Jesus wants all parts of our life, including our biblical interpretation,” which leads to “abundant life for us and neighbors,” he said.
• Context, the historical-critical analysis of Scripture, including context, culture and genre.
• Flourishing. Lambert includes a chapter on liberation theology, “God’s desire for us to experience flourishing.”
• Fruitfulness, which Lambert identifies as “the lens we use at our church most frequently to say, ‘Jesus said his followers would be known by their fruit.’ Our biblical interpretation should be leading to more of those in us and in the world.”

“My hope is that the book is pastoral,” he said in answer to a question by Catoe. “Anytime we do deconstruction or reconstruction, it comes from a trauma-informed pastoral lens, understanding just how deep religious trauma is for a lot of people.”

“You see this a lot in the online influencer deconstruction space,” he said. “If you have built a brand on being a deconstruction person, you have to find more things to deconstruct all the time. It can get out of hand pretty quickly.”

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Comparing faith to a house made of bricks, Lambert likened hearing something that conflicts with what we’ve experienced to taking a brick out of our house of faith and determining whether, “OK, am I going to ignore my experience, put this brick back into the house and pretend like nothing happened? Do I need to replace this with something that more aligns with my experience because it’s more truthful now, or am I throwing this completely away because I can’t engage with it right now?”

That’s why tools including books and podcasts can be helpful in interpreting the Bible, he said. “We get to move away from soundbite culture that doesn’t allow for much nuance or conversation,” Lambert said, “and move into spaces where we’re actually digging deep into some of these things.”

Restore Church thinks of itself as post-evangelical, he said. “We attempt to take what evangelicals are good at” including personal spirituality and accessibility. “When you walk into an evangelical church, you know what you’re supposed to do,” he explained. “There’s donuts and coffee, music that makes sense and a sermon that’s relative to your life.” It’s “accessible for some people, but as soon as other folks get engaged, they’re told that because of something intrinsic about them, they’re not able to fully participate.”

Restore Church attempts to identify “the things that they do well, and then we pair that with better theology and better Bible interpretation,” he said. “How can we keep the focus on personal spirituality? On helping people have an emotional connection to their faith and their neighbors? How can we make sure church is fun for kids while getting good theology?”

There are post-evangelicals in many PC(USA) and other mainline congregations, Lambert said. “How do we make sure we’re ready to care for those people, support those people, and unleash those people into ministry roles? A lot of them are sharp leaders and hard workers. They know how to get things off the ground. How can we mobilize folks who have those cool characteristics for positive purposes?”

“My proposal,” he said, “is we all lean into things we’re uniquely good at and build bridges not based on ecclesiology or polity or church structure, but on shared values.”

For too long, he said, we have built “denominations and denominational partnerships especially around polity and ecclesiology rather than around shared values.” It’s better to be connected “around justice and Jesus and inclusion — all the things we care deeply about — knowing there are a bunch of different expressions of that. I would love for there to be a place where people could go and say, ‘I’m not going to compromise on these values, but I like this expression and that expression. I think we can make a much bigger and better difference.”

“Here’s the thing: They’re doing that on the other side. They’re building bridges around shared values. We would say these are terrible values that they share. Their presentation and their church experience is so radically different, and yet they have come together and said, ‘We have these shared values,’” Lambert said. “I wish we could do something like that, almost as a counter to that.”

Listen to previous episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” here.