Everybody is quoting the Bible these days. In the church and the public square Bible-based rhetoric and mandates echo throughout the culture, often with varying, even contradictory, interpretations. Such convictions can be deep and culture transforming; they can also be mistaken, perhaps even dead wrong. The Bible may say it and we may believe it, but that doesn’t always settle it.
Christian history suggests as much. Lent, the season of reflection and repentance, offers opportunity for those of us who live in and out of the Bible to acknowledge that the church’s history is full of acts and imperatives thought to be grounded in Holy Scripture that led the church to make horrible mistakes. Reflecting on those errors, and their sinful ramifications (it is Lent after all); we might revisit our own claims to be “Bible-believing Christians.”
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