Progressive Christians should read the Bible

My childhood Bible was a formidable thing. I carried it around in a quilted tote bag equipped with extra pockets for highlighters, pencils, bookmarks, and notepads. I had an elaborate color-coding system for the highlighters— yellow for God’s promises, pink for the divine injunctions I needed to follow, and blue for the verses I found comforting when I felt sad or scared. The margins were filled with my tween wonderings: Where did Cain’s wife come from? How did all of those animals coexist on the ark without eating each other? Did Jesus know who he really was when he was little?

I read my Bible voraciously, and I read it literally. Raised in a bibliocentric tradition, I was taught that God’s word is perfect, devoid of inconsistency or error. Every word in it is intentionally chosen by God, and every event recorded in it is historically accurate. So Jonah really did spend three days inside a giant fish, and there really was a catastrophic flood that engulfed all of planet Earth, and there really is a “lake of fire” where non-Christians will someday gnash their teeth.

I was also taught to read the Bible as a straightforward and definitive rule book that covers all bases when it comes to daily living. The acronym my faith community unwittingly affirmed was B-I-B-L-E: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.