Sometimes... Christianity is just a bunch of nerds in a book club.
Of course, the book we cherish is no ordinary book, and the scope of our fellowship goes far deeper than trivia knowledge. Still, I feel like this descriptor is accurate for one aspect of the ekklesia-- an aspect which might go a long way towards helping us relate with the world around us.
The sacredness of our scriptures do not change the fact: we’re fellow humans with a peculiar fascination for a certain story, which we love to share and discuss and make jokes about.
I was reminded of this while I watched a classmate’s presentation on A Song of Ice and Fire (also known by the name of its first book, Game of Thrones). Personally, I chose against reading the series further; as much as I appreciated the innovative world and developed characters, I felt the fatalistic themes and sexual content were distasteful. You can imagine my surprise, then, when his stated reasons for enjoying the books and my logic for loving the Bible overlapped.
Characters are never protected by plot armor, or saved through deus ex machina - While there were two people (Enoch and Elijah) who God scooped up into heaven, every other human at some point dies. Every other character. There’s a lot of characters over the four millennia timespan of the Bible.
Deus ex machina is not every case of God solving the conflict, but a forced and unbelievable divine intervention… usually employed because the writer didn’t know what else to do, decided at the last moment he wanted a happy ending, or else intended to cause some laughs. I’m counting the Bible as an exception, even if it is the story of God as the ultimate rescuer, because a) salvation is anticipated through the foreshadowing of prophecy, rather than contrived... and b) God is not some distant being existing as a convenient device for the story, but the tragic hero who plunges into the narrative and resolves conflict only through the greatest of sacrifices.
Characters are continually and significantly changing through their experiences - Granted, the Bible doesn’t always record the personal growth of each character, but for those passages where the perspective zooms in, we see complex and dynamic development.
Abraham struggles to trust God’s promises and apply them to practical action, while Moses is tested in his overwhelming responsibilities as a leader to stand before kings, as well as a mediator between his stubborn kin and God. David, on the other hand, drifts from humility, to corruption, and back to humility once more as he seeks God while fighting and fleeing, rejoicing and grieving. Once we reach the New Testament, we witness the transformation of the disciples from cowardly followers to emboldened messengers, and we can know that this metamorphosis is for us too by grace through trials and faith.
These are all specific examples on a micro-level, but when we zoom out to the big picture, we see that every character and event is tied into an escalating story where God - the unchanging being - is advancing in how He reveals Himself to us and pursues closeness with us-- His purchased and purified people.
Characters are always imperfect - We can look up to Abraham, Moses, David, and the disciples for what they did right… yet we must acknowledge that they are not free from flaws. God’s Word is not an anthology of moralistic fables, it’s an honest account of messy redemption, with God as the only true good guy. When we examine scripture in this lens, we find the book gritty in a refreshing and relatable way.
...and what about Jesus? :) He is morally perfect, make no mistake about that. Still, He was prophesied as someone unattractive and despised, took on both the frailty of humanity and the weight of sin, and fell lower and lower toward shame, agony, and death-- all because of His choice to vulnerably Love and serve… you might say to a beautiful fault.
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Why do I say all of this in a post which is labeled under apologia? I consider this all vital because I think defending the Christian faith is not a matter of cold logic, but of answering for our hope in a manner which linguistically and personally connects with others. That is what C.S. Lewis did during wartime skepticism, explaining the Gospel through observable Truth and decoding religious terminology into common illustrations.
I intend to do the same, if I can convince men and women that I am a nerd just as they are, only for a book of living power and a fandom of the Lord’s chosen people.
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