The Hidden Thing

It was news – good news – to me to learn that someone places Bibles in the House-members-only lounge at the Arizona state capitol. It was actually less surprising to learn that someone has been quietly taking them out.

Security guards, genuinely concerned about the disappearing Bibles – another happy surprise – eventually placed hidden cameras in the room, to see who was swiping Scriptures. Turns out, it was one of the legislators themselves. A lady legislator – and an ordained Presbyterian minister.

Her name is Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, and she’s a Democrat from Tucson. She’s been hiding the Bibles under sofa cushions. She even stuck one in the back of a nearby refrigerator.

When the footage of her latest theft came to light, Ms. Stahl Hamilton ran, but couldn’t hide. She dodged and sneered at the reporter seeking comment, darting down corridors and trying to pretend she wasn’t the small mind at large. Eventually cornered, she finally confessed, trying to laugh the whole thing off as a joke.

“Just a little playful commentary on the separation of church and state,” she said. “I hold Scripture very dear to my heart. It is what guides me. It is what shapes and informs the decisions I make.”

Given that a number of those decisions, according to legislative records, involve pleading for broader abortion rights, physician-assisted suicide, and facilitating gender transitions, hers must be a pretty selective reading of Holy Writ.

But then, understanding directions doesn’t appear to come too easily to Ms. Stahl Hamilton, who is also a member of the legislature’s Ethics Committee.

There’s a lot of effort being ramped up, all over the place, to limit access to and understanding of the Word of God. Over in China – the country most beloved by Ms. Stahl Hamilton’s party – the Communist leadership has finally gotten around to re-writing the actual verses.

Explaining that they’re just trying to “keep pace with the times,” Communist Party officials announced a 10-year plan of revisions that will add “core socialist values” to the Bible and remove any wording that doesn’t reflect Party beliefs. Given that the Party is by definition atheistic, the editors undoubtedly have their work cut out for them.

A sample of that work is already available in high school textbooks around the country. The Communist-revised version of the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery has Him explaining to her, once the would-be rock-throwers slink away, that He, too is a sinner.

And therefore, obviously, not God.

Actually, you don’t have to go all the way to China to hear that. A new study by Arizona Christian University indicates that only 44 percent of American born-again Christians truly believe Jesus lived a sinless life. The number of U.S. Christians who believe God has a unique purpose for their life, or even that life itself is sacred, has also dropped below 50 percent.

Not surprisingly, those numbers parallel the plunge in the number of Christians who say they read or study the Bible ... even once a week.

Is any of that really surprising, though, given what goes on in our churches today?

Our pastors and lay leaders would shrink back from the idea of hiding Bibles, or rewriting Scripture. But they certainly don’t mind obscuring it, any more than the Communists do, if that’s what it takes to “keep pace with our times.”

We minimalize our meeting times each week – can’t be expecting families to make church their main priority, anymore. An hour or two on Sunday morning is all anyone really needs to fortify spiritually against a rapidly coarsening culture and a society bent on silencing people of faith.

For worship, we separate teens from the adults, children from their parents … separate services for singles, for college students, for senior adults. No one really knows what the others are doing. Each group hears their own fine-tuned version of the Gospel. But all of us are learning that God is incapable of transcending barriers of age, understanding, or experience.

And so probably incapable of transcending anything else.

We make it a point, in the new Bibles and on the worship screens, to lowercase all references to Deity. God, on the page, is just like anyone else. Jesus’s pronouns are diminished, and with them, His divinity. In many passages, it’s hard to tell when a quote or an action refers to man or God … which puts their authority on pretty much the same level.

How quickly we’ve learned to accept that idea, now.

We've made it a point to remove the great old hymns from our worship. Hymns that resonate with doctrine and drive home the deepest teachings of the faith … songs that bind generations and echo the memories of lifelong discipleship for countless millions the world over. A rich musical legacy that could easily, ably compliment the compositions of today’s best songwriters.

But “Rock Of Ages” is too old to compete with the rock of a new generation. The pleasing melodies so familiar to so many have to make way for meandering rhythms that often offer no real tune. And the rolling tide of voices lifted in song has to be drowned in amplified electronics.

We dress up for prom and weddings and concerts, but put on for church what we'd wear to clean out the garage. We drink in the same bars, use the same language, pour our money into as many Disneyland trips as everyone else. Wince, a little, at some of the politics, but mostly shrug as our children embrace the changing morality.

We pride ourselves on blending in. On looking and sounding like everyone else. On not having to give up anything, great or small, for our faith. On not holding ourselves to too much discipline or commitment, or taking any stands that might give someone offense. We've set aside our courage ... and forgotten where we put it.

But we have kept pace with the times. Added core social values to our Christianity. No, we don’t offer much contrast, so we don’t offer much of a testimony. But at least we’re not hypocrites. Isn’t that the main thing? If Jesus didn’t really live a sinless life, why should I even try?

We have lost our memory of taking up crosses … of being set apart … of walking the narrower way. Which doesn’t give us much room for judging Ms. Stahl Hamilton.

She only hides Bibles from other people. We’re hiding the Bible from ourselves.