Having come across the Red Letter Christians blog of Tony Campolo and others, I am reminded again of why I am not a red-letter Christian. There are two basic reasons:
1. It effectively and improperly privileges a canon within the biblical canon, implicitly elevating Jesus’ words above the rest of inspired scripture.
2. As I age my eyes have difficulty reading red letters against a white page. I prefer to read the Bible without straining my vision.
I suppose this makes me a black-letter Christian. So be it. Case closed.
May 28th, 2011 | 12:16 pm | #1
A comment and then a question:
Comment: “Red-letter Christian” is a cultural statement: “I am a compassionate and caring Christ-like person who votes Democrat, unlike the drooling, gun-toting Neanderthals who focus on abortion and gay marriage.”
Question: While recognizing that all Scripture is equally inspired, do we have to think of all Scripture as equally important? In other words, yes, I do think of Jesus’ words as elevated and privileged over, say, Obadiah. (Not that I don’t like Obadiah, but…) Is this theologically wrong? If so, why do Catholics stand for the Gospel reading, but not the other biblical readings?
May 28th, 2011 | 12:19 pm | #2
Yeesh. I just realized that my question makes me a “red-letter Christian.”
May 28th, 2011 | 1:34 pm | #3
David,
I might add a 3) an attempt by the “Red Letter” folks to claim Jesus himself (the one they like — not the one that talked about hell and judgment) for their “side” as over against that nasty Paul.
Craig,
I think all Christian struggle (at least in practice) with the problem of erecting a canon within the canon. But there is a way to get at the question you asked about all of it being of equal “importance”. One of my Old Testament profs (Douglas Stuart) used to say regularly “all of the Bible is FOR us, but not all of it is TO us”. So, for instance, when Paul writes to Timothy: (in 2Tim 4) “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments..” we have something that can probably teach something for us, but it is clearly not to us. No need to start pilgrimages to Troas in search of Carpus and Paul’s cloak…
So, in my canon within the canon I favor John 3:16 over 1 Chronicles 26:18, but that doesn’t meant it’s not God’s Word…
May 28th, 2011 | 2:01 pm | #4
Dear david c: Thank you for the helpful comment.
Here’s something funny: Way back in a Christian school (this would have been around 1980, at the height of the “charismatic chorus” movement in worship), I actually knew someone who turned 1 Chronicles 26:18 into a chorus. It was catchy, but never really made it big.
May 28th, 2011 | 4:40 pm | #5
I remember well the moment I stopped being a red-letter Christian. It was a Sunday, and I was in church. My Bible was opened to the gospel passage, and the words of Jesus had disappeared. Completely. Blank space where there should have been a parable.
It was quite unnerving, until I realized the page was illuminated by the sun shining through the red stained glass window on my left.
May 31st, 2011 | 1:40 pm | #6
It has been my experience that “red letter” is in practice justification for ignoring the parts of the Bible that you don’t like.
The Bible is hard. It is hard to understand how a book that often appears harsh, contradictory and confusing can be viewed as a source of wisdom or knowledge, let alone divine wisdom or knowledge. But, ultimately, you have to either take the whole deal or no deal at all, because there is no way to detach Jesus from his context without losing the integrity and coherence of the whole thing. What ends up happening instead is, you end up inventing your own Jesus – an imaginary version who implicitly grants you permission to do and think and be whatever is not explicitly banned (in red ink).
If sin isn’t really sinful, and it doesn’t really matter what choices you make, and/or there is no reason why we should view ourselves as “fallen” – then the idea of Jesus being special, different, sent by God, makes no sense. His sacrifice is rendered unnecessary, and the fact that He died on a cross makes no sense.
It is a question of struggling through the problems and the questions (how do you reconcile what you believe with that one passage that bothers you so much?) vs. taking the easy route.
May 31st, 2011 | 4:28 pm | #7
Well I can understand why one would not want Christs words to be projected further out than the rest of the book, but let’s not forget Christianity IS a religious group that follows Jesus Christ. Of course they’ll take to heart his words more than let’s say Goliath’s sentences. But I will also agree that the Bible isn’t necessarily just about Jesus. The setting of the bible also takes place before and after Jesus’ time on Earth. As for the the age thing…perhaps italics over red lettering?
June 1st, 2011 | 9:18 am | #8
I do not doubt that Jesus is the centre point of the scriptural redemptive narrative. He is the beginning and the end of the story we are called to indwell. But his words are fully capable of speaking for themselves without being artificially highlighted by being printed in red.
June 3rd, 2011 | 4:09 pm | #9
Here’s my defense of the red letters:
It makes it easier to find a passage if you’re (like me) not numerically oriented but generally know the context of what you’re looking for. If you know you’re looking for a couple of paragraphs long discourse by Jesus somewhere in the middle chapters of Matthew, it helps a lot to see the discourses broken up by color.
That’s merely a minor convenience, though, and doesn’t really overcome all the objections to the red-letter concept.
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