Censoring the Bible

“In recent years, some Benedictine houses, particularly women’s communities, have begun censoring the harshest of the psalms, often called the ‘cursing psalms,’ from their public worship.” --Kathleen Norris, Cloister, p. 97.

The church, across most of the centuries of its history, has acquired quite a reputation for censoring literature. Most unchurched people would be quite surprised to learn that the church, in its actual practice, censors the Christian Bible rather thoroughly. Thomas Jefferson is reputed to have taken his pen knife and cut out of his Bible every reference to anything miraculous, anything supernatural. It is still possible to buy copies of The Jefferson Bible. Christians decry Jefferson’s truncation, but themselves routinely do much the same.

If the Bible were made into a Hollywood movie, and if the movie were faithful to the text, much of it could not receive a “G” rating. Rather much of it would have to be rated either “PG-13,” or “R,” both for sex and violence. See in particular much of Joshua and Judges or the entire story of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34 or the story of Judah--from whom the Jews get their name--and his visit with a “prostitute.” Read the entire story of David. When we tell these stories in Sunday School classes, we edit out those parts that would not be “in good taste” to read in polite company.

In our Bible study groups and in Sunday sermons, we get uneasy with parts of the Bible not only for sex and violence, but also because it is also comfortable with bathroom language, and with strong language of rebuke, bitterness and hatred. We don’t talk that language, or about those things in church, although we do everywhere else.

Darkness and ugliness are part of human reality and therefore a part of biblical reality. But because we see ourselves as clean, respectable, and nice people, we find that there is much in the Bible that it just would not be right to read publicly in church.