Can we update the Bible? Should we?... | May 10, 2026

Someone says the quiet part out loud: what if we just rip out the Bible passages that bother us? A pastor in Oakland suggests removing “problem” pages and even adding a third testament, and the internet predictably erupts. We slow the whole thing down and ask what’s actually at stake when Christians treat scripture as disposable, outdated, or only selectively “God’s Word.”

In this episode, we talk about why certain lines hit modern listeners like a slap, including texts tied to slavery and the treatment of women, and we don’t pretend those reactions are irrational. We also explore a growing pastoral reality: some communities reshape how scripture is proclaimed in worship because phrases like “The word of the Lord” or even lifting the book can feel weaponized to people carrying real trauma. Sensitivity matters, but so does the question underneath it: if the Bible is not God speaking to his people, then who decides what remains, what gets reinterpreted and what gets tossed?

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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Controversy

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is living Catholic faith with Father Don Wolf. This is the Living Catholic cousins in the life and finally hope in his work. And now you're hoping Father Don Wolf.

Should We Edit The Bible

Pastoral Sensitivity In Public Reading

Scripture Fuels Reform And Reformation

Church Authority And The Biblical Canon

Hard Passages And How To Read

Poem And Closing Invitation

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome, Oklahoma, to Living Catholic Commons, Senior Don Wolf, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City. And the news feeds are abuzz with reports of a pastor in Oakland who dismissed the Bible as out of date. While that seems to be a relatively minor theme given that we live in a world mired in war, nuclear threat, ethnic hatred, religious violence, and proposed ecological catastrophe, it has made the papers just about everywhere. It's a theme we ought to take up, especially given the fact that we read out of the same Bible. Maybe there's something we could learn. But first of all, to the story. It seems that the leader of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland, California, who's also the leading prelate of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, suggested in a sermon that parts of the Bible need to be removed because they're problematic for her. She suggests there needs to be a third testament to the scriptures that matches or at least provides some measure of inspiration for those like her who don't find the answers they're looking for in the scriptures as they are. In her presentation, she suggested that there are pages in the Bible in which the instructions are problematic, and when we encounter them, they need to be ripped out of the scriptures so as not to be a stumbling block for people who find them difficult and obstructive. In the news articles I saw, she's quoted as complaining about St. Paul's instructions slaves obey your masters as you do the Lord. That's from Ephesians 6.5. Also problematic for her are the instructions from St. Paul that let the women keep silent in the churches, and if they have any questions, let them ask their husbands at home. That's from 1 Corinthians 14. It's not a stretch to see how these texts might set off alarms for those who have particular sensitivities when it comes to our contemporary points of view. They hit our ears hard and don't sound like they're much good for us in our place and time. And she certainly has it right when she says that they don't sound very enriching for her or for any of us. Lastly, in her explanation, she makes a distinction between the Word of God and words about God. I'm not sure about the provenance of her distinction, but she has apparently invested quite heavily in it. She is apparently willing to go along with what she's reading, as long as she and everyone she's talking with can agree that there is a distinction between God's Word and the words we read in the Bible. The first we have to take seriously as long as we can get to it. The second, not so much. At least in her distinction, she finds some handholds in the scriptures when they're merely words describing something St. Paul may have thought about God, rather than presuming these are God's words to us. According to her, she's trying to find her way amid the winding hallways of this distinction. It's not so clear where the exits are or where the doors lead. As you might have guessed, her comments have riled up a lot of people. Along with her comments in the articles I read, there are a long list of responses from those who are outraged at her suggestion about some sort of third testament, or that when we invoke God's words, we're somehow puzzled at what it might mean for us or question what we should do. She's lighted quite a firestorm. It appears no one in her circle can let it go. Which, I suppose, is her intent. She's certainly smart enough and has been around long enough to know that her words are going to make people respond with passion and vitriol, and she's certainly smart enough to know that invoking criticism about the scriptures is the surest and most certain way to get people to sit up and take notice of you. In all of this, in my opinion, she has succeeded in what she intended. Everybody is listening to her. Well, I wouldn't call her political, she certainly has learned a lesson taught by the politics of the moment. She's called attention to her point of view by forcing people to respond to what she said. And once you do that, you force them to engage your words and your point of view, if only to refute them, which seems to have been her point all along. In her circles, and among those in her church, once you make distinctions about the word of God and words about God, people are going to come alive as they sit up and take notice. And certainly that's what people have done. To give a facile example of a measure of some of the sensitivities involved, the thesis director in my doctoral program detailed what people in his parish do. In his church, the person reading the scriptures doesn't say the word of the Lord after the reading. The reader abstains from making the statement, since it could be, according to him, traumatizing to those hearing it. They might imagine that whatever is read is really what God really wants. So in his church, the readers simply say, the reading ends here. There's no claim about anything. It's an interesting accommodation to the concern, the concern about what do we make of the Bible as God's word. This same pastor also mentioned that no one is permitted to lift the book up from the pulpit to hold it in his hand following the reading, because it would look too much like a weapon, something that someone could brandish to punish or to hurt someone. In the eyes of someone who's been abused, he said, it could look like a cudgel or a paddle. Now, both of these decisions about what to do in church seem to be the absolute peak of sensitivity, although I do wonder where the allergy to the gestures and words comes from. But I guess that's all part of the complicated stories about the scriptures and conclusions in his particular place. This kind of dust-up about interpretation and practice isn't all that uncommon. Of course, we Catholics don't spend a lot of time worrying about what some pastor or some leader says about the Bible. We're much more likely to be upset about what who a particular bishop endorsed or didn't endorse concerning a policy or a politician than what he may have said about a particular scriptural passage. And in our day and time, we're much more anxious about an accusation concerning how money got spent than we are about whether someone quoted the Bible correctly or has the correct interpretation or not. Among most of those active commentators in the Catholic part of the Internet, most of the ones I've seen are a lot more concerned that you get the catechism right than you open the New Testament to the right spot or not. This specific kind of bruha is a very non-Catholic sort of thing, not at all that what uh not at all what we're used to. And it's that way because of the corner of the this corner of the Christian world has painted themselves into a corner. We can laugh about the sort of things they fight about, not too loudly, of course. They get to laugh about the things we fight about. After all, they're not kneecapping those who don't face the right direction when they celebrate the Eucharist, and they're not going to the mat with those who don't use Latin enough, or not at all. But their concerns are really serious for them. What to make of the Bible is the heart and soul of their focus in a way it not quite is for us. Now, this goes back a long way in the history of things and has many twists and turns, but it's worth spending some time on in order for us to understand what a news item like this means. And while we don't much think about it, it has everything to do with what you think of the church and what you think of God. No matter, no wonder people feel so passionately about it. I can't think of two words that rouses more reaction than those two, church and God. Speak of God in the church, and the whole world responds one way or the other. Since Madame Reverend's speech, it would appear a good deal of the world has responded. Whenever there's been a reform effort in the church, the first response is to go to the scriptures and to see what we are to do, based on a renewed adherence to what these books would have us do. The scriptures are revelation, and they're given to us as an experience of God's communication to us to guide our practice and to animate our faith. Even more than information or explanations, they are an aspect of the power of God to be at work in us and to bring us to the promise and hope that God has for us. The power of words is one of the ways the power of the Word of God begins to form and then guide God's people. And this has been true from the beginning. On the road to Emmaus, for example, when the disciples were joined by the risen Christ, they heard Jesus explain to them in the course of the whole day exactly how it was the anointed Messiah had to suffer as part of his ministry to fulfill the promise of God to Israel. And Jesus explained how the scriptures about the suffering Messiah were essential to the faith of these new believers. When Saint Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost and lectured the people, who those people who were amazed at what the apostles were doing once they had been animated by the Holy Spirit, he appealed to the scriptures and explained what they meant for all of the people who were gathered there. And when Philip, in the Acts of the Apostles, hears the Ethiopian eunuch read the prophet Isaiah, he asks this eunuch whether he understands what he's reading. And the response is straightforward, how am I to understand unless I'm taught? So Philip joins him and begins to teach him from the Scriptures. The Scriptures become the source of renewal and reappreciation of what God is up to in the world. And that's a cycle repeated over and over again in the history of the church. When St. Augustine was looking for a way out of the mess of his life, trying to figure out how to reconcile the energies and urges that rushed through his soul, he turned to the scriptures. When Saint Benedict wanted to renew the church as the Roman Empire was falling apart, he gathered a community of men together who were dedicated to praying from the scriptures. St. Thomas Aquinas turned to the scriptures to make sense of the jumble of questions and concerns confronting the church in his time, and found ways to draw from them to find the answers that the whole church needed. Return to the scriptures is always the way to begin to reanimate and renew the church. So when the crisis of governance and confidence hit the church 500 years ago, there was also a return to the scriptures. This return was made more profound with the reintroduction of the study of the biblical languages so that the words of the Bible could be encountered in ways they had not been appreciated for a long time. The words took on new life as they were read and then sounded in the imaginations of those who were beginning to savor them from this distinct perspective from their original languages. They went to the scriptures both to bolster the foundations of belief, as well as so that the deep wells of belief and energy might be stirred up. Added to this moment was the technological revolution of the printing press. In one generation, a Bible went from costing a million dollars to costing about$20. What had only been available to a few very rich people and institutions, and then only in fragmented form, became the property of any cottage or family who cared to own it. Everything we've seen in the last 40 years concerning the electronic revolution, where our dishwashers now have more computing power than NASA had when men went to the moon, that kind of technological revolution was present in the church in this age 500 years ago. The Bible and its interpretation became the property of the people. When it did, renewal quickly became revolution. Those who went to the scriptures weren't just looking to be reanimated in the faith. They were encouraged to start over again, to wipe away what had been put in place in order to make things right. Rather than making the walls of the church plum and the roofs secure, they were focused on tearing things down so as to begin again, to begin rightly and purposefully. They wanted to use the scriptures not just as fuel for the fire of faith, but as blueprints for making the church just as it should be. In their hands, the Bible was to become instruction, not just inspiration. And they set out with all energy to finally get things right, or at least to turn things in the right direction. It was a heady and energetic time. Quickly, though, a major problem began to surface. It was one noted at the time, but not much paid attention to, and it's this. Using the scripture to build the church is like using the maintenance logs for your car to build an engine. It's putting things in opposite order and demanding more than you can expect from what you're looking at. Perhaps our better analogy would be to try to describe a family by looking at their budget. You could learn a lot about them, maybe even more than the family could describe of itself. But looking at the numbers all day won't get you inside of what a mother's love for her children looks like. And the monthly premium payments to the insurance company won't get you to the heart of what a man feels for his wife. The figures on paper reveal a lot. In fact, they can reveal some of the deepest facts of the relationships in the family. They can reveal almost anything except the relationship. Making the church from the products of the church won't be satisfying, and it certainly won't be successful. And this is because it is the church that put the scriptures together and vetted them as authentic. We don't think about that very much because the Bible's always been there in just about every way for us. We seldom think about where the scriptures came from or why we pay attention to them at all. The answer is because of the church's authority. As is evident from the works themselves, the church predated the Bible. Rather than falling down from heaven to be revealed to a select few, or being dictated by an angel to a willing scribe, or being the logical outpouring from God who wanted to make sure his people prospered, the scriptures were collected, vetted, received, and promoted by the church. And this is why we accept them as authentic, as the source of inspiration and teaching that they are. When the church was born on Pentecost Day, for example, the Jewish community didn't agree on which scriptures were truly inspired and were the Word of God. Some groups said only the Torah. Some said the wisdom books and the Psalms, but not the prophets. Others included all of these works, some groups only some of them. When looking at the Testament that formed the history of the revelation and the expectation of the Messiah, the church had to decide which books were authentic and certain and which were not. So it did. The same set of decisions had to be made concerning the gospel teaching about Jesus and his mission, as well as the instructions about the history and progress of the early church. The church decided which books to include and which to leave behind. The Bible comes from the church, not vice versa. Building the church from the scriptures is a bit backwards. Rather than an instruction book, the Bible's a telephone book. Rather than a set of procedures, the Bible is a record of the meeting. Instead of a constitution, the New Testament is a hodgepodge of letters, histories, admonitions, prophecies, and rebukes. Building a church from them wouldn't be easy. However, everybody's kept trying. After all, it's all that left once you've decided there isn't really a church anymore, and you're left only with the scriptures. It may be a jumble, but the fact that it is so scattered and messy just makes everyone more committed to putting things right. That's what's been happening now for a long time. Everybody's been working to make things just the way they ought to be, all based on the scriptures, all focused on putting the world together the right way, so that finally God's will and God's purpose will be satisfied. But the problem with is that what gets produced isn't very satisfying. Once we let go of authority, authenticity becomes a kind of referendum on what people like and accept. And once the basis of solidity and certainty is undone, anything built on the foundations is liable to crack and fold when the ground shifts. This tumbling down has been the history of the churches for the last 500 years. And as the Bible has become more available and the options for gathering and communicating have become more open, church has become a marketable product, notable for its fragmentation into the various consumer options of a fickle society. Notably, churches today spring up like mushrooms after a spring rain, with names that denote their hoped-for particular niche in the marketplace of spiritual product. It's not clear in our age whether anyone considers this breaking apart of the churches a good idea or a poor one. Clearly, the resulting fragmentation is the truth of the matter. No one has even fantasized a day in the future in which the disparate offerings might become one. Apparently, what's left of the Christian world is not bothered by each gathering claiming their particular interpretation of the scriptures to be their own, and thus setting them apart from all others who gather in the name of the same Bible and who profess to be in line with the same energies. Having what, sixty-five thousand churches preaching a different message, all claiming the same truth from the same source seems not to scandalize anyone. Nor does it seem to be a problem that there might be sixty thousand churches, separate, isolated, independent, distant, and guarded, all may be preaching the same message. Making away from the testaments of the early church to the testimony of today seems to be particularly difficult, and it doesn't produce a pretty picture. It's no wonder that those on the inside of the picture aren't sure if the whole thing is truly a work of art or maybe just splashes on the canvas of the day. Which gets us back to the concerns of the pastor of the City of Refuge gathering in Oakland. As she looks at the scriptures, she's ready to throw some of them overboard because they're not congenial to her experience. Coming to the scriptures, she's not ready simply to read them and accept them as authentic teaching for her and those of her church. In fact, looking at them, she would be more than willing to acknowledge them as obsolete and foolish instructions that can be ignored and pushed away because they have nothing to do with her life or any of the trauma of her days. Going even further, she proposes a systematic reading of these scriptures in a way that provides her church and all of the churches like it as a way to get beyond the bothersome obsolescence she finds so complicating. Such a reading could slash a pathway through the jungle toward a modern clearing where she would have the room to do what needs to be done. And who would blame her? It doesn't take a lot of reading from yesterday to see how some of the scripture passages were used in ways that make all of us uncomfortable today. The entire Bible is suffused, for example, with the presumptions about slavery and its justifications. Well, correct that. It is suffused with the presumption that slavery was so common and so thoroughly accepted, it needed no justification at all. Add to this the rough tribal regulations and agreements that make the Old Testament such intriguing reading, the leadership style of King David that provides a secure model for the rule of King Henry VIII or Miklos Horthy or Saddam Hussein, and the prediction about what will happen when times are right in violence, flag, and plague and famine, and you get a whole dish of rough fodder for peculiar appetites. What to make of what you're reading isn't easy. It takes some doing, which is her point. Simply going to the Bible, skimming through the paragraphs, and then lifting the authentic teaching from its content isn't straightforward and it's not easy. Asking what these things and the thousand other concerns lying there might really mean is the most legitimate and purposeful question the whole Christian community has. She's asking the most important question there is. By pointing everyone to the questions, she's doing only what's responsible to her position. Reading with discretion and wisdom is the only way to lead truly and reliably. Setting the stage for good and true reading is the job of every pastor. But how to read, exactly. That's the question everyone faces. No one has the corner on the market or the exact and precise answer to the conundrum facing the careful leader. No one that is who doesn't have some measure of authority and some structure of purpose beyond the mere fact that the words being read are in the scriptures. In short, the only way to read is from the inside of the church. And since she's reading from outside the church, she has a problem. That's what we'll talk about next week. Reading isn't easy, but understanding is hard. Finding God's word in words is even harder. Which is why we'll look into it. Back in just a moment. When are we done, really? A good question in our world. We run and fet fret continually, time and work forever curled, and we never know when enough is enough for now. Often it feels like we've sinned even when we don't know how. As the work slackens and we rest, the pounding day's schedule stops, we wonder what to do next. Sink to bottom, rise to the top. And if never done ever at all, what really is life for us then? Is it but gravity to grab us in its fall, or to be fated to struggle again and again? Beyond true wonder and steady lament, let us pause for a moment or two and lodge our most human descent. Life is for the moment, right and true. That's when are we done. That's what we want to celebrate here on Living Catholic, and I hope that you can join us in the weeks to come.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okr.org.