Hobby Lobby needs a hobby. Besides the Bible, I mean. The amorphous media has been buzzing about the new Bible Museum set to open in Washington DC soon. The Lobbyists seem to think the Bible will save America. Not the Bible exactly, but their narrow, constricted, and uncritical view of the Bible. Seems a lot to expect from a museum. Museums, the Green family apparently hasn’t considered, are monuments to the past. When I last saw the politically incorrect Elgin Marbles I didn’t feel inspired to run out and build a parthenon. Instead, I simply wondered about the past and how it must’ve been cool back then. I didn’t want to live there though.
I’m sure there are great plans for the Good Book in the Bible Mausoleum. Looking at displays of the same text over and over can surely get a little dull, if we’re being honest with ourselves. I like Bibles as much as the next guy. Actually, I probably like them more than the next guy, but that’s beside the point. I don’t need to go to a museum to see them. There are Bibles all around my office, a mere arm’s length away. Here at home I can take in many of them at a glance—there are Bibles on three sides of me even as I write this from my favorite chair. Saving a nation that’s had the Bible from the very beginning sounds just a touch ambitious to me. But then, I’m no billionaire with nothing better to do with my money. There’s probably a tax write-off in there somewhere.
The thing about the Bible is, once you learn about it you can’t unlearn what becomes clear along the way. Cover your eyes or ears if you will, but we know the Bible had a long and complex history before becoming “the Bible.” It doesn’t have much of a plot without Revelation tacked onto the end—and seriously, that was one of the reasons it made it into Holy Writ to begin with! The circumstances that led to the Bible were often quite profane, in fact. It was the recognition of it as a sacred book that was a religious activity. The next step was to spread it as far as possible. That’s pretty much been done. The end result? The election of Donald Trump. If that’s salvation we’re all screwed. At least when we’re all standing in the bread line we’ll have a museum to visit while we wait. And it will be an encomium to something that was great once upon a time.