The Bible means different things to different people.  To many Christians, it’s God’s Word, and some think God actually wrote it, or dictated it word for word to some special people.  Others see Bible stories as allegorical, and take liberties in interpreting them.  Many scholars focus on understanding what the biblical texts meant when they were written.  Others see them as living documents that can be reinterpreted in new circumstances for guidance or comfort.  Somebody recently wrote a book explaining that one may find the Bible more enjoyable if it is read as a poem.

People with ties to the Christian religion often grow up treating the Bible as something more than a book.  They treat it with a great deal of respect, even if they do not read it much.  Some denominations teach that the Bible should be respected but not worshiped, because only God should be worshiped.  In other denominations, it is not clear that the Bible itself is not an object of worship.  Indeed, those who believe in biblical inerrancy and consider every word in the Bible divine may find it difficult to separate it from God himself.

There are also some who do not know much about the Bible but grew up in an environment where it is venerated.  Such people may feel that carrying it may bring some form of divine favor, perhaps some kind of protection, to them.  This is not new or surprising.  The European Middle Ages have stories about the quest for a so-called holy grail, a cup used by Jesus during the last supper, and to which miraculous powers are attributed.  Attributing miraculous powers to God’s Word is therefore not unexpected.

I am not writing this post to provide an opinion on such matters.  I am writing to relate a story I read this week about the Bible, which I found quite interesting.  It is from an article in Christianity Today titled How Seven Soldiers Carried One Bible into 11 Combat Tours.  This week, I also read about a warning on a potentially dangerous use of the Bible.  Both stories are discussed below.

This story, published on April 20, 2021 by Adam Macinnis, starts with a man named Jesse Maple, from West Lafayette, Ohio, whose mother “taught him to respect the Holy Book.”  At the age of 19, while he was “living a wild and backslidden life,” he was given a pocket-size King James Version Bible by a man who was with Gideons International.  Adam was drafted into the army in 1967 and carried the Bible with him through his tour in Vietnam.  He recounts an incident described in the article as “an intense firefight when bullets ripped through the pack on his back. They pierced a can of fruit but left him unharmed. Afterward, Maple was standing there, juice leaking on the ground, when a passing Catholic priest told him, ‘The Lord was with you today.’”  At that point, he remembered the little Bible he was carrying in his pocket.

Later, he gave all the credit to God after he returned home, because he “had so many close calls.”  His experience had strengthened his faith.  At that time, he found out that his brother Bill, also in the army, was being transferred from Europe, where he had been stationed, to Vietnam.  He gave the Bible to Bill.

Bill did not consider himself a “good Christian” at the time.  And yet, the little Bible felt to him “just like a security blanket for a baby.”  He added that “It felt like you had on extra armor.”  Recognizing that the Bible was “special,” he gave it to his close friend Roger Hill before he left Vietnam.  However, he did not become a “true Christian” until later, thanks to the witness of his wife and his brother.

Hill, also from West Lafayette, protected the Bible from the Monsoon rains by wrapping it in plastic.  When he got wounded during his final tour, he still carried it.  Today, he still thanks God for protecting him and keeping him alive.

The Bible was then given to Cliff McPeak, another West Lafayette native who went to the Gulf War.  Later, it went to Zac Miller, who was sent to Iraq in 2004.  Miller received it from Jessie Maples himself, who told him his personal story.  Miller, who was already a Christian at the time he received the Bible, later gave it to Zac and Will Allen, two brothers who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Bible was returned to Miller in 2019.

Miller later published a book “about the seven veterans’ stories and the one Bible they carried through 11 Army combat tours.” He said during interviews that “he learned that the men were not all religious in the same way. They weren’t all devout. But they were all strengthened, comforted, and encouraged by that Bible.”

Macinnis reports in his article that this type of experience is not unique.  He refers to Jonathan Ebel, a professor of religious studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who explained to him that  soldiers’ responses to the violence and trauma of war have often been seen as superstitious and irrational. But they are better understood as theology. In the chaos of combat, people turn from material explanations and seek spiritual answers.”

Macinnis quotes Eber directly:

“We frequently see soldiers lifting their eyes and minds above the immediate and obvious answers—a well-aimed bullet or shell, a well-timed attack or overzealous commander—and offering deeper, more theological explanations. Many soldiers testified that God was the author of individual fates in combat; that it was God who was everywhere at work.”

Survey data seem to support the idea that interest in the Bible and theological matters tends to rise among soldiers who have been in combat.  A 2020 survey by the American Bible Society and Barna Group shows that about 3 percent of veterans read Scripture regularly and say it has an influence on their life decisions. But among veterans who saw combat, the figure rises to 10 percent.

This increase in interest certainly suggests that faith in the divine is helpful to those who have faced the ugliness of war as they try to find meaning for their lives.  This implies that the little pocket Bible was more than a good luck charm to those who carried it in the above story.

In an unrelated article titled Why Christians Should be Troubled by the New “God Bless the USA Bible,” Jamie Aten and Kent Annan inform readers about the introduction of a new Bible:

“A newly-licensed ‘God Bless the USA Bible’—billed as ‘the ultimate American Bible’—includes between its covers, in addition to holy Scripture: the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as the handwritten chorus to Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the USA.’”

According to the promoters of this “American Bible,” during the fall of 2020, “Some people started seeing pro-American images like the flag, the bald eagle, the statue of liberty as weaponized tools of the Republican party, and we didn’t understand that.”  Their new Bible was therefore a remedy to this situation, given that schools, in their opinion, no longer teach American history.

Those who have been following developments related to Christian nationalism, including readers of my blog (see for example Understanding Christian Nationalism and its Impact on American Attitudes) will not fail to notice that combining the Bible and white conservative politics is precisely what Christian nationalism is known for.  But the promoters deny any such connection, claiming that the new Bible is “meant to get more people reading the Bible and the country’s founding documents.”

But Aten and Annan raise a question: “In the places where the word of God conflicts with these political documents, when will Scripture be authoritative?”  They then point out the obvious connection between this American Bible initiative and the current political atmosphere exacerbated by a former president who signed Bibles on their covers for survivors of deadly tornadoes in Alabama, refused to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville, and incited rioters who stormed the nation’s capital, waving flags and carrying crosses in the names of Jesus and Trump.

How can a “God Bless the USA” Bible do anything but give Christian nationalists another tool to support their “dangerous and ungodly ideology?”  At the end of their article, Aten and Annan state their refusal to accept the nation’s founding documents as an extension of God’s Word, and summarize their objection to the initiative as follows:

“It promotes the myth of an American exceptionalism that is founded on God blessing this nation in a way that God has not blessed or does not bless other nations. Within our nation, there is wide belief that this country ‘belongs’ to those who look like its earliest European settlers/invaders. And a Bible that assigns God’s blessing to include their violent efforts puts other citizens, especially Black and Brown ones, at risk today. And the myth of American exceptionalism that is trumpeted by this new ‘Bible’ also puts at risk other vulnerable peoples around the globe who are not included among the chosen Americans in this disconcerting ‘American Bible.’”

The above stories were both about the Bible.  In the first one, the Bible helped bring hope and healing to individuals who did not initially know much about it.  Whatever one may think about the different thought processes that led them to their faith, what matters is that a little book helped them find meaning for their lives after their experience of ugly warfare.  Here, I am looking at these people as individuals touched by the divine in some manner, and I am not making a statement about war, and the wisdom of those who sent them to fight other human beings so far away from home.  I have given my thoughts on such matters elsewhere (See for example World Terrorism and Christianity).

In the other story, people who are presumably knowledgeable about the Bible are prepared to manipulate it to further an ideology that was based on a fraudulent interpretation of it in the first place.  They want to use it to promote hate and fear instead of peace, love and healing.  Unfortunately, that would not be the first time such a thing happens in human history.