Like millions of other people lately, my wife and I have been watching the Amazon documentary "Shiny, Happy People."  It's about the Duggar family, most famous for its nineteen children and the reality television based on their lives, and their relationship to Bill Gothard and his Institute for Biblical Life Principles.  For those outside of Christianity, "Shiny Happy People" probably confirms their worst visions of what fundamentalist Christianity can be:  rigid, controlling, misogynistic, insular, and more.  For those committed to Christianity, I suspect the documentary stirs a variety of responses ranging from disgust to calls for nuance to suggestions for additional conversation, and more.

    For this Christian, the documentary makes me think about one, the dangers of interpreting the Bible too rigidly and apart from the cultural context out of which it emerged; two, the way that information, of any kind, can be twisted to suit a political or social agenda; and three, the essential point that God is a very big God and we cannot put him into a box of our own making.  We are little people living in a little slice of history and time:  how do we know the big picture?

    I believe in God, I believe in Jesus.  The Duggars and Bill Gothard do, too.  The challenge that all of us face is therefore learning how to understand what this means:  belief is black and white; interpreting and living it is not.