Render unto Hobby Lobby: A Website Review of museumofthebible.org 

Author's Note: I wrote this essay in the Fall of 2021. It may contain outdated information that no longer accurately reflects the Museum of the Bible's website.

The Museum of the Bible proudly proclaims its status as “one of Fodor’s Best Museums in DC” in search engine results. And its website tries to live up to that praise. The museum, which opened in Washington, D.C. in 2017, emerged from the private collection of Hobby Lobby CEO and Museum board chair Steve Green. It sports a sleek and modern-looking website that positions the Museum as “a global, innovative, educational institution whose purpose is to invite all people to engage with the transformative power of the Bible.” I want to emphasize the phrase “all people” in the mission statement, for those two words uncover one of the Museum’s major stated aims: to provide a non-denominational and non-political Bible-learning experience for everyone.

But does the Museum of the Bible—and its website more specifically—live up to that goal? A first look may suggest yes. The website showcases the interactions of multiple faiths and denominations in the Museum, from the collection of “Treasures from the Vatican Library” to the long-term exhibit on the “Archaeology of Ancient Israel.” An online database of the Museum’s collections also emphasizes this ecumenicism. Photos of artifacts by Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, and Maimonides all sit comfortably together in irenic harmony. To a casual eye, Steve Green’s Evangelical background seems to have had little impact on the Museum and its online presence.

 Until we take a closer look.  While the Museum’s website takes care to represent Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, it offers a curious lack of critical discussion on how these communities have interacted. I find it bitterly ironic to situate the virulently anti-Semitic Martin Luther next to the Jewish Maimonides with nary a mention of that contradiction. Even if we assume that the Museum has made these oversights in a misguided attempt at interfaith reconciliation, what about Muslims? Surely the third of the Abrahamic faiths has some claim to space in the Museum of the Bible. But a search for “Islam” on the website returns only a single panel on the Bible’s influence on Islam. Even some Christian denominations get short shrift. Mormonism receives but one mention, deep within the bowels of the digitized artifacts. Eastern Orthodoxy fares slightly better, as the Museum owns a handful of Orthodox bibles. This lack of representation feels cross-purpose with the Museum of the Bible’s stated mission to “invite all people.” Far from realizing the aim of a “global institution,” the Museum and its website appear decidedly parochial.

I could perhaps forgive the Museum of the Bible for this narrow focus if they committed to their stated non-sectarian and apolitical stance. But the contradictions at play highlight a broader problem of the Museum’s publics. While the Museum openly aims at “all people,” Evangelical conservatives are the implicit target. I do not mean to imply that the Museum of the Bible pushes Evangelical propaganda under a thin cosmopolitan veneer. The website demonstrates that the Museum has made a good-faith effort to forge connections among (some) of the Abrahamic faiths. But the Museum of the Bible ultimately exists because of Steve Green, his leadership, and his funding. Green is why the Museum exists, and it cannot easily rid itself of his Evangelical nationalism. The website provides annoyingly few specific details about the Museum’s exhibits, but this dynamic still bleeds through. The “Bible in America” exhibit, with its replica of the Liberty Bell, weds Christianity to America to perpetuate the United States’ founding mythology. So does “Magna Carta: Tyranny. Justice. Liberty.,” a temporary exhibit that situates the Bible as the foundation of liberty. But perhaps the most conclusive piece of evidence comes from the Museum’s first 990-EZ form, filed for the fiscal year ending June, 2011. In it, the organization stated its wish “to bring to life the living word of God, to tell its compelling story of preservation, and to inspire confidence in the absolute authority and reliability of the Bible." The Museum may have changed its stance since then, but the evidence points to a potent Evangelical undercurrent from its very inception.

These questions of content have plagued the Museum of the Bible since before it opened, and I hesitate to linger on them. Because for all the Museum’s faults, it at least presents a competently-designed website. The site largely demonstrates the Museum’s public-facing goals, even if it glosses over the Evangelical foundation. It also provides the practical information a visitor will need, including a handy widget that reveals when the museum next opens. And while significant room remains for improving accessibility, an automated analysis of the site returns a passable (if not stellar) score. So the website’s framework poses few issues.

But a general lack of transparency permeates the site and overwhelms these good design choices. Finding the museum map proves particularly vexing, for the site includes but a small link in the site footer and a somewhat larger link at the bottom of “Plan Your Visit.” I find it more problematic that the site obscures the Museum’s inner workings. The banner at the top of the site contains no “About Us” tab, as the Museum has relegated any information about its mission, its leadership, and its history to the site footer. “Press has also been cast down into the footer, as though the Museum feared that someone might discover the institution’s history of using illegally-trafficked and forged artifacts. While the Museum’s site does include statements about these controversies and subsequent provenance research, they remain so buried as to essentially require a direct search. The Museum’s website begs for a more honest presentation, but to implement it would bring about a reckoning with the institution’s brief yet ugly past.

The Museum of the Bible’s website, as a website, is adequate. But as a digital face of the museum it represents, it remains trapped by the same pitfalls that badger the institution as a whole. A visitor will leave the site understanding little about the Museum or the Bible, as even the world that Steve Green has built lacks any critical depth. Rather than guiding us to the Promised Land, the site and its parent museum risk leaving us wandering the wilderness.