A Crisis of Unbelief or Can I Be A Christian Without the Bible?

Great Debates
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jayjay -

I’ve often thought that there were as many different voices to Diety as there were listeners to hear. If the one that speaks to you is a little different than some accounts, perhaps you’re simply hearing your own personal message. That may match what some others have heard, and may totally disagree with others. The Bible is, after all, a message transcribed by listeners; any discrepancies don’t invalidate your view. For me, at least, Diety speaks in a way that I (with all my human faults and failings) can understand.

If love speaks to you in any form, listen. You’re lucky to be able to hear it, no matter what name you use. Brightest blessings on your new spiritual journey!

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To paraphrase Jesus, I have not seen wisdom like this in all of Christendom.

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Just remember: God is love. To me, that’s the most important verse in the Bible.

I agree with cmkeller: my reading of the OT (can I call it the Jewish Bible? Is that wrong?) is one of a God of justice and mystery, but One that wants to be known. Sure, there’s a lot of smighting going on, but there’s also justice and mystery behind that. Give it another shot; try Hosea. I’ve always found that to be a moving story of God’s love for errant Isreal, one that mimics His love for us today.

Can I also recommend someone? Most people know by now that I am a fervent C.S. Lewis fan. I receive so much from him. He writes of God intelligently and lucently. Try Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. It’ll be a cheap little book (probably under $10 new), but I’ve found it to be one that has helped me to really think about the relationship I have with Him on a daily basis and to make that relationship one that exists in reality, not in some fantasy “Christian World” that I make up.

Praying for you!

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A thought that’s helped me in my own explorations of the Old and New Testament is that the Bible is a record of humanity’s growing understanding of God, and not even in chronological order. Simply because some ideas of who God is and what God is like are recorded does not mean that they are accurate. In fact, God seems to have taken action on some misunderstandings in order to clarify what is expected of us-- animal sacrifice comes to mind. Think of the Bible as a lesson in the history of humanity’s conception on God, not as text which captures God.

I was taught from an early age that there are synonyms for God: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. By reflecting these, you become the best Christian – scratch that, person – that you can be. If for you, that means accepting the guiding principles of Jesus’ teaching, and developing a relationship with Jesus, go for it!

I know how you feel, and I’ve gone through the same thing, a few times over. I try to remind myself that worship is always freeing, not constraining. You’re simply opening yourself up to develop more. Change is scary, but it keeps life interesting and you always come out stronger than you were before. You will be safe and loved no matter what the outcome. Trust in that.

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Adding my “I second that” to Lib’s comment on the line Seawitch posted. Great advice, no matter who or where you are.

And to second, as well, what BunnyGirl has to say.

However:

Hey, waitaminnit, Lib!! Howcum Gaudere gets to be a Christian and Chaim doesn’t? Dontcha think you’re being a tad judgmental there? :wink:

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Now, Poly, I didn’t say that Gaudere is a Christian, just that she’s in heaven, and that’s because of her decision to love, not my decision to judge. Chaim must make his own decisions, too. God is a libertarian, you know. :slight_smile:

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Libertarian:

:o :eek: Did I write that?

That’s what I get for letting my participles dangle around…

Chaim Mattis Keller

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To BunnyGirl and cmkeller:

I’d be willing to open up a new thread if this is too off-topic, but I’d like to ask you about a few passages in the OT that I’ve always had trouble with. Perhaps you or someone else can give me a good explanation as to why God just seems like an evil prick to me.

  1. God destroys the entire Earth with a flood, including children, the mentally retarded, etc. The only people he saves are one family, whose “righteous” patriarch gets drunk right after disemb-ark-ing.

  2. Moses tells his men to kill all the Midianite women who are not virgins, but to keep the virgins for themselves. God does not object.

  3. God orders Joshua and his men to kill everyone in the promised land, including women, children, animals, etc. He does so, exterminating them “without mercy, as the LORD had commanded.” (somewhere in Jos. 11)

  4. God tempts David to take a census of Israel. When David does this, God punishes him by killing 70,000 people, even though David himself admits that he alone was to blame.

  5. King Ahaziah, who is described as faithful and righteous, is stricken with leprosy for most of his life.

  6. Despite Josiah’s reforms, God causes the fall of the Southern Kingdom, because of the evil committed in the reign of Josiah’s grandfather.

Now I imagine most intelligent people here don’t believe that these things happened exactly as described. But I’m not here to debate whether the “real God” is good, but whether the character of God in the OT is good. So, any explanations for these passages?

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Sorry it took me so long to get back into this thread…as erratic as the Boards have been it was more trouble trying to get in than it was worth. But I’m here now!

First, let me apologize to you, Chaim. I wasn’t meaning to insult the entire Jewish faith (or even a part of it, for that matter). I just have issues with the way that Christian theology has the whole universe thing set up. I find it hard to believe that an all-loving, all-good Creator would have set up a universe and a people that he is supposed to love when he knew that within the very first generation of that people’s existence they’d mess up and damn themselves. Even allowing for a non-literal interpretation of Genesis, the premise remains (in Christian theology, remember) that one of us humans in the distant past did something so bad that God had to come down in person and fix it. Then, of course, I have a problem with the Christian belief that Christ’s sacrifice can only be efficacious if you believe in that efficacy. Which seems much too limiting and cruel to me. So you see, it’s not really the Jewish version of divine history that I have huge problems with…it’s the standard Christian interpretation of it…

Second, thank you, everyone who has chimed in so far. I’m taking all of the advice under consideration, as well as getting some help over at the Pizza Parlor (which I finally bit the bullet and posted about this situation on). And for those who may post after this, also thank you. I’m still thinking all of this over. I’m not quite as frazzled about it as I was a few days ago. :slight_smile:

jayjay

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jayjay wrote, in the OP:

Yeah, like getting him past the coronary arteries without inducing cardiac arrest. <rimshot>

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Rimshot? You mean you blew on JayJay’s ass? Cool. :cool:

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First, to address the OP: recall that, for a good deal of Christian history (the majority, still) the printing press was not invented. Books, and Bibles in particular, were only owned by the rich. Of course it is possible to be a Christian and not read the Bible, believe in parts of the Bible, or even have ever seen the Bible; for most of the history of the Church, this was the status of the vast majority of believers.

But there is a danger here. If (as I have said elsewhere, with considerable emphasis) it is possible to meet God, and Jesus, in other guises and by other names, it is certainly possible to believe in something completely different from Jesus and call it Christ. This is called heresy. Heresy is not just a power struggle in the church (although this is often what it can be). It is mask shifting, taking a Jesus mask and putting it on something completely different that we like a lot more, that makes no demands on us, that we can be comfortable with, that allows us to be nice and warm in the knowledge that we are doing the “right” thing. If we get to ignore all the ways that God reveals Himself to us, and pick and choose among them by ignoring the ones we don’t like (including the ones that offend us, or that we think are unjust or ungodlike, or even evil) then we get to hide from just the parts of ourselves that He wants us to examine, and possibly change, for our own benefit. Make no mistake: if His love is total, so are the demands He makes as a result of His love. He wishes for us nothing less than apothesis. Christianity may offer infinite comfort, but that does not make it completely comfortable.

If it is any comfort to you, I recognize none of what you have written above as the “standard Christian interpretation” of anything at all. I am in no position whatever to give advice to anyone, and I am no one’s spiritual teacher. Even given that, I cannot help observing that perhaps you need to read the Bible more, not less, in a disciplined environment that can help you struggle with the issues involved. Please forgive me if this offends you. A Bible study group in one of the more orthodox churches (Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist) would take a much different slant on any of the issues you addressed (at least, the ones I participated in many years ago did).

There is an excellent program run by the University of the South called Education for Ministry; my wife was a facilitator a while ago, and it is designed specifically for lay people. It is within the Episcopal church; I believe there are equivalent programs in the Catholic and Methodist churches as well. There is also a newer program that I am less familiar with (Alpha, I believe?).

If you wish to be a Christian, whether you believe the Bible or not, you simply cannot check your brain at the door. Whether you believe in Biblican inerrancy or not, there are a whole number of issues that will come up as you grapple with your faith and how it applies to your life. A Christian is on a road that leads to becoming a particular kind of person, and that will take every resource you have, mind, body, and spirit. It is something you have to work at every day. It should not be an obsession, or something that is in front of you twenty-four hours a day, but it is something that takes a disciplined approach and steady, hard work (just like a marriage). It is the most rewarding thing in the world — it is coming into the (and becoming) light from darkness — but that does not mean you can be lazy about it.

Understanding the Bible, and why God seems at one point like a benevolent Father and at another like a spoiled child in the stories, is hard work. Don’t minimize it.

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Opus, I’ll try to answer your question to the best of my ability. I make no claims to be a Bible scholar; I’ve just read it a lot and find that it works in my life.

Many of the things that you mentioned I have a tendancy to read as either: 1) the mythology of a desert people or 2) the justification of political actions. The saying “History is written by the victor” seems appropriate here. It’s a lot easier to attribute your actions to the command of a god in an age when the gods were feared, than to take on the onus of responsibility yourself. Do I think that the Bible is God’s spoken word in written form, inerrant and without flaw? No. Do I think that God presents Himself to be discovered in that word after sifting and searching? Yes.

I wish I could give a better answer than that. I’m still learning, still in that process of sifting and trying to recognize the dross from the truly valuable. It’s a lifelong process. I know it works for me though; I know the relationship I have with Him is true, it’s real in a way that I can’t measure.

I think what Baedlin said is really good:

Hope this helps. Again, I’m no Bible scholar - this is just my take on things.

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Opus1:

I’m going to spin this off as a new topic, I think. jayjay’s Original post is pretty personal, and I think we help him best by sticking to his subject rather than digressing into related topics. I’ll re-post your question and BunnyGirl’s answer in the new topic as well.

Chaim Mattis Keller

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Back when I used to post regularly, I did my best to stay away from serious theological discussions, for various personal reasons. But drifting back through, I feel a need to add a comment for the OP. It’s not an answer, just my observation.

Forenote to OP: whatever makes you better able to come to grips with your personality and your existence in this world, go for it. As long as somebody else’s beliefs don’t get in my way, I’m 100% in favor of people bettering themselves from within.

Background: I’m culturally a reform jew, but I refuse to follow it or any other religion.

Finally, the point of all this: I think the whole story of Jesus, at least as it’s been passed down to modern folks, works a lot better as an example to follow if you leave out any reference to him having divine origins. Think about it.

If Jesus is the son of God, and everything that occurred in Judea was according to a divine plan, then the story isn’t compelling at all. It’s like watching a train creep down a straight track – any reflection on human motives and behaviors is lost because it was all foreordained. If, on the other hand, Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph (or even Mary and some other guy, and she made up the God thing to cover her tracks), then suddenly it’s all about a young man doing what he thinks is right in the face of adversity, eventually either (a) sacrificing himself for his beliefs and the greater good or (b) being nailed to a stick for making too many bad people look too closely at their own shortcomings.

It’s the same reason that Tolkien had the hobbits as the focus of his stories, and be instrumental in all the hard-won victories in the Lord of the Rings. There would be nothing at all interesting about letting Gandalf (a seraph, to put it in biblical terms) or Aragorn (a descendant of patriarchs in that case), or any of the other Characters Of Great And Terrible Destiny, destroy the ring and do all the rest. Destiny is boring. Those beings had no choice, and they pretty much knew where they’d wind up: either dead or in already-known conditions of victory. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were not subjects of known destiny. Their very human (hobbitish) behavior, their lack of foreknowledge, their free will, are what makes them heroes.

If you accept the moral lessons in the Torah, Talmud, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Koran, Tao Te Ching, Principia Discordia, or Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From My Cat, then what does the source matter? If you can find your answers there, if you can make yourself a better you and harm nobody else in the process, that’s the whole point. Sez me, anyway.

I hope that this was of some help to you and the rest of the Teeming Millions, and that I kept the level of offense to a minimum. I may be Crude, but I’m not callous. Now I need to stop. I get dizzy way up here on this soapbox, and sometimes I get nosebleeds too.

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jayjay:

Gotcha. Well, good luck in finding the answers you’re looking for…

Chaim Mattis Keller

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As an atheist, I like my christians hard-core. If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen. It bother me when people selectivly weed out docrines that a religion stands on. WHy follow the religion at all? If you can’t trust the book your kooky religion stands on why call yourself a member. If jesus and his crew diddn’t agree with their own statements why would they right the dang book. I may not beleive in the bible but I beleive if he existed he would live up too his statement about vomiting up the luke-warm.

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As an Christian, I like my atheists well-educated. Do yourself a favor, TitoBenito, and take a Bible History class. Among other things, you might learn that Jesus and his disciples did not write their own accounts, and that Christianity is not a single religion but a term that encompasses many and varied religions. Until you have a background from which to speak, I’d lay off the “kooky religion” comments. Putz.

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Jayjay: I’m unclear as to the nature of your belief.

"I’ve been… pagan, atheist, agnostic, and "apathist"
Could you elaborate on apathist?

"In 10 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that my own leadership has gotten my life absolutely nowhere"
It’s personal, so don’t answer if you don’t feel like it, but where are you hoping to get to? How are you measuring your life? Come to think of it, those are pretty good questions for me too…

"I find the God of much of the Bible to be pretty much a…bastard"
Quite agree!

"I’m wondering if there’s really so much wrong with just allowing this Jesus person into my life (or heart)"
What do you actually mean by this? Living according to Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness? Using a Christian Church as a framework and support structure for your life? Submitting your will to Jesus as some kind of “higher power”? How do you go about it?

If you buy the whole Creator-Son-of-God-Eternal-Life part, then as far as I can see, God and Jesus are a package deal. However, many of the Christians on this board believe in a just and loving God who will cut you a lot of slack with regards to the specifics, as long as you do your best to be a loving person. (Libertarian’s Heaven is going to contain a lot of sheepish atheists! I might well be one of them.)
If you join a Church which has this attitude, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of benefit from it. At the very least, the other Church members will also have had to reconcile their God of love with the God from the OT.

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jayjay,

I’ve been a Christian for about a year now, and I still don’t know what parts of the Bible to believe, and what parts have to be looked at in a cultural or mythological context, or how to explain them. Sometimes I still flinch when I hear the word “Bible.” I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and is divine himself, but I don’t know about how much of the Bible is true. Because there really is a lot in the Old Testament (and some of the New, IMHO) that’s inconsitent with the message of love Jesus espoused. Still, I’m getting better about this, and God is guiding me to a more complete understanding. I can accept now that everything does fit together somehow, even if I can’t yet see how.

It sounds like you know that Jesus is different from other theologies you’ve embraced, and that this is more of a committment. Of course, I could just be projecting how I felt when I was pondering this decision. Anyway, if you feel in your heart that Jesus is God, and not just a moral man, my advice is to embrace Him, and the rest will come. I do think that, as you are ready, it is important to revisit the Old Testament, and try to see it in a different light. I think you should think and pray about the questions you have. I’m a firm believer in “Seek and ye shall find.” Don’t worry if your beliefs don’t match up perfectly with anyone else’s; there is an incredible amount of disagreement on all sorts of issues within Christianity, so there is no one “Christian” view. Jesus will show you who He is. It’ll take time to learn, because of your preconceptions, but it’s worth it.

However, if you don’t feel in your heart that Jesus is God, then be inspired by him and follow his example as you would any other moral leader. You don’t have to be a Christian to embrace some of Jesus’s teachings.

I hope this is somehow helpful, and adds something to what the others here are saying. I’m praying for you.