Gotta love how quick christians can drop the Word of God, as soon as it is a bit inconvenient.
ok
but there are lots of Christian ideas which people find objectionable that are not “metaphor”. The condemnation of homosexuality or condemnation to hell for unbelievers, for example.
Do you not see the incongruence between this view and the view that there is ONE proper reading/interpretation? I mean the Christian faith has been growing and evolving ever since Jesus ascended.
My ELCA church had a gay pastor and is fully affirming of LGBT individuals and has been for over a decade (well before it was mainline). Most of my church doesn’t believe in an idea of eternal torment Hell (most may not believe in any Hell at all).
So when you say “Christian ideas”…
And your mistake is assuming the rest of the USA has the same benign (gentle, kindly) perception of the bible as you do. Try moving to where I live, South Georgia. Try South Alabama.
Once again, you are proving my point that there isn’t ONE way to read Scripture or interpret it and to claim so is ignoring a lot.
Anyways, I may not be in South GA, but I ain’t too far… yes, I realize Atlanta may be a world away. But I know of Reconciling in Christ (gay friendly Lutheran) churches who were on the front lines in Columbia, SC - no hotbed of liberalism.
1- There is only one perfect version of The Truth
2- God is perfect
3- Therefor, whatever God says, is The Truth
I am not ascribing that as direct words of the bible. I am using that as a basic piece of logic. Well, the idea that god is perfect is held by most (99.9%) of Christians. The 3 points follow from that central idea.
So, for example, whether you have to be baptized to enter heaven, or, whether or not you are supposed to give a poor man your coat (if you have 2 coats) there is one and only one correct answer to each question. God, being perfect, has this answer. The bible, being god’s word to/for man, has that answer. Therefor, what the text actually says is the only acceptable answer to that for any of these questions, when, the question is posed within the Christian framework.
In other words, St Aquinas or the very most favorite preacher/sermon you ever had/heard… their opinion on “original sin” is no more relevant than my opinion, or yours, or Tom or Fred or Larry. Only the actual words of the bible can give you the “true” answer because only those are written by god.
If, of course, you say the bible was written by man, about god, that opens up a whole new category of problems…
To be honest, it sometimes feel that you aren’t even reading my posts.
How then do we determine what is the correct way, if not by the words printed in the text?
Atlanta a world away from south Georgia?
Is Pluto a world away from Mars?
I think you are being dismissive of what religion is actually like down here…
To be honest, not to be rude, but to be honest, when you are talking about “The Holy Spirit” or “other ways to interpret” the bible, well, yes I do read your posts, but your concepts are so watered down from any point of clarity… it makes it hard for me to respond.
Please, I know far more conservative Christians than you do. Have been in dialogue with some of my Pentecostal (speak of worlds away from ELCA) brothers on LGBT issues for a little while. Interestingly enough, there are indeed ELCA churches down in South Georgia… and not just Savannah, FWIW.
It’s because you are reading from a hyperrational POV where literalism makes the only sense. I reject that worldview out of hand, as do the majority of Christians (not exaggerating, over 50% of Christians in the world are Catholics, who are not Biblical literalists)
OK. Here’s your basic problem. It’s not actually the belief or teaching of any significant Christian tradition that the “actual words of the bible” are “written by God”.
Your misconception about this point leads you to completely misunderstand the phenomenon of Christianity.
Christians beleive that scripture is inspired by God. As a quick glance at any dictionary will confirm, “inspire” does not mean “write”, or anything remotely like “write”. The assumption that it must mean this in this context is, as I say, a modern phenomenon, driven by a modern evaluation which privileges reliable factual narrative over other literary genres.
If God exists, we have no reason to think that he shares this hierarchical evaluation of diverse literary genres. To the extent that scripture is taken to reflect divine inspiration, then it’s fairly clear that God doesn’t share it.
Interestingly enough I also realize that the below quote has also been used in another context:
Sounds like some legal arguments - especially regarding a reading of the US Constitution. However, to the chagrin of those textualists, there are many ways to read the Constitution and we determine what the ‘correct way’ by many reasons.
Really?
If you claim to know more evangelicals than I do, well, I do not know that you do but if your assertion is that you know A LOT of them then I will take you at your word.
LGBT issues are important to you? Well, the bible clearly condemns homosexuality. I know… Jesus never mentions it but it is mentioned enough times by other people that there is no way you can make the case god supports homosexuality. Your only recourse, based on scripture, is that he is against it.
If I were you and I found myself as a member of such a flawed ideology, I would just quit being religious instead of finding a watered down version of that religion. I mean, honestly, no offense, really… what use is a watered down god?
Entirely different category. We all know and agree that the constitution was written by humans, that it was a human effort.
If you remove divine sanction to the concepts of original sin or salvation… then the whole ideology gets thrown out the window.
Yes
Or the more logical assumption would be that the bible, just like the Norse Myths or Algonquin Mythology, were created wholesale by a bunch of shamans sitting around the campfire late at night bored out of their minds trying to make sense of the world… in other words, a deliberate work of fiction… that, would be the correct genre…
I came into Christianity as a Pentecostal. And, contrary to popular belief, there are TONS of evangelicals in Atlanta.
Does it? Or perhaps those verses are based on a misunderstanding of homosexuality by the authors - as merely something based on lust rather than an actual sexual orientation (there is a lot of interesting notions that men will randomly just jump in bed with other men because they are too horny). Or what is the context? I’d recommend “God and the Gay Christian” by Matthew Vines or anything by David Gushee to look homosexuality as sexual orientation as non-condemned by Scripture from the evangelical POV.
Or from a more mainline Protestant POV, prohibitions against homosexuality are based upon the biases of the Biblical writers and the grand scope of Scripture indicates that God’s will for His people is based on radical love and as time continues this lesson is more and more revealed. Hence, one needs to read all Scripture from that POV (ie, the Bible is the cradle that Christ is found - the Bible is read from the perspective of Christ’s teachings; the Gospel is the prism of Scripture).
And that’s your main issue. You simply cannot see out of the hyperrational literalism prism you’ve made for yourself. As the great 20th Century theologian, Karl Barth, says “I take the Bible too seriously to take it literally”.
Yes, but if the authors of the bible can be “wrong” about homosexuality, then they can be “wrong” about original sin and salvation and the trinity and the concept of Christian charity and every other concept we could think of to name.
This is where you criticism of my criticism of taking the bible literally or not at all, goes astray…
Where did God’s own hand come down and write in Hebrew or Greek or Latin or English? Or do you have the idea that most Christians think God possessed the Biblical writers as demons do in The Exorcist?
Inspiration is not the same as dictation ;). We Christians believe the canon was accepted by believers back then as reflecting what God was trying to say to the people back then. We continue to affirm it, regardless of the biases and viewpoints based on the eras in which they were written.
Btw, most Christians believes that God inspires us to this day. Many ELCA Lutherans believe that when the Church voted to allow openly gay pastors in committed relationships to be rostered, the Holy Spirit was moving in that place.