That was essentially how one Jerusalem Post columnist responded to the West Wing bible speech:
…one answer to “Why don’t you lecture your radio listeners about violating the Sabbath and wearing mixed fabrics rather than just homosexuality?” is “Judaism believes only the prohibition of the latter applies to everyone - and most of my listeners aren’t Jewish.”
Well, the Jesus parts are damn hard to reconcile with the GOP / MAGA perspectives.
Don’t laugh - somebody tried to get this on the ballot in California; the “Sodomite Suppression Act” specifically called for death “by bullets” to anyone committing sodomy. A judge stopped it before the petitions could even hit the streets.
One of the responses was an attempt to get a shellfish ban, quoting Leviticus 11:10-11.
Yep. If you take the red letter Gospels, you cant find anything where hate is preached, or rules against abortion or homosexuality. Instead you find love and tolerance.
Just socialist stuff then!
Trump ain’t never read no Bible. I promise.
Sounds pretty woke to me.
I’d tell 'em, “that says, ‘God,’ and it says he’s already doing it. It doesn’t say ‘you’ and it doesn’t say you need to do anything to make it happen, it says it already is so. If you don’t like the way God is reigning, well, take it up with Him.”
FWIW, that Exodus verse is hardly a one-off; there’s a bunch more along the same lines in Deuteronomy. For example, “The Lord your God…loves the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must love the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt.” (Deut. 10:18-19)
And yeah, there’s verses on every side. But the point is not that the Bible is an infallible authority. The point, if one has fundie relatives and acquaintances who are nonetheless into the whole “we’re being invaded from Mexico” crap, is that they claim to believe that.
So if the reply comes back, “the Bible also says homosexuals should be stoned to death,” my answer is, “that’s nice, I never said I believe that the Bible is inerrant. You do. Now why are you bothered by Latinos seeking a better life here in the U.S.? Are you a cafeteria inerrantist? Do you pick and choose which verses matter?”
No, I don’t expect to change any minds that way. But it’ll shut them up from spouting more of their ‘Biblical’ nonsense. The best defense is a good offense.
That seems to be the theme here. We should “Love our neighbor” but ignore “Stone people for being people.”? That’s why The Bible should not be a morality guide. There’s no way to not be hypocritical by cheery-picking the parts you like and ignoring the rest.
Let those without sin cast the first stone.
The Bible is not a good morality guide, but one could do far worse than Jesus.
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
That’s if you assume it’s the word of god, or some such thing.
If, as I do, you assume it was written by some people, then I can accept or reject any part of it on the basis of whether or not I think it’s useful.
It’s like having a physics textbook from 1850. There’d be no problem using that book to teach Newton’s laws of motion, since they’re still useful for solving lots of real-world problems. But I’d completely ignore everything it had to say about atomic theory, since we’ve learned a lot more about that since 1850, and what it says would be largely worthless in today’s physics classroom.
Uh, there are plenty of passages like: “Do not think I came to bring peace, I came to bring a sword,” “you must hate your father and mother in order to follow me,” and also numerous parts about unbelievers being cast into hellfire.
That passage in Luke is better translated as
‘If someone wants to obey me, he must live like this: He must love me more than he loves his own father and mother. He must love me more than he loves his wife and his children. He must love me more than he loves his brothers and his sisters. He must even love me more than he loves himself. If he does not do that, he cannot be one of my disciples.
As for hell-You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.
Well, for one thing, I can: I don’t believe in Biblical inerrancy, never said I did. They do.
That’s why The Bible should not be a morality guide. There’s no way to not be hypocritical by cheery-picking the parts you like and ignoring the rest.
I’ll pick and be cheery about it. 
Now, should Christians regard, or not regard, Jesus as part of the Trinity, the Godhead? Pretty obviously we should.
Does it make sense to view the rest of Scripture through the lens of what Jesus said and did as recorded in the Gospels? There are arguments on both sides, I’m sure, but for me, the answer is an emphatic Yes.
Now there are what Jesus said were the two Great Commandments: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
Again, I can see where views can differ, but if these are the two Great Commandments, I’m going to view everything, including the rest of the Gospels, through the lens of these commandments.
If there are parts of Scripture that I can’t make sense of when seen through that lens, should I act on them anyway even though I have no understanding? Of course not. One can say I should act on them anyway, out of faith in God. But I would say I don’t know how to act without understanding. Just because the Bible says X, doesn’t mean I know what I should do about X.
To me, that’s an informal but more or less systematic approach to Scripture. I don’t see any inherent hypocrisy in it. If it’s cherry-picking at all, it’s cherry-picking on the basis of understanding love as we normally understand love, rather than twisting the meaning of love into pretzels to be compatible with this or that Scripture verse. Pretzels like “we aren’t loving our neighbor as ourselves unless we frequently remind our gay neighbors that God really wants them to be straight, because their salvation depends on it.” You can say that’s love, but it sure doesn’t feel like it to me. So if that’s cherry-picking to you, that’s nice, but at that point I don’t give a damn what we call it. I’m not being an asshole to people and calling it love just because of some Scripture verses.
And as a rock comes flying out of the crowd and strikes the sinner squarely in the head, Jesus rolls his eyes and says “Y’know mom, sometimes you really piss me off.”
Oh, and to clarify. Jesus was talking about wanting to one of his Disciples, the twelve+. Yes, they had to give up their home, their jobs, their family, their lives to travel with Jesus and help Him preach. It was not an easy job.
That’s not some weird outlier. If you randomly open the Bible there is a very slim chance you will see a verse about homosexuality, a zero percent chance you will see a verse condemning abortion, but a very good chance you will see a verse condemning oppressing immigrants or the poor, or explicitly commanding them to be cared for.
Good point.
All of which is easily dismissed with a variation of “Well, Satan can quote the Bible too!”.