Note: This post contains teaching applicable to Christians. However, much of it is equally applicable to Jews. I also think that it can be helpful to those of other faiths and of no faith at all who approach it with good will. This is how I view the Bible, nothing more, nothing less.
This is, of course, not the only way to look at the Bible. Unfortunately, too often those other ways have lead to abuse of the Bible and of those who trust the abusers. Many people have used it as a club with which to beat others over the head, to laud their superiority over others, to keep them in submission and under control, to foist their own agendas upon it and then claim that the Bible justifies their actions, and in hundreds of other both stupefyingly ignorant abuses of it as well as in highly intelligent yet devious and equally abusive uses of it.
It is time that we realize that the Bible is not our book to abuse as we please. It is God's book and we should do our best to use it as what it is meant to be: a source of God's revelation of God's self to us. If we believe, as I do, that the Bible is a Holy Book then it is incumbent upon us to treat it with respect. At the same time it is equally incumbent upon us not to worship it.
What follows flows from an discussion first of a small portion of a letter from St. Paul to his disciple, Timothy.
2 Timothy: 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15 and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
As we read above, in this letter Paul is admonishing his beloved pupil that Timothy should persevere in what he believes. He is to remember that he has known from childhood the "sacred writings" that are able to "instruct" him for salvation through his faith in Jesus Christ. Paul goes on to say that these scriptures are inspired by God and all are useful for teaching and for training in righteousness.
Paul was talking about the book we now call the "Old Testament" or the "Hebrew Bible." In Christian teaching Paul's admonitions have long since been applied to the New Testament writings, including, of course, Paul's own writings.
Today, Christians believe that Paul's teachings to Timothy are equally applicable to us. And so, some 2000 years later we are still to look to the Bible for teaching and training in righteousness. In fact, Christians look to the Bible as the primary source of God's revelation to humanity. It is to both inform us and to form us as to how we are to live.
Unfortunately, well meaning pastors, seeking to never offend a single soul in their flocks, see their jobs as taking what has long been considered an old, culturally conditioned, sexist, and often racist and narrow minded book in parts, and, rather than dealing with those issues head on, choose to poke around here and there in it and find the parts that might be "compatible" with our way of living. It then becomes kind of a soft, easy to swallow and digest, bland and tasteless gruel, but at least that is not offensive to anyone.
So too many then poke around in it and take some from part A and some from part B, conflate them, and wonder why they provide no nourishment. Worse, some then think this gruel needs to be spiced up a bit so they decide to tell the Bible what is possible and what is not, what they think is rational and what isn't, what they think make sense and what doesn't. All this is in some vague hope that we will pay attention to it, or at least be able to ignore it without having a guilt trip from hearing it.
For decades Robert Schuller filled the Crystal Cathedral and wrote dozens of "Be Happy" books by taking note of the American craving for self esteem and crafting a message which rendered Jesus into a personal therapist. Today, varying the theme just a bit, Joel Osteen fills his Lakewood Church with tens of thousands by preaching another form of feel good religion, calling himself a "life coach."
At the other end of the spectrum we have preachers like Jimmy Swaggart who preached hell fire and damnation for those who did not subscribe to the strictest of guidelines which he carefully picked selectively from the Bible. Ironically, of course, when he was caught in the act of sin, he then appealed to his public and, in tearful confession, managed to stay in the ministry and, within two years, was preaching the same old time religion that failed to keep him from straying.
When I was in seminary some self proclaimed feminists were somehow "shocked" to learn that the Bible was sexist, although there had been dozens of books written on the subject and a class was taught on the fact for two decades, and refused to take essentially any of the Bible seriously, rewriting it before giving practice sermons to say what it should have said, and would have said had a woman written it.
Since then, with a predominance of women now graduating from the nation's mainstream seminaries those soon to be pastors have taken to dealing with the sexism issues in the Bible head on, not shocked at all, but discussing the problem, shining a light on it and moving on to find the truth that lies behind the culturally conditioned words. Those are two very different ways of dealing with the same problem. And it proves that progress in Biblical interpretation is not impossible.
In conservative evangelical circles entire denominations and their seminaries have chosen to concentrate exclusively on one or two types of "sin" that they define and rail out against those. They conveniently exclude worrying about the other million or so sins that they themselves indulge in and have declared somehow "lesser" sins, although the Bible does not distinguish sin on the basis of severity. Some of the "sins" that they claim are not even sins when the Bible is carefully studied and interpreted.
There are literally hundreds of other examples I could cite, and no doubt you have come head to head with some of this arrogance that is allegedly "in the Bible." Now, some of this highly indigestible stuff actually is. But most is not. And when it is it needs to be dealt with directly and a light shown upon it. For some reason, however, many pastors and preachers don't have a stomach for dealing with these issues honestly.
All of this is simply to prepare you for my belief that I do not think it is my job, or the job of any pastor or theologian, to make the Bible palatable to modern men and women, nor do I think it is the job of any legitimate pastor, teacher, preacher or theologian to use the Bible to make it tell us what they want the Bible to say.
Rather, my job is to make modern men and women, including me, able to hear what the Bible is saying to us. And that job extends to making us able to hear what the Bible is saying even if we don't like it, and even if we disagree with it. I do not assume that task is easy. It is much harder, in fact, than doing any of the easier things above. It is infinitely easier to read into the Bible what we want to hear (eisogesis) that to read out of the Bible what it is saying to us (exegesis).
It is hard to do exegesis because we often approach the Bible not as the sophisticated, educated and erudite people that we think we are, but rather as parochial, myopic folk whose vision doesn't extend much further than what has or is happened to us.
When I was preaching I know that many of the people in the congregation came to church wondering whether or not I was going to preach about something that would make them feel better, solve a particular problem that was bothering them, or give them a lift. I tried to do some of that, but that was never the real reason they should have come. They needed to come to worship God and hear what God was saying to them. If they did that chances are that they would feel better without worrying about whether they would or not.
I think that the Bible sometimes has rough going among us not because we are modern, sophisticated, astute, logical and rational, but rather because we can become quite content to be naive, narrow minded, narcissistic, inexperienced critics of the very book that Christians say we depend upon to guide our understanding of the world and our life in it. And when we allow ourselves to be like that, well, the Bible just seems odd. And there is the rub. Because when it comes right down to it our true feelings about it and abilities to understand it do not match our stated allegiance to the Bible. Too many Christians prefer to "talk the talk" and not "walk the walk."
Nevertheless, millions of Christians gather in churches on Sunday and act as if the Bible knows more about life than they do. We even pledge ourselves, over and over again, to living as though that is true. But far fewer actually live as if it is true. If we were honest we would admit we spend very little time with the Bible, and that we think that it is odd, difficult, demanding, and dogmatic.
But, what, in the name of heaven, do we expect? It is the BIBLE! Do we really want and expect that the Bible should read like a third grade primer about Dick and Jane? Do we really want a book that deals with complicated issues like life and death to read like a Doonesbury cartoon?
The Bible is, after all, about life. Where did we ever get the notion that it should be simplistic? Where did we come up with the idea that the solutions to life's problems are simpleminded, do-it-yourself formulas? Life is messy. And so is the Bible.
So, if it is a big, complicated book about life and living, and death and dying, and everything in between, what, specifically, is it about? And to that question I have bad news for our egos. It is mainly not about us. It is first about God! And therefore it is really big! I don't mean big as in long, although it is long. I mean big in the sense that God is big. The Bible is about big things, big events, big cosmic, earth shattering, mind bending, turn the world on its head happenings.
And it matters not whether the story is as big as the parting of the Red Sea, or as small as the parable of the mustard seed, or as commonplace as getting a drink from a well in a strange neighborhood, the stories are all big because they are about God. This God, this YHWH, is not some tame, timid, little idol that we can manipulate to fit our needs, or teach to do tricks. Nor is God the kind of god who is content to be used only as a consultant in those hours of our desperation when we finally turn to God.
So, I think that our main problem with the Bible isn't that it is so primitive and outdated. Rather it is that the Bible isn't designed to fit the way we are most comfortable thinking about ourselves. Our main problem with the Bible is that we come to it, if we come to it at all, with ourselves mostly in mind, to get a better glimpse of who we are, to receive help for ourselves. And sometimes that happens.
But the Bible simply isn't mostly about us. What we really find in the Bible is a big, prickly, outrageous God who demands justice, and paradoxically, and simultaneously, demands obedience to a love covenant that he sets before us, wants to be in with us, by his grace.
As Christians, we find his Son, Jesus, the Christ, who, by doing the outrageous thing of dying for us on a cross, turns on its head every idea about power and privilege that we ever had. This Son's actions are outrageous, yet he tells us that he loves us in spite of every evil that we do. This is a love that is so grand that St. Paul can only stutter and call the very telling of it a "stumbling block."
And, then, if that is not enough, we find this Holy Spirit in the Bible that dogs us and prods us and insists that we "listen to" this strangely loving and forgiving Son of God. And the Bible tops it all off by telling us this incredible story of God raising him from the grave, telling us that he is alive. He is "Emmanuel," God with us. Here and now. Wow! What a story! Who can top that?
No. The Bible is not first about us. That is the first hard truth to swallow about the Bible. And here is the second truth, a truth we will never understand until we believe the first truth: that, in the end, the Bible is about us, but only in a very peculiar way.
The Bible is about us understanding that we are creatures, mere mortals, finite, ultimately helpless over everything that really counts in life; and certainly helpless over death. We are creatures that are dependent on God for our very existence. Yet this God calls us his "children." So the Bible is about us, but only in relation to our God.
And because the Bible is about us in relation to God, it is messy! We are messy creatures, after all. And the Bible stories that recount the lives of the saints of God who came before us are messy stories. Few Bible stories follow neatly, one after the other. Things get repeated; get out of place; even Jesus tells parables that make no sense to us without careful study, and many of his parables don't even end! In fact, the Bible itself really doesn't end, because the story it tells, the love story between God and us, does not end.
The Bible is a bit like those old Saturday matinee "serials" of my childhood. They always "ended" with the words "to be continued." The Bible is "to be continued" because God isn't done with us yet. And perhaps that is why, even when we don't quite understand it, we keep coming back to it and trying to understand. We have this hunch, this faith, that maybe, just maybe, it will turn out to be our story after all. That is, after all, what the Bible wants us to do: to see that its stories are, in fact, our stories, that the God it describes is, in fact, our God.
If we can just manage to see ourselves as small enough, there is a lot to learn from this big, wonderful, unwieldly, unpredictable book that we call the Bible.
978 page views 11 15 2009
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Rutilus Extraho
Molly Lilly
Mary Wollstonecraft
JLee Davis
AzureSky
Deargdruchtach
Salon.com
Comments
Began to go to the church of my childhood, Presbyterian, familiar and comforting until I got drilled in the head with "God the Father." Besides having had a verbally abusive father, which precludes any concept of the "loving father," it began to stick in my craw and I could no longer stand in the choir and say all those, I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth. It becomes idolatry after a while, and church women bow to any male, which is beyond absurd. So I left the church. As Flannery O'Connor says, "Everything Which Rises Must Converge," all religion comes together at the top and also include God the Mother. I have an image of the Kwin Yin on my altar, the Eastern Goddess of Compassion, similar to Jesus.
A wonderful post, as always. This analysis reminds me, in part, of Dave Scriven's post about leadership and the church standing for something--about Jesus as a revolutionary, challenging, and sometimes discomfiting voice (http://open.salon.com/blog/scrivend/2009/07/08/leaders_stand_for_something). You say something similar in pointing out the futility--no, wrong-headedness--of picking and choosing in the Bible.
And your first "what its'a about" is probably the most discomfiting thing. What is it that people have the most trouble with? Perhaps, "thy will be done." In a real sense, we are all children, all of us deluding ourselves into thinking that it's all about .... us.
Thanks, again, for trying to teach us.
But most of the rest of the piece -- earnest, sometimes touching -- is full of inaccuracies in its underlying premises. A random example:
Sin: Christians misunderstood this wholesale, re-inventing the pagan Ur idea of punishment and dark horror. Sin in Hebrew means "missing the mark". Errors in translation lead to conflating abomination with sacred violation, that is, stoning adulterers was a social control, not a religious violation per se.
Hell: to the ancient Hebrews twas Gehenna, actual place, where trash was thrown outside the walls of Jerusalem. Were you end up if you live a dissipated life? homeless, picking thru refuse. In other words, the equivalent of "you'll end up a bum".
See what I mean? It is hard to engage with Christianity on a serious level, because it is a tissue of distortions and inventions, masquerading -- innocently enough -- as ancient wisdom, because it doesn't understand the fractured, stapled together roots of its own theology.
Secularists lack almost all of the extremely positive benefits of small l liberal Christianity, especially community and life-affirming ritual. i doff my straw stetson, in awe, to the profound amount of person-to-person good done in small churches every day. But the Bible and Torah? a few nuggets, a lot of hairsplitting, and a preponderance of muddled theology and out and out mean-ness, poorly understood by its own admirers.
I know this offends some, and I apologize, hat still in hand. But i have earned this perspective through careful study and deep desire, and must speak my own truth about it.
This is a thought provoking post, thank you for it.
You've pointed out, quite articulately and accurately, that most Christians have not read (or at least studied) their religion’s central artifact. I would add that they also have not cared to study its origins and its history. If they had, I suspect that many more would cease to even attempt to “follow” it.
Regardless of whether one believes in God or not, making the Bible the primary (and often the only) artifact through which to understand God, seems a questionable strategy.
For me the question begs; why would God choose to teach His message through an anthology of uncertain and questionable lineage that is so challenging to comprehend that even many of its most ardent believers misinterpret it with such alarming frequency and such damaging consequences?
Would you choose to teach morals to your children in a language they didn’t understand? Would you make the consequences of their inability to understand excruciating and eternal?
As someone raised as a Christian that neither wears it on his sleeve nor force feeds it on others I find your writing to ease my mind of what the rest of the world thinks for us who dare read it and dare to learn from a Book.
RATED
In my view the Bible, in particular the New Testament, cannot be understood outside of the ancient Christian tradition. In the writings of the early church fathers the gospels are not even quoted with any regularity until around 150 a.d. The New Testament canon was not even largely defined until after 300 a.d. Throughout that time there is no sense within the church that something was "lacking."
So for literally hundreds of years the church functioned without a fixed canon. In an era in which most people were illiterate and texts were expensive, the best that a church might hope for would have been a few texts that would have been read as part of the church service. The earliest use of the Bible was liturgical, not personal. No one was sitting around his house reading the Bible in 120 a.d.
In other words, the Bible, in particular the New Testament, is a part of church tradition, and cannot be understood outside of that tradition. This is one reason why I am not impressed with the results of groups such as the "Jesus Seminar." They study the gospels as disembodied texts, disconnected from the tradition of which they are a part. It's like trying to understand one square of a quilt while ignoring the rest of the quilt.
As you say "The Bible is, after all, about life." In the Christian tradition it is about life -- the life of the church, and cannot be understood outside of that. Stated differently, as part of the tradition and life of the church, the Bible is meant to be experienced, more than simply "understood."
The problem is that in Protestantism vast tracts of church tradition have been lost. For many Protestants church tradition consists of the apostles, Martin Luther, and the pastor of the local church. The Bible is seen as a "standalone" work that can be understood outside of that tradition, and even more, can be used to criticize the tradition.
Thus, for example, we end up with people using the New Testament to support abortion rights in the name of compassion, something that would have been unthinkable to the early Christians. Now if someone wants to disagree with the tradition, that's fine, but it seems to me inappropriate to use the Bible to do that. I don't understand how the Bible can "trump" the tradition of which it is an organic part.
As always, in my humble opinion. Thanks for posting this.
JR: it always gives me pleasure to see you here and commenting on my religious posts. Thanks so much.
Mishima: I don't think you and I differ at all, though we may well both differ with some current Protestant ideas, like the Jesus Seminar which I see as a joke. I too see the Bible and its interpretation as happening within the sweep of the traditions and teachings within the church; it cannot be understood and picked apart outside of its own context. The Moravian Church of which I am a member and have been a clergy member has a clear tradition dating back over 500 years well before Luther, to Hus, and directly to the Roman Church before that. And the Bible, the tradition and the teachings of the Church are all honored. I think that you define "the ancient tradition," which sounds like the first 300 years before the canon of the Bible solidified. I agree that understanding that is essential.
Where we might differ is when we come down to "essentials" and what is the arbitor of those: the Bible or tradition, for example? Most orthodox Protestants would argue that the ultimate arbitor, the norming decision point cannot be tradition, but must be the source document, the canon, if you will, which is the Bible, not some leader within the church telling us his interpretation of tradition, ancient or otherwise.
But the truth is that that "what if" seldom comes up, and when it does the "what if" questions are being asked by people within the church, like me, about the church, and so the Biblical interpretation takes place within the orthodoxy itself. Roman Catholicism insists that scripture and tradition each have equal weight, and usually comes out on the side of tradition; and tradition is not limited to ancient tradition but comes up to and includes current encyclicals. I disagree with none of your practical conclusions.
Monte
1. The Bible is not about us
2. The Bible is about us in relationship to God
Then I would think that would open up a whole new world of understanding.
Mishma's comments on context were important and intriguing to me. That's the kind of stuff that reflects a lifetime of study and one that never really gets to an "answer."
As one who sees the Bible not as a book of instructions; but rather as a prompt for worship and thinking; I'm in awe of the thoughtful, clear piece you produced here. There are books that don't have a message as clear as yours.
Well done.
Roger
For me, the Bible is one part of God's revelation to us (and I for one am open to learning from other religious traditions as well), but another piece is the Holy Spirit, or in my Quaker tradition, the Inner Light, that helps us to interpret what we read. George Fox spoke of reading the Bible in interaction with that Light.
Until I found out about demons and redeemers.
I still loved Christ. Didn't take much to straighten that out.
But it reminds me that the Bible is something to be revisited again and again as we age, grow, and change in our concepts of life and faith.
We have to get freshened up from time to time.
So thanks so much for helping us to revisit the Bible and to hit that reset button on the truth. Rated, Zumapic and bookmarked!
This should really be on the home page and an Editor's pick.
Hi, Smama: always glad to have you here. I am glad that you get so much out of these posts. I know that your study of scripture gives you great comfort, as it does me. Thank you.
Penrose: good to see you again. I am sorry that you were not told that God can as easily be called Mother as Father, since both are not accurate and involve personal choice. God is described in the Bible primarily as Spirit and Love. I am glad that you found a spirituality that you are comfortable with.
Thanks, Pilgrim: Dave and I do see eye to eye on most things, though I am a bit more liberal. things. People do have a hard time with understanding that the Bible is mostly about God and not us. It is hard for us to stop looking in the mirror at times.
Greg: good to see you again here on my blog. It sounds like you have found a place as an unbeliever that is comfortable for you at this time. I hope it gives you comfort. Small intimate settings like local churches do have much to offer and I know that you hope to see similar kinds of settings grow out of nonreligious groups. You have said as much elsewhere several times.
Mark: don't remember you being here on my blog before. I appreciate you reading and commenting. I think that you and I simply do not see the world of Christianity in the same way and you are certainly welcome to your opinion. Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks, all,
Monte
Hello, again, Faith. Certainly a true name for your fidelity to these posts of mine, and I much appreciate that. The Spirit, or Inner Light as you know it, is what keeps all the traditions, the Bible and our own experiences in harmony and encourages us to renew our commitments in thought meditation and prayer. And certainly should act as a guide in interpretation. I have much admiration for your tradition.
Zumalicious: "ChristTheDemon'sSake" is absolutely precious. You point about revisiting the Bible again and again as we grown and change is such an important one. I wish more of us would understand that as we change the Bible will speak to us in new ways that help us reflect upon its guidance and understanding for that period of our life.
Thanks, all.
You hit on submission slightly and I would love to see a future post about the transformative power of submission.
Tradition vs. Scripture- I would interpret that as the difference between a contract or covenant and the actual practical application of that covenant. One (the contract) sets out goals, how they are to be accomplished, by whom in what time and what the consequences are of failure. The other (Tradition), practical application , of that covenant may accomplish all the points of that covenant and still look very different from year to year. If the point of this contract is to deliver salvation, maintain a healthy relationship between god and man and also one amongst humans it might necessarily look different over thousands of years. This is not to say that traditions are less important than scriptures but out of need are more mutable and should be open to scrutiny rather than followed blindly. Do they work in the current context to meet the requirements of the contract or not? Not all traditions are created equal and while some must remain immutable in order to fulfill the contract others do not earn that same level of devotion or certitude.
The fundamentals of the contract are spelled out easily. In order to receive salvation accept Jesus as your savior. Perhaps the devil is in the details is either the most appropriate or the least appropriate quote to use here but the concept is certainly apt. The question becomes what are the responsibilities of the saved under this contract in relation to the saver. Personally if I were to call myself Christian I would be looking the contract over regularly and thoroughly what with the payoff being so high.
Thanks again Monte for another wonderful and caring post. I got something unexpected out of the comments as well as the post so it was a double blessing.
I had to laugh at this one Monte, as I thought of all the different groups that could attempt to rewrite the Bible to suit their needs. Then I didn't laugh when I realized how many groups actually do this as you mentioned those who pick what they need and forget or ignore what they don't need.
This statement is me, but at least I'm honest about it. "If we were honest we would admit we spend very little time with the Bible, and that we think that it is odd, difficult, demanding, and dogmatic."
"As Christians, we find his Son, Jesus, the Christ, who, by doing the outrageous thing of dying for us on a cross, turns on its head every idea about power and privilege that we ever had."
This is an incredibly powerful statement and one that I had never considered before. It definitely flips the entitlement of the powerful on it's head.
" Life is messy. And so is the Bible." I love this! Never have I heard such a thing, but being very messy does bring many things into focus. I know that I'm not only messy, but I'm also a mess, so this really strikes home with me.
I can't admit to reading the Bible. In fact I haven't read any of it in years, but I've always followed most of the teachings of my youth for no other reason than they seem like a good way to conduct oneself. Granted, I'm no angel and I have stumbled mightily along the way, but I always try to find my balance and get back in line. I find it much easier as I get older. Temptations carry far less weight than they used to.
If fact, if not for the way you make your posts so interesting, if not for you, I would be getting no Bible study at all. So I want to let you know that I do appreciate your posts on Christianity, Monte. They always make me think and that can't be a bad thing.
Thanks, Tijo, your analogy about the difference between tradition and scripture is very insightful. Thanks for that way of looking at it. I always like to have many lens to look through when trying to deal with subjects that are not easily understood and difficult to categorize since they tend to flow into one another, eg: if the scripture says something and the tradition has always interpreted that scripture to apply in a particular way to the members of the Church it then becomes very difficult to even imagine another reading of the same scripture. But tradition can and must change, otherwise we would, for example, justify slavery because it is "in the Bible," etc., even though the mention of slavery in the Bible is always conditioned by the time, place, culture and social values of the situation.
Thanks, Mike. If this is the way that you get most of your Christian teaching and information then I am very glad that I can be here to provide that. Just keep coming back and I will keep writing.
Rated, of course
Delia, Your questions do not have easy answers and many different people representing different branches of Christianity feel very strongly that their take on those issues is the only one. Unfortunately those who are most sure are most often surely wrong.
Briefly, and I will leave out most of the needed nuance to give you an idea how I approach it. First I need to know the context of the issue that is addressed in the letter, who, when, why, where, etc. Then I need to know the sitz em liben, the setting in life, of the issue.
If I know those two thing I can begin to get an idea about whether or not the writer, in this case, Paul, believed he was speaking to the entire church universal for all time, or whether, as was often the case, he was trying to solve a particular issue in a particular church at that time and did not intend it to become a universal doctrine.
Knowing that I can begin to see whether or not it only applies to them or also applies to us. I also have to know if Paul is trying to keep peace by giving in on trivial issues to placate the traditions of the local society or whether he believes he is speaking for God.
In general, most of the statements in Paul that have been used to hold down women and keep them subservient to men, to uphold slavery, etc. were never intended to be seen as universal truths. Of course, if you want to keep things in the churches as they are you will feel differently.
Finally I apply the question that the kids ask: What would Jesus do? On issues of woman's rights Jesus was always willing to extend major roles to women, which was remarkable in a patriarchal society. I should also point out that for every statement of Paul's that people use to keep a group of people subservient there is almost always something else that Paul himself has written that indicates that he feels much more open and welcoming and sharing than the things he says that limit rolls in society. eg: for in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male nor female, etc. Also remember that some of the earliest congregations that Paul was much proud of were headed by women who are mentioned at the ends of some of his letters in the greetings to the leaders of the congregations.
Hard questions. But in the end I come down on the side of equality, fairness, love and acceptance.
Monte
The lessons, messages and call to action found throughout the Bible does require a willingness to be "open" and live from faith, a notion that comes naturally to some, while it is still in question by those who would quantify just how much faith one is willing to concede.
The Bible is not an easy read by any standards. It is not for the faint of heart and is still being read, reread, translated and understood in varying degrees, by those steeped in historic wisdom, biblical scholars, men and women who have devoted their lives to the teachings of the Bible and even some simple folk who feel inspired to learn and absorb the innumerable messages and lessons for a profound life of faith, found withing it's Books, Gospels and inspired words from God.
I love the depth with which you take us on every journey into your scholarly and inspired posts.
Jesus' teachings are a hard road -- a cross as he described it, lift up thy cross and follow me. In the years before Constantine and Catholicism, many did and died for their trouble.
Today's Christians continue to see themselves as a persecuted minority -- they have no idea how foolish that makes them appear -- especially those in America. Were even ten percent of these Christians to actually practice their faith, they'd have no need of govt protection of it.
Too many of today's Christians have stood the faith on its head; instead of a cross of service and sacrifice, it has become a multi-level-marketing scheme devised to make a down-payment on a mansion and a Mercedes in Heaven, or for the Joel Osteen crowd, right here on Earth.
No wonder religion was so easily usurped by the right-wing, both share the same acquisitive mythology, a mythology so far divorced from Jesus as to be utterly unrecognizable. Feed the poor has been reformulated as God wants you to be rich.
Jesus wept.
Cathy, your words would make a post in themselves as a witness to one whose faith is strong, knowledgeable and infinitely loving. Thank you once again for reading and commenting.
Tom: thanks for coming by. I have read and reread your comments and actually, I agree with essentially everything you have written. I would quibble that there were more than two pillars of his teaching but those you mention are certainly two of the most important and two of the least honored. Honored in the breach, mostly, to the shame of the church. We have a very hard time giving even a pittance of our wealth to those who need it, let alone share it openly and freely. And there are few legitimate Christian pacifists, the Quakers being the most notable exception. We have, in this country, "honored" pacifism with war after war, exploiting the defenseless over and over and have wrapped the Cross in the flag to our shame. The Cross and the flag represent two honorable ideals, but Christians in this country have seldom seen the necessity of keeping them apart, confusing one with the other which leads far too often to prejudice and imperialism.
Thanks everyone.
Monte
Also - have to say that I really appreciate Tom's comment and his statement "Feed the poor has been reformulated as God wants you to be rich" really struck a chord with me.
Thanks for your comments.
Monte