Are liberals picking and choosing scripture?

''pick and choose''


In my experience, nobody does that more than do conservatives who love to interpret the Bible at their convenience. By contrast, liberals are far more knowledgeable about the book and interpret it far more accurately.

I have noticed how there have been discussions and debates about the Bible on this forum over biblical interpretation and the more liberal/progressive/open minded types easily defeat the rigid minded right wingers. This is true in every forum I have ever posted on.

YES.

Cajaquarius said:

Evidence indicates that Paul was a liar.



Because Paul never actually met Jesus (the Road to Damascus incident is, most likely, invented by the man himself to ingratiate himself to the burgeoning Christian movement), the only disciple to actually accept him has a lot of issues with his particular writings as far as Bible scholars go (one of the chiefest being he in all likelihood didn't write half the stuff associated with him), and Paul actually gloats, in his own words, about using lies to win converts in direct opposition to rules against it in Deuteronomy and Numbers. Paul was a power hungry sociopath, a liar, and a murderer whose writing and wisdom holds no more value than excrement wiped from the bottom of a boot.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal. Few roads are as wide and easy as the one Paul preached. Saved by Sloth (Grace) is by far one of the most attractive paths to heaven there is because it exacts nothing of value and is easy. Jesus does all the work for you. Say a magical phrase, give your life to Jesus, and you are in. Much easier than the path actually preached by Christ with all of it's works and subjectivity.

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And THESE are the kind of people you guys prefer over your fellow Christians?

grandvizier1006 said:

And THESE are the kind of people you guys prefer over your fellow Christians?

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These kind of people? I may have drifted back and forth in my faith over the years as I have studied it for myself but at least I am honest. At least I didn't cower from the line of thinking Thomas Jefferson and many before me walked down in the name of personal comfort. At least I had the temerity to question the wide, easy road of Grace. Although the insult inherent in your response is something I have always found hurtful, it is something that no longer sways me much.

Additionally, emotional reactions like these reinforce what I have already come to realize: your real God is and has always been Saul the Pharisee. I have never seen a Christian of your kind come to the defense of Christ as readily as you do Paul because without Paul your faith is meaningless, isn't it?

Is the emotion in your response the result of being justified in your defense of truth or some part of your conscience not yet fully atrophied by the path of slothful Grace that is upset because on some level it realizes I am right?

Guess we will all find out in the end.

Cajaquarius said:

These kind of people? I may have drifted back and forth in my faith over the years as I have studied it for myself but at least I am honest. At least I didn't cower from the line of thinking Thomas Jefferson and many before me walked down in the name of personal comfort. At least I had the temerity to question the wide, easy road of Grace. Although the insult inherent in your response is something I have always found hurtful, it is something that no longer sways me much.

Additionally, emotional reactions like these reinforce what I have already come to realize: your real God is and has always been Saul the Pharisee. I have never seen a Christian of your kind come to the defense of Christ as readily as you do Paul because without Paul your faith is meaningless, isn't it?

Is the emotion in your response the result of being justified in your defense of truth or some part of your conscience not yet fully atrophied by the path of slothful Grace that is upset because on some level it realizes I am right?

Guess we will all find out in the end.

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You were being rude and condescending on a thread with tons of liberal Christians, who still like Christianity and would disagree with what you had to say even if they were nice about it. Thomas Jefferson, as much as he disbelieved Christianity, never outright hated it or dismissed the possibility of a God.

And my emotion was just me being depressed and angry. Not some acknowledgement of some intellectual superiority you have. I really hate pride like that.

grandvizier1006 said:

You were being rude and condescending on a thread with tons of liberal Christians, who still like Christianity and would disagree with what you had to say even if they were nice about it. Thomas Jefferson, as much as he disbelieved Christianity, never outright hated it or dismissed the possibility of a God.

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Rude and condescending is how your capslocked response appeared to me. How many of your responses here appear to me. Don't worry, I hold no enmity for you or any who like Paul. My mother loves Paul and gets genuinely upset whenever she hears me speak ill of him (as a recovering addict, she associates herself with his life - even if I suspect he ripped much of his story off that of Moses, for the most part). If I do have any anger at all it is directed mostly at Paul, not at his followers. You are as much his victims as I have been.

As for me, I believe Jesus was divine in inspiration but question if his divinity is any more than that of Zoraster or the early Jewish scribes. I was raised Catholic but that faith has been demolished now. Too much knowledge, too many unanswered questions, too much emptiness, too much blood, too much similarity with other religions.

grandvizier1006 said:

And my emotion was just me being depressed and angry. Not some acknowledgement of some intellectual superiority you have. I really hate pride like that.

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My response was admittedly a bit rough and condescending. I get that way whenever I am referred to in terms like "these people" - a holdover from my being a homosexual. There is nothing that gets on my bad side faster than someone talking around me or using me as some sort of example when I am present. So, I apologize. That said, I stand by what I said concerning Paul and the path of Grace. I find both morally repugnant.

Guys, can you please take this elsewhere?

SistrNChrist said:

My approach is similar. I look at the context and the culture of the specific Bible passage, and then compare scripture with scripture to determine what I will adhere to, instead of taking one or two isolated verses and building a whole doctrine around them, like the verse about a woman being silent in church, which I won't get into here.

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One pastor in the 1800s said of that practice that, "Men find a button of truth and weave an entire suit behind it of their own design."

There is some merit in the argument that Paul's writings are given more prominence than much of what Jesus said and did. I took "Paul" as my confirmation name, primarily because I too was on a path of discovery and revelation. But I see the Gospel stories about Jesus, the parables he left us, and the example he showed us as the most important factors in understanding what it means to be Christian.

We also need to realize that what we read about Paul does not all come from his own writings. Acts has a lot about Paul, but is told by someone else. Several of the letters originally attributed to him were not his, and it appears that some of the material contained in what are likely legitimate letters of his was edited by others after him. In some cases it is easy to see how other, later writers, used the reputation of Paul and the name of Paul to advance ideas that do not seem to be Pauline at all (unless he did several "180's" on what he taught).

Conversely, it is an accepted conclusion that some of what we read in Paul's letters is derived (or copied) from somewhere else, likely early hymns and prayers used in Christian communities, as well the more obvious Hebrew scripture references. This includes some of the most deeply spiritual and enlightening verses found in the New Testament.

Despite our belief that Paul's letters are "scripture", they were certainly not considered as such when they were created or first read. Paul was not perfect, he was a human, and his ideas and thoughts reflected the society, culture, and religion in which he lived. As others have pointed out, his true epistles were addressed to specific local churches about issues and questions to which he was responding. So it is not always proper or accurate to apply to all people or other times what Paul said to local assemblies of the faithful at that moment.

The Bible is a large book, with quite a variety of voices. Inevitably there has to be something that looks like picking and choosing. Typically liberals and conservatives do it differently. Liberals tend to take each writer as close as possible to his intention, and then try to build a theology. Inevitably no one theology can reflect all the emphases of all of those authors fully.

Conservatives try to understand all the authors as saying the same thing. In my view the attempt to force-fit them all into a single position leads to artificial exegesis, which is strongly biased towards whatever tradition the reader comes from.

It’s generally better to do things consciously than unconsciously, so I think it’s safer to understand that our position doesn’t reflect all the authors equally than to be convinced that we’re not picking and choosing, and thus do it all by unconsciously forcing our exegesis.

What Hedrick said.

Mostly I agree with what Hedrick has said. I'd just like to add this. I remember Brian McLaren at Greenbelt a few years ago talking about reading the Bible as a record of many conversations and debates about God. For instance, the Book of Job is part of a debate about whether the righteous are always rewarded in this life: other passages, such as from Psalms and Proverbs, present a different view. Equally in some of the history books we get quite a nationalist view of God's relationship to Israel, whereas in some of the prophets we have a more universalist corrective to that. So being faithful to the whole Bible means taking those debates seriously and being part of the conversation. This sort of open attitude to the variety of approaches expressed in the Bible can help alert us to some of the common pitfalls for people of faith - judgementalism, sectarianism, legalism etc.

I'm inclined to believe that the bible might act as a mirror of
sorts, and what the individual takes away from it says more
about him or her than it does about the passages in question.
The bible brings to light whatever's knocking around inside the
individual heart/mind.

This is true concerning one's perception not only of scripture,
but of reality overall. We tend to see things not as they are,
but as we are. "To the pure, all things are pure", "a hostile
person lives in a hostile world, a loving person lives in a loving
world", that sort of thing.

It would be the same way working with scripture, imo.

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meliagaunt said:

Mostly I agree with what Hedrick has said. I'd just like to add this. I remember Brian McLaren at Greenbelt a few years ago talking about reading the Bible as a record of many conversations and debates about God. For instance, the Book of Job is part of a debate about whether the righteous are always rewarded in this life: other passages, such as from Psalms and Proverbs, present a different view. Equally in some of the history books we get quite a nationalist view of God's relationship to Israel, whereas in some of the prophets we have a more universalist corrective to that. So being faithful to the whole Bible means taking those debates seriously and being part of the conversation. This sort of open attitude to the variety of approaches expressed in the Bible can help alert us to some of the common pitfalls for people of faith - judgementalism, sectarianism, legalism etc.

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I've looked at scripture presenting us a road toward righteousness with guardrails on either side. On scripture might send you on a tangent, but before you go off the road there will be another scripture that bounces you back in the other direction.

chaela said:

I'm inclined to believe that the bible might act as a mirror of
sorts, and what the individual takes away from it says more
about him or her than it does about the passages in question.
The bible brings to light whatever's knocking around inside the
individual heart/mind.

This is true concerning one's perception not only of scripture,
but of reality overall. We tend to see things not as they are,
but as we are. "To the pure, all things are pure", "a hostile
person lives in a hostile world, a loving person lives in a loving
world", that sort of thing.

It would be the same way working with scripture, imo.

-

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Oooh, I like this. The fact that there are so many different understandings and interpretations of scripture, as well as the selective use of verses to support various views, tells us more about the people who are interpreting and selecting than it does about the Bible or about God.

I will add that the Bible is obviously a reflection of the points of view and agendas of those who created and/or wrote the various books. We can see this in many comparisons of passages and books, and it is abundantly clear in the four Gospel accounts. But this is not bad. I have read several books about specific topics or people (Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind) and each one included information, or emphasized information, or treated certain topics differently than the others. This is totally understandable with the Bible, considering the time span and multitude of authors involved.

The simple answer to the OP's question is yes, of course, everyone does!