From Dottie:
Dear Liberal Preacher,
“If one wants to believe in heaven, but has a problem with the bible contradicting itself, does that person call himself/herself a Christian or just a spiritual person?”
Dottie
Dear Dottie,
There is a growing number of people who want to be spiritual but don’t care for the baggage of being Christian.
There also is an an increasing number of Christians who are jumping at the bit to tell other Christians they are not Christians. If you don’t believe like me, then……….then you aren’t a Christian, they say. That’s their little illusion and their propaganda.
Don’t believe a word of it. Just because a loud mouthed Christian/preacher says you are not a Christian or just because a church council says you are not a Christian does not make it so.
Christians have believed diverse things about God and scripture from the beginning of Christianity. Conservative Christians don’t want you to know church history. I mean, how can you read ten minutes of church history and not see major differences among the Christians? And as for biblical contradictions, early church figures, unlike many modern Christians, at least fessed up to problems in biblical interpretation. I’m not saying I like their “solutions,” but at least they fessed up.
Dottie, I, like you, believe in heaven and am honest about contradictions in the Bible. I have friends who are spiritual but not Christian. Hope you will join me in staying Christian. The world needs some honest Christians.
Yes, definitely yes, you can be a Christian and be honest about biblical contradictions. In fact, I would argue that if you aren’t honest about biblical contradictions you aren’t being the Christian God and the world needs you to be. I hope and pray the Christians don’t believe and live certain biblical texts or the world is in trouble.
Yes, many Christians have their favorite parts of the Bible, and also they have parts that they do not like.
I do not like the begats —- way too tedious. I really do not like the destruction of everyone in the big flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Does God really cause natural or even supernatural events to punish people? It sounds like this is where Pat Robertson got his ideas from about Haiti’s earthquake.
I am sort of a “it rains on the just and the unjust” kind of guy.
What are some parts of the Bible that you think need correcting?
Read Jesus Against Christianity Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, first 100 pages will be stuff I think needs changing. I guess I’m like Thomas Jefferson. Ever heard of the Jefferson Bible? I wonder if the Senators really know what they are being sworn in on. I think they actually get a Jefferson Bible to boot. For the record, there’s stuff in the NT I don’t like either. Revelation is a very violent book. And, I’m not for getting rid of the OT, a la Marcion. See Brueggeman’s The Unsettling God for an excellent example of the relevancy of the OT for modern times. Well, it’s a big question. And that’s a very quick reply. What do you think? And thanks for sharing. So glad you are ecumenical. May the world be filled with people like you.