From: cctr114@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Rea)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re; Question on the Bible
Date: 29 Sep 92 07:04:56 GMT
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

>	
>	Well, I came to a conclusion recently that i wished to share,
>and hopefully get a reaction on.  I cannot possibly accept Christianity
>simply because its tennants, as expressed in the bible, violate many
>of my most deeply held beliefs.  That is, that women and men are equal,
>and that slavery is inherently wrong.  [various citations from
>the Bible omitted --clh]

Quotes deleted above. What you seem to have assumed, without expressly saying
so, is that we must accept the Bible as some sort of unchanging universally
applicable book. While there are many people who will profess such a 
belief, I don't actually know of anyone who practices that beleif.
You should take a look at an alternative view point which is much
closer to what everyone actually practices. The Christian church is
essentially an unbroken, continuous tradition which extends back to
Jesus or Abraham depending on your view. The Bible plays a very significant
role in that continuing tradition, but not everything it says applies to
us today. In your example of slavery, no Christian I know of would support
slavery merely on the basis that it is in the Bible. It is there, it forms
part of our continuous tradition, we must take it seriously, but we need
not practice it. Our understanding has moved on and we are not stuck
with slavery. The same comments apply to the equality of men and women,
but here there is a divergence of opinion, because we are in a transition
period in the church's growth. People within the church who defend 
the traditional seperation of roles of men and women almost never do
so on the grounds of different inherant worth of men and women. They
do so making the point that men and women are equal in value but have
different roles. As you may recognise, this is somewhat different to
some portions of the Bible. Again, just because you can find some
verses which can be taken to mean women are inferior to men, we do not
have to live by that today. It is part of our tradition and an important
one, we must be guided by it, but not bound by it. 

I have heard many people express your sentiments that the Bible is full of
guilt and punishment, but while there are some sections which are heavy
on the guilt and punishment bit, we must balance that up with the remainder
of the book. There are extensive teachings on freedom, responsibility,
love, acceptance, faithfulness, righteousness and so on. In our
tradition, many Christians are deeply offended by the very same passages
which offend you, yet they are inside the tradition not outside. Many
will express revulsion at the Psalm that expresses the desire to see
babys heads smashed against rocks, some have suggested that the Book of
Judges be renamed the Book of Monsters because of the atrocities committed
in it, many find the boldly erotic poetry of the Song of Solomon out of
place in the Bible, and the list goes on. Yet people can live within
the Christian wing of the Judeo-Christian tradition precisely because
even without being able to conciously express it, they realize that
they are not bound by these books, but that they are part of our tradition
and must be taken very seriously. 

Your suggestion that people couldn't faithfully follow a book that
expresses the sentiments you quoted is both right and wrong. In the
most pedantic sense, no one faithfully follows the book, and if
you equate the book's views with God, then no one faithfully follows
God either. But just as validly we can claim that Christians are faithfully 
following the book, and God, on the basis of the understanding I have 
outlined above.  Within Christianity, people who will identify themselves 
as being of the more liberal veriety will probably agree with what I have
written, conservatives will probably have some problems with the
wording, but in practice they live this way too.


>-Nick
                                                                     ___
Bill Rea                                                            (o o)
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Bill Rea                                                            (o o)
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