This means that we must distinguish between the Good News and lesser claims within the scripture. This inherent Word of God is refracted through many authors, who all reflect their own times and circumstances. So our readings of the text, whether we're liberal or conservative, must always be provisional and modest. In such a process, as we see it carried on by Jewish scholars, we must each make our distinctive claims and argue them with passion. The moral codes of Israel prohibited a man's taking back a wife who had been unfaithful.
Imagination involves a leap.
What a leap it is to imagine that the Levitical code is about the ordination of gay and lesbian people. We do it all the time, and we won't stop. But imaginative interpretation is always subjective and debatable. The fourth principle, he went on, is the recognition that ideology is always involved in our interpreting of scripture. All our interpretation is shaped by the passions and convictions of the interpreter, and ideology arises as the self-deceptive claim that we are free from those influences, and that our interpretations are thus uniquely absolute.