Expecting Christians to follow a given text to the letter will always be setting yourself up for failure. Not only do people pick and choose the doctrine they follow (or more often have it picked and chosen for them by their spiritual leader), different traditions have different emphasis and even different texts they’re operating off of. Expecting an legalistic following of a specific interpretation will leave you expecting far different behavior that most of your observations will show.
People bend over backwards to try to argue that the Bible doesn’t say what it does. If you want to argue that a book that is the basis for christian’s overwhelming homophobic views was just misinterpreted, then nothing in the book has any meaning. You could say the correct interpretation of the Bible is Jesus was really a talking rat born out of inbred to his 13 year old sister mom.
Not my point. You absolutely can point to homophobic passages of the Bible. You can also point to passages of the Bible that are not talking about homosexuality in specific, but that are commonly interpreted as such. My point is that expecting even Christians to agree with other Christians about what texta constitute the Bible let alone what those specific texts actually say is an exercise in futility.
This is the why of the existence of all the various sects and denominations of Christianity. There are theologians who have done lots of academic work to show how the Bible does not need to be homophobic. There are others who have worked just as hard to justify doing grievous harm to homosexuals. Trying to explain both of those with the One True Reading of the Bible is committing the same error they do.
For my queer ass, if Christians all spontaneously decided to follow the theology of Rev. Fred Rodgers tomorrow, I’m gonna breathe a sigh of relief and leave them alone to be just the nicest people and hope they stay that way.
Expecting Christians to follow a given text to the letter will always be setting yourself up for failure. Not only do people pick and choose the doctrine they follow (or more often have it picked and chosen for them by their spiritual leader), different traditions have different emphasis and even different texts they’re operating off of. Expecting an legalistic following of a specific interpretation will leave you expecting far different behavior that most of your observations will show.
People bend over backwards to try to argue that the Bible doesn’t say what it does. If you want to argue that a book that is the basis for christian’s overwhelming homophobic views was just misinterpreted, then nothing in the book has any meaning. You could say the correct interpretation of the Bible is Jesus was really a talking rat born out of inbred to his 13 year old sister mom.
Not my point. You absolutely can point to homophobic passages of the Bible. You can also point to passages of the Bible that are not talking about homosexuality in specific, but that are commonly interpreted as such. My point is that expecting even Christians to agree with other Christians about what texta constitute the Bible let alone what those specific texts actually say is an exercise in futility.
This is the why of the existence of all the various sects and denominations of Christianity. There are theologians who have done lots of academic work to show how the Bible does not need to be homophobic. There are others who have worked just as hard to justify doing grievous harm to homosexuals. Trying to explain both of those with the One True Reading of the Bible is committing the same error they do.
For my queer ass, if Christians all spontaneously decided to follow the theology of Rev. Fred Rodgers tomorrow, I’m gonna breathe a sigh of relief and leave them alone to be just the nicest people and hope they stay that way.