Liberal Xians

Lorax and I have started a discussion based on the post at the link embedded in the title above. Click it, read it, then continue.

Lorax sez:

I didn't work through all the responses, but the initial post is good. Unfortunately, it is a non-Christian writing for the liberal Christians. True, she's an advocate, but she doesn't make the same points I would make.

First I would pounce on Seidman's rejection of society based on myth. Freedom and democracy are just as strong in mythology as any of the religions. Myth is the standard of civilization. Myths give us a central point that is bigger than we are, that holds a truth. It may be Aesop or an Aposlte, but the function is the same.

And I would have gone after the notion that the Bible is not liberal, and gone hard. It is, first and foremost, a pluralistic book, a collection of many writings, over many centuries, and many revisions. And its a translation. We are so far from the original text it is hard to say what it was when it was written.

It is as liberal as it is conservative. It is as zionistic as holistic. But above and beyond the liberal and conservative division, it is ethical. Liberation from slavery, security in a homeland, economic justice, solidarity and charity, revolution, resistance, it is all there baby. And the values in these are why it is such an important text - the ethics are the gift of the Spirit, that's what makes it holy. Not some debate on the true nature of Christ. Its intellectual masturbation. I don't think it means shit when it comes to faith. We have faith in a God that gives an Ethic in the form of Myth.

Now don't get me started on the role of reason in interpreting the myth. Lutherans know this best of all. But no church sees doubt as weakness. Not even the fundamentalists. They see wrong living as backsliding, but struggle with God is as old as Job, as old as Eve.So, that's what I make of it. How bout you?



There is a wide chasm between those who recognise the pluralistic nature of the bible and those who view it as indelible truth. Having now spent more than half of my adult life in the American Southeast, I am surrounded, chiefly, by bible-thumpers. Literally, it's the word of God. Every syllable.

That seems rather naive to me.

Jess