Quote:
Originally Posted by MommyofHero  i'm not a Christian, but about half of the people i am around (friends & family) are fundamentalist Christians, and, believe me, i WISH they were "progressive"...that would mean that i could stop receiving all this anti-gay pro-war kill-the-Muslims hate propaganda emails from them that make my stomach turn. 
could someone please explain to me (so that perhaps i could help shed some light regarding these issues when they come up)-- how does one follow the Bible but not take literally verses such as Lev. 20:13 that says that homosexuals should be put to death, for example? honestly, i don't find it surprising that the majority of Christians do not share "progressive" views when there is so much blatant violence in the Bible...
do progressive Christians just believe the New Testament, perhaps? any feedback would be greatly appreciated! i am sincerely trying to understand this religion and all the drastically different moral views that are associated with it  thanks!! |
Here's my take based on my experience, my opinion and what I've read/studied. Nothing in the Bible is the inspired "Word of God" in that God did not write it, nor did he/she/it tell any human what to write. The writings found in both the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians call the Old Testament) and the Christian Scriptures (the New Testament) are a particular people's attempt to understand God, and put into words their experiences of and with God. The law of outlined in Leviticus was not written at one time (and definintely not by Moses), nor was it written by just one person. To quote the notes at the beginning of the book in The New Oxford Annotated Bible,
Quote:
| The two main components of the Priestly source in Leviticus are the "Priestly Torah" and the materials from the "Holiness School," which are largely found in chs 17-26, the "Holiness Code," or "Holiness Collection." ... [I]t is reasonable to assume that the Holiness Code was produced toward the end of the exile (538 BCE ) or soon thereafter. |
The laws were written for a particular people for a particular time. The time of the Babylon exile was extremely hard, to put it mildly. When they returned from exile, they needed something that pulled them together as a people and made them stand-out from the nations around them. Thus, very strict codes of conduct - personally and as a group - were created/written, including very strict laws about sexuality. They needed to redefine themselves and the law helped achieve that purpose. Those laws were for a set people, place, time, and purpose.
In regards to Progressive Christianity and Scriptures, my understanding/belief is that all Scripture is seen as man-written rather than God-written or God-inspired. There is much to learn from it, but it is not taken literally. The stories can definitely be taken metaphorically - they have deep truth to them in that way For example, the exodus from Egypt, when taken metaphorically, speaks of how we all tend to experience the pains of bondage at some point in our lives and pray for our freedom. When that freedom comes, there is often a period of wandering through the desert while we sort everything out. Eventually, though, we find ourselves in the "Promised Land" where life is set right again. Just because the story itself may not be historically accurate (from what I've read, there seems to be some debate on the historicity of it), or just because the story is not read literally (I could never believe in a God who acted the way God is portrayed in the story), does not negate the deep spiritual meaning within the story. This is true of the entire Bible. Among many current scholars, there is much debate over exactly what from the Gospels can really be attributed to Jesus. (See "The Jesus Seminar") The Gospels were not written to record the actual real-life events of Jesus, or word-for-word accounts of what he said or did. The earlier Gospel (Mark) was written about 40 years after Jesus died (Paul's authentic letters were the earliest writings about Jesus). There was much reason as to why the four Gospels were written the way they were (Matthew and Luke, in particular, are totally different when read in the context of the Jewish liturgical year as they were intended). But from my perspective, and it seems that of progressive and liberal Christian scholars, they Bible as a whole is not a God-written document, but rather stories, laws, and events written by men to try and put into words their various experiences with God.
: about my church and its community. It's hard to explain this to a lot of people because I'm also very progressive in my political views. I'm staunchly pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-human rights, anti-war and I love Jesus. I also do not take the bible literally. It's confusing to some people because there's an idea in the US that Christian means fundamentalist. Any other progressive liberal Christians here?
: I'm pro-choice, pro-queer rights, anti-war, etc... because of my faith. And I think there are a lot of other Christians who see the Bible more consistently mandating justice for the poor, the outcast, and women than a lot of people think.
. It's set in medieval France, and is about the daughters of the Jewish scholar Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac).
