My new favorite American beer is from Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California. It's an American Strong called Arrogant Bastard Ale. Hoppy. Yum.

Which leads me to my first post in a few months.

So I've been keeping my eye on this whole "let's talk Christianity" thing...from a safe distance. I didn't know why I was asked to keep my distance, but I was. Maybe it was to acquire the courage (non-accountability?) to say this. Maybe not.

...So I'm pretty much convinced that a lot of what's in the Bible is wrong.

{uncomfortable pause}

OK, here's the thing. Yes, I am an arrogant bastard. I tend to speak and think as if my position on the wisdom-mountain-climb is the correct position. That's a problem. I'm working on it, my new favorite beer notwithstanding.

OK, back to the whole Bible-wrong thing.

What are these stories? Simply, they're the words of human beings trying to interpret/make-sense-of this gargantuan, unspeakable God/World dynamic. And these particular humans have taken a pretty admirable stab at it, often the most admirable stabs in human history. We can learn much from their attempts, and especially when we look at the collection as a whole.

But at the individual-interpretation level, can we just come out and say that they're often wrong, i.e., they don't match the vision of the God revealed in Jesus Christ?

Can we just say that?

Look, don't get me wrong. The Bible is packed to the gills with truths, valiantly reduced to human language. The most valid accounts of the Truth-revealer are found within its pages.

But can't we just say that the guy who thought the God-revealed-in-Jesus ordered the killing of the Canaanites was wrong?

Can't we just say that the guy who thought the God-who-is-Love hated Esau was wrong? And that the guy who used that passage to argue that the God-of-the-Cross has created certain people in order to damn them was, to that extent, just plain wrong?

Can't we just say that? Would the whole system collapse if we admitted that ancient peoples doing their best to communicate the divine often messed up? Do we have to build entire, ridiculous theological systems around these good-intentioned-but-un-Jesus-shaped interpretations (yes, Calvinists, I am talking about you)?

Yes, the Spirit of God inspired these writings. The Spirit of God has inspired me to do a lot of things. I still fuck up while sincerely trying to do them every now and again...

...and again...

...and again.

And so do you.

And so does he.

And so does she.

And so did Paul.

And so did the guy(s) who wrote the Pentateuch.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I can just hear my narrative-enamored brethren now:

"...poetry..."

"...metaphor..."

"...apocalyptic imagery..."

And my postmodern brethren:

"...not about true/false..."

"...context..."

That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it.

I'm talking about the "God did/said this" passages, and we who come up with complex explanations because we're too chicken shit to say, "Uh, if your talking about the God revealed in Jesus of Nazereth, no He didn't."

I'm talking about the passages that Scot McKnight has to write parakeet books to explain. I'm talking about the passages that Bart Ehrman can cite to justify his atheism, and to which N.T. Wright can say nothing in response.

Yes, I'm glad Paul won that political-theological battle against the circumcision party, and I still consider him the second greatest theologian who ever lived, factoring in the circumstances under which he was writing.

But, in my humble but accurate opinion, Paul wrote some things that simply don't jive with what Jesus was talking/living/rising about...notwithstanding the book in which they're found.

{Ducks hurled stone}

There. I said it.

Goin' back to the cave to hide now. See you in a few months (or maybe tomorrow...depends on what God predestined for me).

Grace and Peace,
Raffi