My friends on the fundamental side of Christianity have often told me that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, all-sufficient, immutable, invincible word of God. They will go on to say that the Holy Book was penned by the Holy Finger of God. This interpretation reflected my own upbringing and I have chosen to reject that notion completely. At birth I was given a brain to employ, and an education to enhance its usage, and when the two are in play together, having the Bible written by God does not compute!
Even though I rejected the fundamental side of Christianity, I am still a believer in the mission and life of Jesus of Nazareth. Out of all the words in the New Testament, I developed this personal mission statement for my life: to serve humanity by loving and forgiving in a community of equals. To arrive at what I believe, from the accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, I have employed four working tools: Common sense; scientific discoveries; critical method and thinking; and be suspicious of everything until reasonably certain. The Bible is made up of two sections and each section contains a number of books. The first part is associated with the Children of Israel. The second part deals with the life of Jesus of Nazareth and early events of Christianity. The Bible was written by many people, mostly men. It was written, copied and recopied many times and hosted all sorts of opportunities for errors to be committed. It deals with a history of the early believers, a dietary code, an accurate history in places and a fake history in other places. It depended on oral history which was accurate, corrected, mistaken, and sometimes created. The Children of Israel cross into the Promised Land and move toward nationhood. As they competed with other groups to determine whose gods were the most powerful, much creative writing went along with the factual writing. In the New Testament, the writers of Matthew and Luke and depended on Mark’s gospel, as well as a second unpublished and unnamed gospel (now known as Q), to provide information. In both the Old and New Testament there is much to unpack for Christian believers if they want to get to the core of their belief in the Man from Nazareth. The purpose of this Blog is to help set the story straight. I know I will make some people very angry who resist having their sacred cows lured away by greener pastures of new information. I know others will simply dismiss my articles with a yawn and say “Who cares?” We are in the “Post Christian” world where church attendance is declining. There are still others in the Christian community who will be pleased with this information and will be able to apply it to their faith. In the movie “The Two Popes”, we can see the modern-day clash of Christian ideologies. The character playing the role of Pope Benedict XVI believed in Christianity having a fixed point of authority so everyone could be sure of where they stand. The character played by the future Pope Francis espoused the view that the universe, the Christian community, and Christianity as a whole is under constant change and the lessons of Jesus can be found in the journey and changing to meet the new challenges of this time and age. I support Pope Francis’ view. The journey today is very different than the journey my father took in the 1920s and 1930s, and the challenges are much more complex today than yesterday.
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AuthorI'm Rev. Dr. Pirie Mitchell and I live in Ontario, Canada. Archives
May 2023
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