Bridges
Submitted by Heather on July 06 1999 at 00:03:18
In reply to Re: The Law and the Spirit Submitted by Ben on July 05 1999 at 20:51:37
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"He was not talking about the law that he had set out, since he did not set out 'laws' per-se, but a way to live one's life and a way to follow God." Yes, of course; the danger is, though, that individual Christians will set out to create a new law. Paul – in the very same letter has he speaks those words – comes dangerously close to doing so, though I doubt that he could have anticipated that his advice, directed toward particular communities struggling with particular problems, would be treated as an unchangeable code. "So, I don't see the passages in the bible about slavery as supporting slavery, but simply as speaking about slaves since they did exist in that society." Yes, and that's what liberals in the scriptural debate over slavery pointed out. But you do see the parallel in modern society, don't you? A liberal today could say, "The surrounding verses of the Leviticus injunction against homosexuality make clear that ritual male prostitution is being talked about. I fully accept that, in any society where homosexuality takes the form of ritual male prostitution, it is an abomination for a man to lie with a man. I maintain, though, that this condemnation of ritual male prostitution has nothing to do with the loving, committed unions that we are asking to have blessed by the churches." Now, the initial premise of this argument – that the Leviticus passage refers only to ritual male prostitution – may or may not be correct, but the essential point to notice is that the liberal in this case is not "picking and choosing" which passages he likes in the Bible. He is doing precisely what you did in your post: interpreting what the Bible passage said within its cultural context. So I suspect that your disagreement with non-fundamentalism has little to do with methodology and instead has to do with the manner in which the methodology is followed in particular cases (for example, in the above case you might argue that the surrounding verses did not require the interpretation that the liberal put forward). So I suspect that you and the non-fundamentalists on this board aren't as far apart as it might appear at first glance. Heather |