This topic contains 6 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
I’m having another one of those days. I’m fine, I’m confident, I feel like I’m working through my faith. And then I go to church and hear this message that I’m supposed to accept this miserable, oppresive and mortifying narrative of the “good Christian life”.
And then I hear the verses the pastor is quoting and they are real verses… Things like how women are the lesser vessels, how women don’t have authority over their own body, how we “have nothing in common with unbelievers”, etc.
How are those verses possibly in the Bible!?
How do I keep living a version of faith that feels real to me but is counter to so many Bible verses? Why does it seem like the god that’s presented really IS just concerned with how much I call out other people’s sin, how submissive of a wife I am, and how much I stay away from unbelievers?
Are those verses just related to the culture at the time so I can ignore them?
xoxo,
Confused
Deanna: Keep pressing into your questions and eventually, I promise, your concern about the bible will suddenly fall into its proper place.
AnonymousDeana,
Even though you don’t feel like it, you are at a good place, so hang in there. Even though it feels confusing, frustrating, mind-boggling, and maybe even evokes anger or fear – you are doing the right thing to question the religious staus quo, the Bible, etc. Keep on asking questions and don’t be afraid to THINK for yourself. I know Christians are taught not to trust their own heart, mind, or emotions (at least I was), but I want to tell you that not only can you trust your own mind, heart and emotions, but you need to trust them in order to find out what is true and what is not! God gave them to us for a reason, so pay attention to your own spiritual instincts. and don’t worry about what everyone else around you is saying.
Chrstians have very effectively been brainwashed into believing that the Bible is supposedly without error, and is the infallable WORD of GOD and every word, story, or passage is meant to be taken literally. What better way for pastors/Christian leaders to control and manipulate the people in their congregations than by declaring that a certain document was written by God Himself – and then insist we must read and obey every single word of it, NEVER question ANY of it, and believe whatever their personal interpretation of Scripture happens to be. (Sounds rather “cultish” in retrospect, doesnt it?)
I know we are taught that ALL Scripture is supposedly inspired by God. To be honest, I don’t know whether it was or wasn’t. I believe there are portions that may have been inspired. But even then, I cannot help but think that the writers’s own personal bias HAD to have crept into their writing. Some portions were meant to be taken literally and some portions may only be metaphorical. Who really knows??? Does it really make any sense that with all the hand-written copies and hundreds of different translations over thousands of years, that the Bible does not contain ONE single error? Really??? I used to believe that crap hook, line, and sinker, but not any more! Why do we just blindly accept whatever our church leaders say as being “the Gospel truth?”
When it comes to the Bible you would think it is part of the Holy Trinity the way Christians “worship” the Bible. Just remember that MEN (from strictly patriarchal cultures) wrote the Bible. If there were any female Biblical writers, their books did not get accepted into the Canon of Scripture – which, big surprise, was toally decided by men. There was at least one female Apostle listed in the Bible whose name was Junia. In all my 50 years of attending Evangelical Churches, NOT ONCE did I ever hear about Junia! That’s one morsel of evidence (among many) that patriarchal bias exists in Christianity to this very day!
Don’t worry about what pastors or theologians think. JESUS IS THE BEST THEOLOGY! And how did Jesus treat women? As equals and with respect. How did Jesus view women being oppressed by the men and/or religious leaders of His day? He showed them tender compassion. He stood up for them. He was not condescending to women. He welcomed and did good to them wherever he went. Jesus viewed women as being just as important as men. His favorite place to hang out was at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
Scripture says that in HIM, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free. WE ARE ALL EQUAL IN GOD’S SIGHT. In my opinion, all the patriarchal crap in the Bible is reflective of the patriarchal cultures of the writers. who were all male. And Christian leaders perpetuate patriarchy within the church today because it is an easy way to maintain control over people, guilt people into giving money, guilt them into not leaving the church, suppress women, and makes it taboo for anyone to question anything they teach and/or how they run “their” church. Sad to say, but true.
Somehow, church-going Christians are expected to simply “check their brains” at the door when they enter a church or a Bible study. And we are only too willing to defer to the pastor or leadership’s point of view on everything – because they are supposedly more of an expert on the Bible than we are, and we are to “submit” to their leadership. I know because I was one of those kind of Chrisians for 50 years! Happy to say I’m not anymore! I am still a follower of Jesus and His teachings, but I am NOT a church goer anymore. I can’t subject mysef to all the toxic theology/doctrines that Evangelical churches teach any more.
The best advice I can give you is to start thinking for yourself. Don’t be afraid to question and do your own research. You will have lots to think about just reading the various posts on this website. It can be exhilarating but also a little overwhelming at first, so grab on to the things that resonate with you and don’t worry about the rest. You have just begun the most important journey of your life! CONGRATS!
Jesus was the first feminist. In a culture that had little acknowledgement of women, where they were not taught to read and write, where they had no social standing without men, Jesus included us. He even had women among his helpers but the men didn’t write much about them because, well, they were women and men wrote the bible… so there you have it.
Press in. Press on. There is life for us! Question it all! Mardi Keys adresses this topic, Rachel Held Evans writes about it. I love the Bible but it’s an old old book from an old old culture… and it’s written by men.
AnonymousDeanna,
Yes, David is right – allow yourself to lean into those questions. Allow yourself to find the answer on your own without verifying with another person. Allow yourself to do the research and reading and contemplation to come to your own understanding and peace with it.
It’s so hard, sometimes I want to tell people, “Read this book!” or, “This is how I reconciled that for myself!” but these journeys we are on truly are so unique and so important – it doesn’t matter what I did to get to where I am at, what I read, what I listened to, etc. But I can definitely encourage you to allow yourself the freedom to question and seek after your answers.
Love to you.
AnonymousI spent a long time in a church where that’s what was taught–women as “lesser,” sex as bad unless one follows the church’s recipe to the letter, certain people excluded. All of that was based on their own interpretation of the Bible. I began questioning all of it, and I am still struggling to piece back together my faith in a meaningful way.
All I can say is that this journey looks different for each of us and we all need to find our own way through it. Like Tana, I could offer suggestions on books to read or web sites to follow, but it’s really up to you to discover what you need.
I hope this doesn’t sound too much like unwanted advice, but the best thing I ever read was from a person who said it took 10 years to find his way back from the edge. I think I’m on about year 5 or so (before that, I just ignored the niggling feelings and pretended that I believed exactly what I was told). I’m hoping that in another 5 years I will have moved past this!
Pretty much what everyone else has said it correct. Taking things into context is the path to reconciling these things.
Know what comes from the word of a man writing in a strictly patriarchal culture roughly 2000 years ago, and know what is food for your own spiritual development and relationship.
Generally, things like the subjugation of women come from the former, and there’s a Jesus-based way to determine this.
Know them by their fruits.
If the fruits of any particular teaching are prejudice, divisiveness, violence, hatred or anything else equally negative, they cannot be good, and cannot come from a good source.
This is something I learnt fairly recently but I still do know where you’re coming from with the sense of doubt and uncertainty.
I recommend the book “The Misunderstood God” I’ve read it a good few times and it really helps build your foundations in the right thing, not what is damaging.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.