Liberal Christianity

Lesson 2: The Role of Scripture in Spiritual Practice

Scriptural Inconsistencies Examined

Sermons often include declarations which are backed by scriptural citations which imply authority for one’s beliefs and opinions. Generally, the most common challenge facing those who believe the Bible to be inerrant, infallible and absolutely the word of God is that of biblical inconsistencies. Please address each of the following in terms of whether or not you believe they are inconsistencies and how you would reconcile their apparent differences:

Exercises:

1. Borg refers to the story of in Exodus 4: 21-26. After reading the story, please answer Borg’s question: Why would God want to kill Moses after having Chosen Moses?

2. Compare Exodus 20:13 and Leviticus 24:17 with I Samuel 6:19 and I Samuel 15:2, 3, 7, 8 and write about your comparison.

3. Compare Romans 15:33 with Exodus 15:3 and write about your comparison.

Redaction is described in the dictionary as the act or process of editing or revising a piece of writing. Stephen Mitchell, in his The Gospel of Jesus, refers to the consequences of redaction of the words of Jesus as a need to sift out what he calls “sectarian passages”.

Once those passages are sifted out “we can recognize that Jesus speaks in harmony with the supreme teachings of all the great religions: the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, the Buddhist sutras, the Zen and Sufi and Hasidic Masters. I don’t mean that all these teachings say exactly the same thing. There are many different resonances, emphases, and skillful means. But when words arise from the deepest kind of spiritual experience, from a heart pure of doctrines and beliefs, they transcend religious boundaries and can speak to all people, male and female, bond and free, Greek and Jew.”

Mitchell contrasts two personalities in a manner that reveals almost a split personality for Jesus. One Jesus Mitchell considers authentic. The other "Jesus" Mitchell considers a creation of the redactors to fit their doctrines and political needs.

Exercises:

1. Take the proposition that the truest Christian is the one who models his thinking and behavior most closely to that of Jesus of Nazareth. For this exercise make for yourselves two lists; one labeled Jesus (your own definition of the authentic Jesus) and the other "Jesus" (those that seem to conflict with your own definition of the authentic Jesus).

I have taken Mitchell's following 14 statements and rearranged them in no particular order so that you understand that each statement may not necessarily be the opposite of the previous or the next. Assume only that you know that the statements involve two different persons named Jesus and "Jesus". Assign each of the following statements to Jesus or "Jesus" and afterwards write a summary of no less than 50 words to support your judgment.

a. Who taught us not to judge (in the sense of not to condemn), but to keep our hearts open to all people?

b. Who talks of God as a loving father even to the wicked?

c. Who preached a god who will cast the disobedient into everlasting flames?

d. Who includes all people when he calls God “your Father in heaven?”

e. Who says “My Father in Heaven?”

f. Who teaches that all those who make peace, and all those who love their enemies, are sons of God?

g. Who refers to himself as THE Son of God?

h. Who wasn’t interested in defining who he is (except for one passing reference to himself as a prophet)?

i. Who called his enemies “children of the Devil” and attacks them with the utmost vituperation and contempt?

j. Who cautions against anger and teaches the love of enemies?

k. Who talks on and on about himself?

l. Who teaches God’s absolute forgiveness?

m. Who utters the horrifying statement that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin?”

n. Who is to be the end-times archetypal judge who will float down terribly on the clouds for the world’s final rewards and condemnations?

Can one really combine these 14 thoughts into an easily modeled pattern of Christ for living? What might that look like?

2. God and a sense of humor. Piety, sober-mindedness and laughter.

a. Does God have a sense of humor? Elaborate.

b. Write a short exposition reconciling traditional Christian exhortations that equate piety to sober-mindedness and scriptural verses against levity with the natural and spontaneous human response to humor.

b. What kind of humor brings out laughter from even the most serious Christian congregations:

Humor about non-Christians?

Humor about others who are not members of the congregation

Humor about themselves?

Elaborate.

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