I'm trying to understand how and why certain societal practices that were once considered to be Godly are now considered to be wrong by mainstream Christians (When did polygamy become wrong, for example?)How do you sort it all out? And why is there so much division between certain denominations, sects, congregations, etc.? And how do you decide what the really important parts of the Bible are and which ones are ridiculous (like sacrificing children - everyone can agree that's not okay, right??)?
Thanks in advance.
Well, I certainly don’t qualify as any type of Bible scholar, seminarian, or theologian, but if you’ll entertain a layman’s rudimentary understanding of it, I will give it a try. I had the honor of belonging to a church in my younger years wherein the Pastor was not only very well educated on the Bible (among many other religious and spiritual and history-related subjects), he was also quite adept at relaying that knowledge in parcels to the flock.
Part of the answer is that that’s why there are an Old Testament and a New Testament. There are various types of sections in both testaments that span multiple books of the Bible, one of the basic ones is considered “The Law” or “Laws”. There’s also “Prophecy” and several others. The differences between the testaments and the reasons for separate testaments are that the life of Jesus Christ on earth was first of all foretold on the Old and realized in the New. Certain things that had been in effect during the Old were replaced in the new, such as Jesus being the sacrifice for all humans, so blood sacrifices of the Old no longer needed to be carried out. That’s just one example of laws or rules changing from the Old to the New.
Additionally, translations of original texts into different languages has both added to and subtracted from what the Bible says, and centuries of human interpretations have also twisted the original Word. Various sects or religions or cultures or countries use the Bible selectively, sometimes ignoring parts of it that don’t fit their agenda or magnifying parts that do. (As in slaveowners using the Bible to justify their practices, or Quakers using the Bible to justify peacefulness and abstaining from participating in war.) Merely overlooking biblical content or amplifying it is human nature.
Of course, my caveat is that I’m giving an extremely basic thumbnail response that might even be picked apart by others who know more than I do, so I will not argue with anyone here who says I have it wrong.
Great question, it will be interesting to see some of the dialogue on this.
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No, it’s not too personal to answer. I’ll handle your first question first.
It’s been far too many years for me to remember all of it; even as I was in the process of typing my answer, more of it came back to me, but not enough to give more detail.
I have never read the entire Bible, and even some (not all) the parts I have read I am not 100% well-versed. Additionally, having grown up from a small age in the faith and in the religion, my exposure to the Bible spans a large part of my life. As such, I have read, or heard, certain parts of the Bible when my level of even understanding individual words from it was not too adept. Before anyone picks that apart as an indictment against religion or spirituality, let make the correlation between that and many other things a small child reads or hears yet does not fully understand: I grew up when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was a daily practice at school. I attended pre-school, I do not remember if at that age we recited the Pledge, perhaps I started doing it later in kindergarten or first grade. Either way, I remember that on those early years of reciting it, I didn’t even know what “pledge” or “allegiance” meant, the only pledge I knew was from the tv commercials about the furniture polish Lemon Pledge. Worse yet, I didn’t even have the second one right either, I thought I was supposed to be saying “a legents”. I didn’t know what a legents was, but it sure seemed pretty important because we had to Lemon Pledge it every morning at school. Getting back to religion and the Bible, even saying the Lord’s Prayer, I didn’t know what “hallowed would be thy name” meant. I guess it seems to a small kid that “Hal Olde would be thy name”.
Moving from those points and tender age and understanding, of course I went through my time wherein I spake as a child and understood as a child, but I eventually put away childish things and my understanding of things grew and developed. As I stated above, I have not studied the Bible as a bonafide scholar of it, nor as a seminarian, nor as a theologian, only as a congregant. As with any learning, some things we need to reread several times over a long period of time in order to understand them well. There are many parts of the Bible I have read and/or discussed repeatedly, yet there are also many parts that I’ve never read or discussed. You asked which parts I personally follow or do not follow. That’s a tall order, because not only is the Bible a very extensive work, I have just stated that I haven’t been through all of it. It’s also a tall order to cover the parts of it that I “do follow”, once again because of how immense it is. I will have to defer that for now.
All human beings, especially when placed in groups, deviate on individual levels as to what they follow concerning the tenets of the group. That same Pastor I mentioned above even taught us that part. In a congregation of about 2,000 members, he would often end his sermons by asking, “Are all minds clear?” or, “Are we all in agreement?” In the years I attended, I can’t remember even one person ever responding in the negative, however, the Pastor once pointed out to us that it’s impossible for all people in a large group to go away with the same understanding of a thing (think of the story of the nine blind people who touched different parts of an elephant and each described what it felt like, but there were nine wildly different interpretations), and even deeper than that, even in a church setting or especially in a church setting, he said that there were always some people among the flock who disagreed with what had just taken place but would keep it to themselves. Another example he gave was when he suggested further reading at home. He would say, “Someone out there is already thinking, ‘I ain’t going to read that, Pastor doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’” I can’t cite who believe what when it comes to others giving an open account of it, because there’s our public face and our inner thoughts. I have found stark differences in what people believe or like or follow, even among church participants.
Over time, many believers of anything have a crisis of faith. Religion and spirituality aren’t the only areas where that happens. Look at relationships, education, jobs, budgets, certain products, perceptions about the home one lives in or the city one lives in, government/politicians, following health plans, diet/exercise, etc. I’ve written often of how much I love being a US Marine, how much I love the Marine Corps, even I had times of disillusionment there.
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Now you have me curious: who was it that bestowed the honor of the title of prophet on them?
All human beings are fallible. In Christian teachings, no human being is without sin, and all fall short of the Glory of God. As such, even prophets had faults, some of those faults were quite grievous. All believers suffer a crisis of faith every now and then. Look at all the references to people questioning God, challenging God. It’s not unimaginable that prophets did things that were outside of God’s expectations.
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Randy D 