Sometimes on a clear night, especially in winter, I like to stargaze for a while. I like to sit or stand still in the open air, let my eyes acclimatise to the darkness, and then just ponder and wonder at the vast infinity of space, the hundreds of thousands of millions of stars out there, and our own tiny place amongst it all.

 

Humbled by my stellar observations, I can quite easily understand why some people could come to the conclusion that some higher being must have made all this, and I can sympathise with that conclusion even though I know it not to be true. It is not difficult to imagine how, from those first feeling of awe and wonderment at the beauty and complexity of the universe, gods could be invented and religions develop. It is easy to see how tribes, races and early civilisations, without the benefit of education and science, could reach the conclusion that there must be a god that causes the sun to come up every morning, and the crops to grow every spring, and who makes sick people well – how else could these things happen?

 

Yes, staring at the night sky in this way might cause some people to say to themselves “Yes, there must be a god”. But it doesn’t cause anyone to say to themselves “Yes, there must be a god who made all this in six days, then flooded the world and killed everyone except one chosen family, and who had a son by a virgin, and the son walked on water and raised people from the dead, and was then executed to save me from my sins..” and so on. No, or course, all these additions don’t come as individual revelations from observing the world around us. They come because they are taught to us (usually at an early, impressionable age) and the sole source of these extra additions is an ancient book called The Bible.

 

So what should we call people who believe all these things?

 

Personally, I think we should distinguish between those who believe simply in some kind of god or “Supreme Being” because they are struck by wonderment at the world around them, and those who believe all the tales – from “creation” onwards – that are learned solely from the Bible. I'm no philosopher, but I think the first group are generally known as “Deists”. The second group I think have already named themselves as “Christians”, because this very name comes from one of the central tales of the Bible – that of the person known as Jesus Christ.

 

So, people who call themselves “Christians” do so because of their belief in the story of Jesus Christ, which comes not from any star-gazing individual revelation but directly from the Bible. But now we start getting into muddy waters, because beyond the Jesus Christ story, there seem to be different kinds of “Christians” who believe different things. One group (let’s call them “fundamentalists”) believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, which seems to me like a reasonable assumption, assuming that you believe the story of Jesus Christ. If the Jesus Christ story is true, then surely the rest of the Bible must be true as well, or else things get very complicated – how do you know which bits are true and which aren’t?

 

The other group of Christians (let’s call them “revisionists”) believe that the Bible is simply a set of parables, meant to be adapted and endlessly re-interpreted to suit the changing nature of humanity as time goes on. I have a big problem with this view, because the Bible itself gives no indication that it is intended to be taken this way. Also, would not an all-powerful God give some indication to Her followers of how She wants the Bible to be interpreted? If God wanted the Bible to be revised and re-interpreted for modern times, surely it would be easy for Her to make that clear to everyone, or to issue a New Edition of the Bible, perhaps by making it miraculously appear on the Internet. Anyway, who are we to assume that God is happy to have His/Her instructions revised after only 2,000 years – a mere bat of the eyelid in the timescale of an eternal God? Or to assume we have the right to re-interpret God's wishes, or to invent loopholes so we can get round the inconvenient parts? Isn't that a form of blasphemy?

 

If you believe, as these revisionists do, that the Bible is not to be taken as literally true, and needs to be interpreted, how do you decide which parts are true, and which are simply allegorical? OK, so God made the world, and the universe (but not in six days); God created Man (but not instantly, He invented evolution); when Leviticus says that homosexuality is “an abomination” and participants “shall surely be put to death”, it doesn’t really mean that, it means that God loves everyone, including homosexuals. So what about the virgin birth – truth or parable? How about the resurrection? Everlasting life? Hell? Once you start down this path, there’s no end to it, and once these central tenets of Christianity become open to interpretation, what’s left of the Christian religion? What exactly DO these people believe?

 

BISHOP STORY.

 

This distinction between fundamental and revisionist Christians is brought into focus when we look at the numerous parts of the Bible which, by today’s standards, are nasty and immoral, such as the treatment of homosexuals, sex outside marriage, abortion, women’s place in society, etc. The fundamentalist branch take all these aspects on the chin, and don’t apologise for them. These things are dictated by God, in the Bible, and that’s that. No argument. As much as I disagree with their views on these individual matters, I have to admit to some grudging respect for their willingness to stick to their guns on their principles.

 

The revisionist branch, on the other hand, are constantly performing cartwheels and jumping through hoops, as they squirm and wriggle and re-interpret, trying to get away from the obvious and logical conclusions of the Bible’s statements on these issues, while simultaneously accepting, without question, all the good parts of the Bible.

 

Let me give you a concrete example of what I’m talking about.

 

One day while surfing around I wandered by chance into a Christian blog run by one Henry Neufeld. What took me there was an article I saw somewhere about a group of people in the USA calling themselves Minutemen United, who disrupted a church service because the church in question was supportive of gays. Henry had commented on this event in his blog, condemning the disrupters for their actions. While I personally do not condone such action in any way at all, I questioned Henry about why HE objected, given that the Bible expressly forbids homosexuality. Surely this church was acting against God’s will in supporting gays, and the disrupters were simply trying to make this church see the error of its ways? If Henry was really a Christian, as he claimed, how could he possibly object to God’s will being enforced?

 

Henry’s response, in essence, was that it’s not necessary to believe everything in the Bible in order to be a Christian (and “nobody does”, according to Henry).

 

My response in turn to Henry was that I thought it was hypocritical to claim to be a Christian, based on belief in Jesus Christ learned from the infallible Bible, and then pick and choose which bits of that Bible to believe and to live by. Surely it somewhat arrogant, not to say blasphemous, to take the view that some of God’s Bible is absolute Gospel truth (pun intended), while other parts can be quietly put aside, glossed over, or “re-interpreted”.  Surely, as I said above, if God was happy for the Bible to be treated like that she would say so, and perhaps issue a new “Revised and Updated” second edition.

 

I offered to continue an on-line debate with Henry through his blog, but after accepting and promising to set up the necessary facilities, I never heard from Henry again.

See the complete exchange at http://www.energionpubs.com/wordpress/?p=858#comment-63090

 

In this article I have referred to that group of Christians (including people like Henry) who like to pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe are literally true as “revisionists”. I recently came across another term for this group, which is not as kind but which I think describes them very aptly. The term is “cafeteria Christians”.

 

In conclusion, I think that real Christians should be defined as those who accept the Bible as it is, all of it, warts and all, no ifs or buts. If someone wants to invent a religion based on certain parts of the Bible, by all means let them do so, but let them not call that religion “Christianity”, and if this new religion still contains a belief in Jesus Christ, then let them explain why they accept that part of the Bible and reject others.