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Dear Susan: Are You Twisting the Bible to Justify Your Beliefs?

Dear Susan: Are You Twisting the Bible to Justify Your Beliefs?

Last updated on: March 20, 2015 at 10:20 am by Susan Cottrell

Dear Susan: Are You Twisting the Bible to Justify Your Beliefs? 2015-03-20T10:20:31-05:00 Susan Cottrell

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twisting

We hear it a lot… “You are twisting scripture so you can justify homosexuality.” I do think there is a lot of twisting scripture going on, but I believe they have it backwards. You must twist and ignore the Bible – and deny the overall message and truth of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – to believe that being gay is a sin.

dear-susan_white

I write Dear Susan posts most every Friday. Sometimes they are poignant, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes tender, sometimes funny… but hopefully always worth the read.

Dear Susan,

WOW! Is this a Bible believing website? I see the word Christian being thrown around a lot with absolutely no mention of the Bible or Christ Himself. Please do not attempt to indoctrinate your beliefs with the Bible and label yourself Christians. Too many are trying their very hardest to be justified by society and they have succeeded. However, Susan, the God I know is the same yesterday as He is today. Do not mold God into who you want Him to be to justify your beliefs and then pass this along to others who need acceptance and justification for their actions. I pray for you all with the faith and love I have in Christ Jesus my Savior.

Lovingly leading my son, Jen

Dear Jen,

I appreciate your reaction – I’m sure there are those who would agree with you! By the way, I talk a LOT about Jesus – the disruptive, challenging, unpredictable Jesus of the Bible who caused no end of trouble to the religious leaders. Yes, I talk about him.

It’s easier to say God never changes (repeated to the point of cliché), and pretend we can remain literal about the Bible, than to realize that Bible-believing Christians, all with Bible in hand, can disagree wildly on interpretation and principal. We must make moral decisions. I never said God changes. But let me ask you this: which God is yours? The one who approved of multiple wives (Exodus 21:10)? The one who allowed a man to sell his daughter as a bride (Exodus 22:16)? Or the one people claim requires marriage to be one man/one woman? Which God is yours? The one who gave us multiple laws about slavery (Lev. 25:44-46; Ex. 21:20-21)? Or the God we understand today who opposes slavery? I know this is hard compared to what you have learned in church. But our interpretation of God has changed radically over the history of humankind. This does not indict God but us as humans driven by self-interest, power and control. [We’re not under the Old Testament (old covenant), but we still have to reconcile vastly different pictures of God just between how God’s been shown in Exodus and how Jesus shows God to us.]

We must deal with a real world with real intelligence and not pretend we can follow the Bible literally or fully – no one ever has, and not for lack of trying. Take a close look at how literal and scripture-following the religious leaders around Jesus were, and how he called them a brood of vipers! (Matthew 23) To follow literally is an impossible task.

I would return your request back to you: don’t mold God into who you want Him to be to justify your beliefs and then pass this along to others who need to justify their beliefs about those they disagree with. The church reaction throughout history has been deadly: to women, children, Jews, slaves, varieties of ethnic groups, and the LGBTQ community. It is nothing like what we see in Jesus’ life and teachings. Remember that religious leaders viewed Jesus as disobedient to God! (Matt. 15 and Mark 7) If you view me the same, I am in good company. More atrocities have occurred throughout history in the name of Christianity than we can count.

The church is going through a Reformation, as it has many times over the centuries. A reformation is not easy while you’re going through it. Just imagine the people of the church when Luther and other great Reformers started pointing out the church leaders’ horrible abuses. It’s scary! Those in charge didn’t like it! Jesus brought Reformation, too, and the church leaders didn’t like that either!

Reformation always challenges those in power and moves toward freedom for the oppressed. A good hard look at history will show that love and freedom, not rule-following, are the heart of God. If we claim God, we must do better to love the people God created.

The arc of the gospel is toward healing, love, restoration – not damage, hate, rejection. Move in that direction.

– Susan

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