The Bible is no more yours than mine

Last updated on: March 15, 2012 at 6:32 pm by John Shore

The Bible is no more yours than mine 2012-03-15T18:32:32-08:00 John Shore

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This comment was left to yesterday’s post, “I’m basically giving up on Christianity. Why Shouldn’t I?”:

So… Whatever (version of) Christianity you believe to be true, right and good is, well, perfect for you. Of course you will have to do a little work to come up with your own personal version of Christianity. Whatever you find hard to hard to handle or too narrow minded in the “orthodox” version, you’ll need to toss out. Want to add some new concepts of your own? God’s good with that. Whose to judge? Go for it!

At the heart of this snide snippet o’ snark lies a complaint I often receive from evangelical/fundamentalist Christians, which always boils down to, “Stop making up your own Christianity!”

So I thought I’d take a moment here to say that I don’t make up my own Christianity. God knows it’s true that, through careful and thorough examination of the Bible, my heart, my mind, and my experience, I arrive at a Christianity that is different from that which is typically associated with the word “evangelical.” But not a single one of my beliefs about Christianity is not fully supported by the Bible. That’s a very long way from “making up” anything at all about Christianity.

To the evangelical who would claim that my understanding of our shared religion is somehow less Christian than his, I would answer:

What gives you the right to tell me what the Bible says? I can read. I can study. I’ve done my homework. I know how to pray. I have the Holy Spirit in me. If in the Bible you find a God who thinks unrepentant gay people are destined for hell—or that hell is an actual, super-hot place where Satan oversees the eternal torture of everyone who died not a Christian—then (as long as you don’t use your beliefs as any sort of weapon against others), that’s your business. But please don’t tell me I should hold as true your tired, lazy, egocentric, mean-spirited, small-minded, gay-hating interpretation of the Bible.

I’ve got my Bible. I’ve got my God. I’ve got my Christianity. I’ve got my community of believers.

I’m good.

I’ll see ya’ on the other side, okay?

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