Gladiator,
As I see it, use of the written word in trying to live as a Christian is necessary in establishing a relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus is said to have used it when he quit making beam plows and farm implements to inaugurate his ministry. And when believers begin to congregate to "incite one another to love and fine works", the Bible has the authority to guide a lively body of worshippers from descending into pandemonium. Any place where personal experiences and enthusiastic homilies come together there can be craziness, too. It can become a confusing spiritual "pissing contest" where the group's worship gets out of hand (Boasting sessions anyone?). Paul wrote to quell the wild meetings where every one spoke in a foreign tongue---with no one understanding a word that was said.
You are frustrated by my and other's jumbled responses and we by our inability to give unequivocal answers to your dissatisfaction with Christians and there use of the Bible. But at the same time you say "they are sincere and pleasant people who wish the world to be a better place than it really is". Well if that is the case then reflect please when any of us say that we might not be either sincere OR pleasant without Jesus present int this ambiguous but effective way. And yet this can't convince you either.
I find Christian life a long personal essay. I am so grateful that I had a moment of knowing God before the WTS came and ransacked my faith (not like the Mongol hordes but more like a friend whose visits you welcomed until you notice your silverware and precious things are gone.)
I am afraid modern Christians are facing being ruined by the Bible because we are letting it polarize us and we make statements that Jesus would not make, say things that we cannot help but get tangled in. Bible scholars make us appear foolish as we learn how little iof the text can be verified. So what will happen if we are yet filled with conviction --and we can't prove it with footnotes?
I cannot get a certain thought out of my own head --yet I haven't been able to get it to resonate with any but a few Christians in this forum and out where I live and talk to people: this idea of respecting people and their autonomy of faith. Mark 9 and Luke 9 support this view IMO.But not all Christians agree that a personal relationship with Jesus extends so far as having NO DOGMAS.
Though the Bible says that all that is necessary for salvation is faith in the life and death of Jesus the Christ, I've gone to churches where publicly members distance themselves from the idea that I can be a "saved"Christian if I do not profess their dogma of the Trinity or election--all distilled from the Bible they say. But, when I discuss my love and faith in Jesus outside of "church", they think God might not throw me out after all.
I am sympathetic to their anxious concern. People are afraid, a little bit, of Christian freedom. People are afraid to allow of a salvation that is as common as that--think of how easily it can be abused! To reference Paul here, "You are slaves of no one except God, so behave like free men, and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness." A free Christianity among the the untried and ignorant? It's like sending our lusty young ones out into the world with the full power to have wild sex and hoping they will use this potential with discretion.--Oh, vain hope!--But that is how it is.
I figure there is a balance between a Christian knowing nothing of the Bible and knowing something
One day I took my five children to the river and ran into a homegrown holiness preacher. His main instruction in Christian faith had come through the gruesome woodcuts in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and traditional preachers who had impressed upon him that "the woman will be kept safe through childbearing"(and no doubt thought I was being kept pretty safe). He was completely and absolutely illiterate. I was touched by his strange and disjointed and somewhat dark expressions of faith. As a woman I shuddered to think of my life relying on such doctrines.
But another illiterate preacher learned in a different manner. Her life is well documented by the writer Nell Irvin Painter. Sojourner Truth was a freed black slave in her latter forties some twenty years before the Civil War. She was an anomally among black ex-slave abolitionist speaker because she was a woman who could and would speak. If they were degraded as women ain slavery were so often abused they hadn't the power to stand and face down more white humiliation.
But Sojourner not only spoke and held her ground against slavers but she held her ground against ministers who derided her faith and her black female perspective. She answer with common sense--and used the Bible that she could not read.
She learned the Bible in feedom, but she learned of Jesus as a slave. She lived for a time as a laundress in a utopian religious community. They took the time to read the Bible to her at her request. But she requested so often for re-reads of certain passages that her helpful adult reader would stop and editorialize the selection hoping to enlighten her. So she quit asking the adults and had the children read to her. They would gladly repeat a verse as often as she asked and never tried to tell her what it meant. Sojourner realized that a society that could be so blind as to enslave and abuse her could not be trusted to interpret the Bible truly.
Again, no pissing contest, my personal story vs. someone else's. But I tell stories because they helped me survive as a Christian while I was caught by the Witnesses.
I figure that my posts are strange in a way. I have no way of knowing what they seem to others. Their length reflects the urgency I feel knowing that I will, for a while (surely not for long ) leave these conversations. And these conversations have been amazingly healthy--for me. They are too long.But I comfort myself: I don't have the power to button-hole anyone; these posts are easily ignored by anyone who notices my lumpy green avatar poofy-haired, bug-eyed, frantically waving at them with her insect arms.
I am embracing a Christian freedom that I didn't have even before the Witnesses caught me with the false promise of "accurate knowledge" that would please God. The God I met so long ago on the open ocean beyond dogma/doctrine is there still and I'm going out to meet him again and I won't let anything stop me now.
If you ever wanted to talk about any of this or would be interested in some readings I have found helpful, PM me. You may not wish to, I can understand that, but I am not a Witness and you won't be offered afree home bible study!
Believe it or not I am moving (though I am spending most my time thinking about and responding to the conversations on this board) I have to reach that tipping point soon, when I pull the plug, literally, from this forum. It is just that I have gotten so much out of the honest and really tough discussions that you and everyone here put out, it is hard to stop.
I have the highest respect for your skepticism, Gladiator. I consider you in no way my adversary. Best wishes, Maeve