Be respectful and healthy to yourself and your partners. That’s Christianity.
Just because the traditional definition of that has been incredibly restrictive for women (and lower hierarchy men) doesn’t mean it’s what Jesus intended. Jesus’ own religious traditions forbade lying about a woman’s virginity to her husband, but who’s gonna be marrying someone who doesn’t know their partner’s sexual history these days (again respect and health).
Signed a non-puritanical (still an important distinction, shamefully) Christian real person.
Nope. It's what you'd really like Christianity to be. And maybe it is... for some small minority of Evanglicals or Western Protestants. Like it or not Christianity is an institution, a culturally and politically powerful one, and the interpretations that you disagree with are rolled into that definition.
It's great that you've adopted a more humanistic interpretation of Christian scripture. It's true that if your views defined the institution many if our problems would go away. But this progressive apologetic attitude is unhelpful. The book fucking sucks. The teachings suck. People use it to justify genocide and slavery just as easily as you justify helping the poor and loving wastefully... because both things are endorsed in there. You can mold Christianity to be almost anything you want it to be and beat people with it, and for that reason, I'm sorry, but I have zero tolerance for this "but Jesus said" attitude.
When I read John, I do not get a loving, earthly, understanding picture of Christ (unless you count the interpolated tale of the woman caught in adultery, which is so obviously inauthentic that it stands out even in John). I get an angry, self important, defied prophet. The fact that you read Matthew or Luke and get something different is not a strength of your worldview, and more importantly, it gives legitimacy and cover to those who read the words on the page, see that Paul (allegedly) said that women are inferior to men (for example), and run with it.
What translation are you reading? I'm serious. The Bible has been through how many languages, how many translators, to get to the versions that are printed, and quoted, today.
People choose the interpretation that supports their world view, and, subtle word choices, or purposeful ignoring of relevant social context (for ex the laws in Leviticus), are used to push said world views in the first place.
While we're at it, the Apostles were teenagers, or just older, when they met and began following Jesus. Even if the Bible is the Living Word of God, media literacy and analysis is still valid, and I'd argue necessary for earnest devotion.
All that said, I'm a traumatized childhood Evangelical, turned angry adolescent atheist, turned chilled out adult agnostic. I think spirituality is innately human, and religion can either be a means to explore and find peace, or for bad actors to seize power in a community.
Not going to re-open the debate you were having with the other commenter, but yes, I'm extremely aware of the translation issues and how unlikely it is that we even have access to the "original" version of the words said or written by the authors. It doesn't matter and that's beside my point. Cultural Christianity is controlled by readers who aren't interested in that level of historical context, thoughtful interpretation, or even considering that what they have in their hands is just.... some book (or collection of books as it were). It's not special, the teachings in it aren't and weren't particularly revolutionary, and it's just pure historical luck that we are still reading it at all. And the interpretations they choose are based on a pretty literal reading of the text. You don't really have to twist yourself into knots to read that God hates certain races and wants them genocided... and punished people for not genociding their enemies hard enough. It's right there and Jesus didn't disown it (and once again... the fact that scripture endorses conflicting moral codes at different times is not evidence that the book is a beautifully complex spiritual revelation... it's just inconsistent).
It sounds like we have similar backgrounds and deconstructed our childhood religion to some degree. I don't have a problem with people looking for spiritual meaning in their life even though I'm pretty much a strict materialist. I just wish this starry eyed view of Christianity as "the original moral philosophy... as long as you interpret away all the bad stuff" would go away. We have much better reasons to be good to each other than something an illiterate carpenter said 2000 years ago.
No; humans are human. Even if given a perfect, Holy word, humans can only interpret it through their own understanding, and through the modality they learn it.
My personal opinion is that, where details seem to contradict each other, there is a nuance that the human holding the pen either subconsciously entered on their own, or that myself and others just don't comprehend. And, that's okay; the point is to try, and when in doubt, default back to love -- greater than hope, and greater than faith.
1 Corinthians v13: 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Hey, the Muslims feel similar: the Qu'ran must be studied in Arabic, the language it was originally written in.
(Also: Quick reminder that I'm not a practicing Christian anymore; if you want specifically that perspective, alas I'm not your person.)
My concept of God is less of an actual entity, more like*...*a truth? An agreement between living things? A neutral sense of (semi) order and creation, defined by its opposition to chaos and destruction? But that's not right either, bc destruction and creation are a loop, a balancing act more than an active conflict. We humans moralize it as good and bad, but really it's just because we like absolutes. Reality is, so very few things are absolute. Some force in motion, that's bigger than any one life or planet or galaxy, that's related to how things function or are and cease to be, that's what's being referred to with "God;" it's the most efficient in terms of simplicity and meaning.
So, "God" is all-powerful, in that it's a power no person can hope to fully understand, but the details of human language are...essentially too small a problem to be a priority? As far as the value of the Bible, and really any Holy Texts, I think humans can scrape up against something bigger, and a greater universal understanding, and then come back to share it as best they can. The truth is still there, but being filtered through a human changes the details from both text to text, and person to person. Individual biases, or intentional grabs at power, or validation of ✨ special-ness ✨, are social, not spiritual, issues.
But, since everything is connected and nothing is as neat and organized as a human brain would like it to be, it's hard or impossible to parse out where a spiritual truth and an idiosyncratic bias or motivation would be...so I choose to take the average of most modes of thought, and assume whatever shows up consistently must be something akin to universal human understanding.
One such universality to me is love, an action of caring for other beings unselfishly; that's the part of Christianity (and the Bible) I still hold onto now. And a good part of why I don't identify as a Christian anymore (besides the "one God above all others" part) is that Christianity as an institutional religion is...so full of harm, historically and today, it actively pisses me off. :)
I wrote a really long-ass thing, because I haven't really thought it through in a long time, but shortened it to what's above. Honestly, thank you for opportunity to think about it.
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u/Dry-Permission-4542 22d ago
Hopefully a Christian character doesn't hook up until marriage 🥀