Some thoughts on something that continues to divide Americans. Nowhere are different views of the Bible more troublesome in our day than the passages that, on the surface, may seem to blatantly indicate that God is very dipleased with the active love life of LGBT persons.
This is the primary source of one of the crippling splits in our American culture. It is similar to how the Bible was, and still is by more than a few, culturally used to support racism and a belief, conscious or unconscious, in white supremecy. Historians say that even Abraham Lincoln did not fully overcome the bent toward belief in whites being somehow superior to blacks.
It is not just that such cruel beliefs are present among us but worse is the practical discrimination, social marginalization and legalized inequality that flows from them.
First, it must be faced honestly that there is no such possible thing as 'taking the Bible as it is' as our way of applying it today. That is a self deceiving and, I think, irresponsible approach to the Bible.
To use and apply the Bible means to decide, preferably consciously and intentionally, on the means of interpreting and applying it for ourselves.
With what we know in our times I'm thinking a most profitable way to interpret the Bible is in light of depth psychology. Since the amazing Bible is on the surface full of metaphors, visions, miracles and dreams from the ancient past, this is a very fitting way to approach it.
This way of interpreting it would be similar to taking and learning from it as it were a dream someone(s) has had. In the book The Bible As Dream by Murray Stein we get help and a feeling for what this approach to the Bible is like.
We can expect such an effort to change what the few passages used, I think tragically and very unkindly, to condemn LGBT love today come to mean to us. It will be something quite different than how they were taught to me(under the guise of 'taking the Bible as it is') growing up and emphasized as an adult. Here is a page from that book.
This is the primary source of one of the crippling splits in our American culture. It is similar to how the Bible was, and still is by more than a few, culturally used to support racism and a belief, conscious or unconscious, in white supremecy. Historians say that even Abraham Lincoln did not fully overcome the bent toward belief in whites being somehow superior to blacks.
It is not just that such cruel beliefs are present among us but worse is the practical discrimination, social marginalization and legalized inequality that flows from them.
First, it must be faced honestly that there is no such possible thing as 'taking the Bible as it is' as our way of applying it today. That is a self deceiving and, I think, irresponsible approach to the Bible.
To use and apply the Bible means to decide, preferably consciously and intentionally, on the means of interpreting and applying it for ourselves.
With what we know in our times I'm thinking a most profitable way to interpret the Bible is in light of depth psychology. Since the amazing Bible is on the surface full of metaphors, visions, miracles and dreams from the ancient past, this is a very fitting way to approach it.
This way of interpreting it would be similar to taking and learning from it as it were a dream someone(s) has had. In the book The Bible As Dream by Murray Stein we get help and a feeling for what this approach to the Bible is like.
We can expect such an effort to change what the few passages used, I think tragically and very unkindly, to condemn LGBT love today come to mean to us. It will be something quite different than how they were taught to me(under the guise of 'taking the Bible as it is') growing up and emphasized as an adult. Here is a page from that book.
