Pendaric

In my younger, teenage days, I attended church for about 5 years and sat through a number of sermons, attended a number of bible study groups.

I can't remember any of them mentioning any of the more questionable bits of the Old Testament. Very much cherry picked through it to find the 'Glory to God' bits, and mostly concentrated on the New Testament.

So my question: do any churches ever bother to discuss the morally ambiguous bits of the bible with their flocks, or do they just pretend they don't exist and hope that the herd don't notice them (which would be my experience)?

Barcode

In my experience, stories such as God destroying cities or Herod's slaughter of the first born are glossed over and ignored: If you find yourself engaged in a theological discussion, such stories are usually "metaphors" to remind us of God's wrath.

Most of the time, I meet Christian's who have read The Bible, but their brain does not seem to register the stories of mass genocide. Some act surprised when you point out the relevant part, and then you can see the shutters come down as they say "but you have to take it in context, it's just meant to reflect society at that time."

Which leads to the very problem you cite - if it's bad it's metaphorical and inaccurate (unless you're one of these worrisome types who think it's literal and we should all cower in fear before almighty God) - whereas if it's good, then it is true.

If a Priest got up and began reading for example " They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. " (2 Chronicles 15:12-13) then I imagine churches would quickly become empty.

People go to hear about the love of God, not how they are going to be stoned to death for minor misendeamours. It's bad business sense to tell your flock God would have killed them during biblical times.

DMB

Just think of the trouble if they started prohibiting shellfish and clothing of mixed fibres.

Spanky

I found my experience to be the same as Barcode's, that the violence throughout the BI-BULL was used as a metaphor.

My question is if we use these examples as metaphors than why not the virgin birth,walking on water, healing people possessed with devils (still makes me laugh), the crucifixion,and the resurrection?

I hate to say it but that is how it is, baldbantam, Christianity has been made into a marketable religion. They do seem to pick and choose what they want to adhere to.

Finding diamonds in a dunghill

jafosei

I attended church for a long time, and I did hear sermons about some of the morally ambiguous bit of the bible. Some of the pastors I've had were really good about challenging their congregations with serious questions.

I remember one sermon that included that bit about one of the biblical heroes having sex with his daughters (I forget who that was, at the moment). The pastor said something about how the bible was true because it didn't whitewash the evil things some of the biblical heroes did. In fact, the bible went to great lengths to show that even these great men had failings. Therefore, even though we weren't perfect and had our own failings, we still had our chance to be good, because even the *greatest* people in the bible did some truly horrible things from time to time. They were forgiven, just as we would be forgiven if we truly believed.

I attended a religious private school as well, and the religion classes would occasionally tackle some of the difficult stuff. They didn't gloss over it too often, and they often managed to find plausible, reasonably intelligent ways to interpret difficult passages. They did occasionally use the "different times" defense, but it wasn't used exclusively.

One of the reasons that my own deconversion took so long was that I had been exposed to many of the horrors of the bible, but had been given enough of a rationale for much of it to withstand the simpler questions.

These may not be common experiences, though. I know my school occasionally got flack from parents who felt that those issues might drive the kids away from the Lord, and the pastors who were more challenging were also considered controversial and not universally appreciated. The best pastor my church had (in my opinion) actually managed to divide the congregation irreparably due, in part, to his challenging nature. Most churches probably avoid this type of thing.

lpetrich

It's Lot -- his daughters wanted children and they did not expect to get husbands, so they gave Lot lots of wine to drink and had sex with him.

Their offspring became the ancestors of the Ammonites and the Moabites; I think that this story was invented to suggest a disreputable origin for them.

jafosei

That sounds right.

Probably. Of course, the explanations my pastor came up with were based on the idea that the bible was literally true and correct, not the idea that the bible was written at various times to fullfill political and theological purposes. Neither my church or my religious teachers in school ever mentioned the alternate theories of biblical authorship and intent. We did study the bible, but serious biblical scholarship was something I only found out about a few years ago.

I didn't find the reasons my pastor gave entirely satisfactory, personally, but they were enough to stave off most of my doubts anyway. And he did try to address some of the issues, which is more than can be said of many other preachers.