But it seems to me "literalism or nothing" is something of a false dichotomy. Presumably scholarship and, yes, discernment and prayer exist to help us view the Bible as the complex document it is: divinely inspired, but written by humans and thereby subject to all their foibles.

That said, I can't immediately think of any Episcopalian priests whose general theology I agree with who really issue prescriptive moral boundaries beyond the Great Commandment. Maybe Micah: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

God wantiing us not to be assholes makes sense; God wanting us not to screw assholes makes rather less. Or to put it less crudely, what sort of loving being makes up arbitrary rules that don't really matter? How do people say "Well, I don't see anything wrong with homosexuality, but the Bible says it's bad, so it must be. Ways above my ways and all that"? We don't need the Bible to tell us murder is wrong. We don't need the Bible to tell us we shouldn't steal. We know these things are wrong.

To my mind, the Bible is there to show us a story of redemption and reconciliation and to give us a message of how we can be redeemed and reconciled with God. There are old rules that are part of that story, but they belong to the Hebrews, not to us. Focusing on the rules of the Bible misses the real message of it.


Sorry about the exceptionally rambling nature of this post. It's late and I'm on my phone, meaning that by the time I end a sentence I have forgotten how it began.