Irreverent Reflections

Is the bible "true"? It starts to occur to me that this is a very dumb question in the context of our culture, where truth is so variable in its definition. But it might also be a dumb question theologically - premised primarily as it is on the mistaken notion of a one-to-one relationship between the Scriptures and the word of God. The only possible one-to-one that we can make with the word of God is Jesus - even if we take the bible as "infallible" - hence John 1:1. So I reckon that the word of God is a person, not a thing. And that correlation in itself seems to me to be much more readily identifiable as God's way of establishing, maintaining and developing relationship with his creation - his intention to converse, connect and create. A better question than "is the bible true" might be - does the Bible accurately reflect the sort of relationship that God might want with us? And this leads to a core premise - that if the answer to this last questio

OK, I've finally managed to add to this - inspired by a seminar I attended today that was a reminder of the power of story . And, in the period since my last (first) post, the church I'm leading has taken large strides towards what I would term reality . A simple statement - propositional truth is the basis of religion. Relational truth is the basis of faith. And, at least in my definition, relational truth is founded in the dynamic experience and mapping of a relationship. And relationships are defined by stories - by the tales of the growth, flowering and maturing of the relationship - and by the accurate retelling of the struggles and pitfalls of that relationship as well. The Bible, for instance, is first and foremost a story. A story about the relationship between God and humanity, that certainly encompasses those aspects of story mentioned above. Part of the redefinition of who we are as a church includes the following understanding of how we best examine our walk of fait