Alan & Brenda Leonard

1/26/03 11:12:

> Ok, but if I weren't a Bible literalist, how would I know what to
> believe? How would I know if I should believe in heaven or God at
> all? And would I even be able to call myself a Christian anymore,
> because what would I know to be true about Christ?

You call yourself a Christian because you believe Jesus to be the Christ,
the son of God. That's all you need to know to be true about Christ to be
Christian, and many people are faithful Christians without believing every
word of the Bible to be literally true.

There are many ways that we receive information about the world. Not all of
it is from writing and books, some things you know because you have felt
them. There is nothing written that tells you that you are in love with
another person; you simply know that because of how you feel. In this way,
if you have felt God's love, then you have certainty in your heart about
what you believe.

Part of unschooling is letting our children learn by experience. They can't
read about fire being hot and understand without having experienced its
heat. No matter how many times we tell them about it, they won't get it.
If you have experienced God's presence in worship or prayer, then that
confirms what you believe.

Even if I don't take scripture to be literal, I still learn a lot about God
from what the Bible tells me. Here's a non-bibilcal example of that: the
story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and admitting to
his father that he did it. This is not believed to be an historic event,
but it does reveal him as a man of integrity.

Finally, one of the great scripture scholars, Raymond Brown, wrote the
following in reference to the two differing versions of the story of the
Nativity found in Matthew and Luke's gospels:

"Our Christmas pageants usually combine the two stories, but when biblical
scholars attempt to reconcile the conflicting material they can't. We might
do better to recognize that the Holy Spirit was content to give us two
different accounts and that the way to interpret them faithfully is to treat
them separately. Not try to force a harmony out of some mistaken notion
that if scripture is inspired it has to be historical as well."

I like that last sentence.

brenda,
with help from dh, alan, who was actually in town this weekend

Barb Eaton

All very well put Brenda. I'm sure you will enjoy your weekend with your
dh.:-)

Barb E
"A poor fit between your passions and your work may be
more detrimental than a poor fit between the demands of
your job and your current abilities."

- Robert K. Cooper, Author in ³The Other 90%²




on 1/26/03 3:26 PM, Alan & Brenda Leonard at abtleo@... wrote:
> You call yourself a Christian because you believe Jesus to be the Christ,
> the son of God. That's all you need to know to be true about Christ to be
> Christian, and many people are faithful Christians without believing every
> word of the Bible to be literally true.
>
> brenda,
> with help from dh, alan, who was actually in town this weekend