- It is a fallacy to believe that people of faith derive their values primarily from their Scriptures. The opposite is true. People of faith insert their values into their Scriptures, reading them through the lens of their own cultural, ethnic, nationalistic and even political perspectives.
After all, scripture is meaningless without interpretation. Scripture requires a person to confront and interpret it in order for it to have any meaning. And the very act of interpreting a scripture necessarily involves bringing to it one’s own perspectives and prejudices.
A fantastic theologian at my undergrad university makes the same point in his book, So I started, "The way I interpret this passage..." and he cut me off and said, "I'm not interested in your interpretation. I'm only interested in what the Bible says." I said, "Okay, my bad" and read the passage aloud. Then I sat there, and he sat there, and I sat there, and he sat there. And he said, "Well?" I said, "Well, what?" He said, "You just read the passage." I said, "You weren't interested in my interpretation." He said, "Okay what's your interpretation?" And on we went. I completely agree. That's why I identify as a Progressive Christian. Because the word "Christian" means something different to everyone. I'm sure Islam is the same. Adding an adjective gives it a little more meaning. It's also why I stopped wearing a cross, and started wearing a Franciscan pendant (I'm not Catholic). Because the symbol of the cross is likewise diluted to meaninglessness. People argue Jesus taught completely opposite things. There isn't nearly so much argument about the teachings of Francis of Assisi.scripture is meaningless without interpretation
Someone once asked me to have a discussion about 1 Corinthians 14 and charismatic gifts. I said, "Great. I'd love to."
I'm the sort of person that takes things as they are. If a book says "people shouldn't work on sunday" I'm not going to attempt to explain it away and say all the reasons that it's old, and doesn't apply, and shouldn't matter. If I say I follow that book, I'm not going to fucking work on sunday. The bible has passages in it that, from my view, seem to very strictly state that "this book should not be changed". I fail to see the difference between going in and changing the words vs explaining them away with some BS interpretation that goes through leaps in bounds just to ignore things that clearly do not fit into modern society. I can definitely see how people can put their own values, find different things as less or more important, but that doesn't change the fact that the bible, the quaran, and most all of the other holy books very clearly have passages and statements that are bullshit, immoral, and honestly have no place in any hotel room drawers. No amount of interpretation will or can ever change that.