To find the Christian faith difficult to understand?

[redshinyshoes]

Firstly, I am not looking for a fight, trying to upset anyone and I can see why this may sound ignorant but I am genuinly curious. I was brought up in a very atheist household where anyone religious was treated with suspision but as an adult I have a few Christian friends and would consider myself agnostic. I want to know (but don't feel I can ask my Christian friends as don't want to offend) whether Christians believe the bible word for word or see it as more metaphorical? If it's word for word, how otherwise down to earth intelligent people can fathom a virgin birth, the Earth only being a few thousand years old and the sea parting?

Does anyone know who they follow in Judaism?

It's really interesting, maybe I ought to get a book on Christianity and the different denominations

re: the virgin birth - what most people think this means is that mary had not had sex with a man, that God made her pregnant by, for want of a better word, magic.

but THAT is actually the doctrine of the "immaculate conception"

what fundamental "virgin birth" people ALSO belive, and i do not, is that Mary was STILL a virgin after the birth - ie still had her hymen intact - now THAT would be amazing!

but as everyone else has said, some people believe it is a word for word account, others believe it is mans attempt to explain what he knew of the nature of god, and creation, before the advantage of all the science we know today

and 100% agree that its how you live not what you do and dont believe that counts

I think in Judaism they follow God as in God the Father and believe what is written in the Old Testament to varying degrees depending on how orthodox they are. They believe that Jesus was not the Messiah (son of God), but that the Messiah is yet to come.

ashamedandconfused - the 'immaculate conception' refers to the Mary being conceived without the stain of original sin and not to the conception of Jesus.

I do believe that there is God, but i don't believe in religion. Jews, Muslims, Christians say that there is one God.Is God one for each religion or one in general? if there is only one why all the major religions are trying to prove that they are better than the other one?
I have seen a program on "how real are the facts form the Bible"(this wasn't the title)and the scientists did prove that due to some weather anomalies the partition of the sea(lake?) could have happend. and some translators of the original version in Hebrew said that some parts of the Bible were translated with mistakes. the famous Red Sea actually translates as the Sea of Reeds. i think there are some historical facts in the Bible but over exaggerated to sound like they are not from this world.
maybe Jesus was some kind of Derren Brown? :)

juuule - oh dear i have been misinformed - off to google now

It's not about getting brownie points for good behaviour or earning our way into heaven though ashamedandconfused (would you agree? not sure I have understood what you meant by what counts?)

We're saved by the grace of a God who loves us, not by doing "good deeds".

"and 100% agree that its how you live not what you do and dont believe that counts"

@ Cornflower thanks!

to explain how many religions believe there is one god but all say different things about God(with some agreement/overlap), google the story of the 5 blind men who were taken to meet an elephant - it goes a long way to showing how ANY explanation of the nature of soemthign which is so beyond our human comprehension, is going to be fallible and incomplete

PL

ahhh - planet - you've just reminded me of this joke I found and put on the church newsletter recently

Heavenly Rates

A man dies and goes to heaven. Of course, St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates. St. Peter says, "Here's how it works. You need 100 points to make it into heaven. You tell me all the good things you've done, and I give you a certain number of points for each item, depending on how good it was. When you reach 100 points, you get in."

"Okay," the man says, "I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her, even in my heart."

"That's wonderful," says St. Peter, "that's worth three points!"

"Three points?" he says. "Well, I attended church all my life and supported its ministry with my tithe and service."

"Terrific!" says St. Peter, "that's certainly worth a point."

"One point? Golly. How about this: I started a soup kitchen in my city and worked in a shelter for homeless veterans."

"Fantastic, that's good for two more points," he says.

"TWO POINTS!!" the man cries, "At this rate the only way I get into heaven is by the grace of God!"

"Come on in!"

All assuming you actually believe in heaven...
You're welcome Bumpsadaisy

Like any faith, different Christians believe different things.

Personally, I don't think a literal interpretation of the Bible is appropriate - I believe that it is a book of writings inspired by God that has a huge amount to teach us in life. Thing is, it is easy to forget that the Bible is a collection of many, many different books, different writers and different styles.

E.g. aspects of the Bible serve as excellent historical records (they are recognised as some of the best historical accounts of the period by historians who have absolutely no faith themselves). Some of the books are collections of poetry (Psalms), some are collections of thoughts (Proverbs).

Even individual books have different authors. Genesis for example, is largely historical record passed down through generations, intially by word of mouth (the oral tradition) but aspects of it are poetry (the most famous being the opening chapter) and so warrant a different interptretation.

Re other contentious issues, I believe that God created the world, but I believe fully in evolution - the notion that the world is only a few millenia old simply stems from the homo-centric understanding of the world that people used to have. Obviously, many people have decided to run with it in the face of scientific evidence and my personal view is that this demeans God. I don't think he's beyond kicking off a bit of evolution.

Speaking generally about faith, I think many of the disagreements within different faiths simply stem from the fact that most people have an innate desire/need for certainty which leads to them adopting a rigid world view that can't change, regardless of what we continue to learn and discover. The difficult thing is that certainty is the opposite of faith. My faith is the central tenet of my life, but I have learnt not to hold on to it too tightly, never to assume that I have all the answers. I have learnt as much about God through non-Christian friends and role models as I have through the usual Christian channels.

Sorry for the long post, but tbh it is easy to feel stigmatised as a Christian these days and every now and again its nice to take the opportunity to explain your position a little more.

Oh, and in answer to your question, YANBU 15 years and counting and I find the Christian faith as difficult to understand as ever.

PL - oops pressed wrong button last time -

"and 100% agree that its how you live not what you do and dont believe that counts" - i meant how you live is what makes you a christian - ie doing as jesus did/taught - not for "reward" or to gain the right to heaven or whatever, but because it is a reflection of your "rightness" with god

so someone doing loads of voluntary work with the homeless and never attending church is being "christian" where as someone attending church, quoting the bible all day long, and looking like a pillar of society who bullies their wife and children, comits fraud in their taxes, and is a hypocrite when it comes to charitable giving etc, is not - whatever they might say

redshiny "The impression I get is that the bible isn't actually the most important part of Christianity - I always thought it was." -That's an important thing to grasp. During services, Christians often recite the "Creed" - the list of things they believe - Version here They stand up together and state that they believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. They don't stand there saying that they believe in the Bible. The Bible is important to all Christians, but in different ways, and faith is not about "believing in the Bible", but "believing in God". The Bible describes God's relationship with humanity, but it was written by people, who each had their own agenda and their own level of understanding, and their own misunderstandings about it all.

Judaism and Islam (if I'm correct) are both religions of Abraham. My understanding is that 2 sons split off with differing ideas of how to worship God, but they are the same God. Christianity can also be said to be a religion of Abraham as Jesus was Jewish but for us, the main focus is the New Testamant, with the Old Testament giving us the history.

One of the reasons it's so sad we seem to forever fighting with Muslims - we worship the same God.

Of course I am happy to be contradicted if I've got this wrong

I think the way people worship has more to do with culture & traditions than anything else, most religions fundamentally preach the same values

Ashamedandconfused, I agree wholeheartedly with you, having experienced numerous hypocritical Catholic 'craw-thumpers'...

Hi there - I'm new to mumsnet but hubby is training to be a vicar so feel that here is a post I actually have something to say! Agree with Deepheat - main thing is that the bible is several different types of literature, poetry, history, lists of proverbs, etc. Don't read the poetry like a historical document it won't work!

the MAIN THING is - read the Gospels yourself. (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). They are straightforward authenticated historical accounts about real people who lived and breathed and ate and cried. read them for yourself , don't take anyone else's word for it. You'll be amazed at the Jesus you read about he really blows away any preconceptions you might have had.

let us know how you get on!

so someone doing loads of voluntary work with the homeless and never attending church is being "christian"

I would disagree with you here ashamed, and I think you probably disagree with yourself, as you've put the word christian in quotes. Someone doing loads of voluntary work is being kind, loving, selfless, whatever word you want. Someone who follows Jesus Christ is a christian. As CS Lewis said (and I paraphrase), we have lots of words meaning good - if christian just means good, then we've just lost a word.

redshinyshoes - I don't think it's true to say that most religions preach the same values. The central value of Christianity is that God sent his son to die so that we can be forgiven and have our relationship with God restored. I believe that that the idea of God having a son or that God would allow his son (or even his prophet) to be put to death is anathema to Muslims.

mumtodanielandbump - been there done that still belive, its a load of tripe - yes has some historical basis with places and events but is really just a rehash of lots of previous religions and legends . And even worse it has been twisted in to a patriarchal, paternalistic and patronising creed.

My view is also that the three Abrahamic religions are essentially worshipping the same god and preaching the same thing. So the only real reason I'm a Christian, and not a Muslim or a Jew, is that I was born into it and that means Jesus is the natural way of interpreting and worshipping God for me. But I'm a super wishy-washy CofEer who doesn't even believe the same thing week to week.

Hi OP

To answer your original question, how you interpret the Bible and how much weight you give to its authority depends on which tradition of Christianity you come from and your own personal judgement. I'm Anglican, in case that's relevant.

I would say that the bare minimum that all Christians have in common in terms of belief is that they believe God exists and that the life of Jesus of Nazareth was the fullest expression of what God is like. And after that everything else a Christian might believe about God or Christ or how you should live depends on their own Christian tradition and their own reasoning (Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, don't think that Christ WAS God, although that is a very unusual view among Christians and for that reason they are sometimes not considered to be Christians).

I'd say that the most important part of Christianity is not the Bible, but being in relationship with God: by loving, by praying, by meditation and study, by trying to be Christ-like and by being part of a Christian community. My personal view about the Bible is that it isn't a "rulebook" for living, but a collection of people's responses to God and to Christ's life. It's one of our tools for thinking about God, if you like - the others are the consensus of the church (in the sense of the historic church of all believers that stretches back to the first disciples) and our own reasoning, guided by the Holy Spirit.

It's a mixture of history, myth, poetry, letters, biography and prophecy and to read it as if it were all in the same genre seems to me to be missing the point, which is that God defies description or attempts to pin Him down (by the way, although I use 'him', I don't think that God really has a gender in a way that we can understand). We need these multiple, shifting perspectives on God because if you become attached to a fixed idea of what God is like, you stagnate spiritually, and your view of God is bound to be inferior to His reality.

Some Christians treat the Bible as though it fell out of the sky after being written by God. I personally think that's a mistake because I think individual parts of it have to be interpreted carefully in relation to the rest of it and also taking tradition and reason into account. When you look at a passage, you have to interpret it in light of the whole overarching message of the Bible and the church, rather than in isolation. That doesn't mean that there aren't parts of it that many Christians find hard to reconcile with the overall "spirit" of the Bible though.

IMO, God's creation of the universe follows a metaphorical week - like Baroque said on the first page.

Evolution is totally part of that - think about how people go "if the existence of the universe were put into one year, we would only be in the last 30 seconds of it" - it's just like that, except because long ago, time seemed so much bigger (and people weren't educated either), it was easier to say "first day, this happened, second day this" etc , when each "day" is actually several thousands (even millions) of years.

And yes, that means that evolution made species change and adapt to their surroundings - much the same as humans do!

The Creed is something we recite every service to show what we believe (and sorry for doing this in the "old" language - I like it better (poet/traditionalist in me)
I believe in one God
the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth
and in all things visible and invisible
and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, son of god, begotten of his father before all worlds. God of god, light of light, very god of very god, begotten not made, being of one substance with the father , by whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
and was crucified also for us, under pontius pilate. he suffered and was buried.
the third day he rose again according to the scriptures.
he ascended into heaven, and is sitteth at the right hand of the father.
And he shall come again with Glory, to judge both the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the lord, the giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the father and the son together is worshipped and glorified.
And I believe in one Holy catholic (small c) and Apostolic church, I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
And I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. amen.

That pretty much sums it up.

And we do follow the new testament more than the old testament, because we believe that Jesus came in order to put right what was going wrong- ie he told us how we should behave towards people.

Baroque said something about the KJV being difficult to uinderstand, but I've sat doing bible study with a copy of that and the New international version side-by-side and King James makes more sense!
I do agree with her about the Good News bible - I will always recommend that, because it's proper modern english, but doesn't miss anything out.

The bible translation that is most revered as accurate and following the true meaning (because of transliteration of idioms etc) of the text is the Geneva Bible.