Skipping back to JJs question which still hasn't been addressed: what is a sin and are some worse than others?
Strictly speaking, theology tends to deal with 'sin' (singular) rather than 'sins' (plural) - this isn't as pedantic as it sounds, as 'sins' tend to be one-off actions - eg, a one night stand or nicking something - whereas 'sin' is humanity's state of separation from God. We tend to talk in terms of sins because they are the symptoms that we see (and the things that society wants to control by using religious language and threats...), but the real issue isn't the symptoms but the cause. The idea of sin is that people have set themselves against God (as the Adam and Eve story puts very well - and when I call it a myth I don't mean fiction in a disparaging sense, some truths can only be adequately expressed in story format - so the story might be more true than a historical account, that is might express what was really happening better - this kind of symbolic true story is called a myth). If you think of the way small children are totally egotistical, incapable of empathy or generosity, then you get the idea: they haven't comitted 'sins' at all, obviously, but they are not yet what we want people to be - loving, caring, thoughtful etc. An analogy often used in the bible is the image that as children are to adults, we are to God. Obviously this isn't literally true (I think bloss will agree? ), since God is infinitely more than we can comprehend, but it points us in the right direction. I imagine anyone of us would agree that we are often selfish, grasping, egotistical creatures who don't love our neighbour (ie everyone in the world) as much as ourselves? Well thats sin.
Teh second bit of the question, are there worse sins than others, uses the other definition, of 'sins'. IMO the answer to this is 'no'; sin is endemic in our lives, it twists our relationships with each other and with God.[ Christianity (possibly other religions too, I don't know) is at least partly about recognising this - we can't begin to put things right if we don't recognise they are wrong in the first place.] As a result of sin, we commit 'sins', but these aren't the problem they are symptoms, and although they can be very destructive they are not what God is ultimately concerned with. Anyway, to someone infinitely good, a tiny wrong and a huge wrong are both pretty much the same! Of course, they are not the same to society, and different societies place different values on different crimes or actions, and of course they get lumped on to the dominant religion in that society. So for example the church at the moment seems to be obsessed with sex, and listening to some of the stuff shouted about when Jeffrey John was appointed you'd think God was far more concerned who someone slept with than whether they were selling arms to a dictator or oppressing millions of poor workers.
By the way - bloss, I'm not offended and I'm sorry I brought in things other people had said to our discussion, I agree this is not helpful, I was just having a rant!! I think the church needs both of us - well, needs everyone.
Someone wanted the reference to the two laws quote - its Matthew 22:36-40. Jesus says love god and your neighbour - all the other laws and teachings depend on these, in other words all are ways of doing these two. So we can't just ignore all the detailed teaching of the bible, we have to look at it in its original context, see why that was considered the most loving thing at the time (as bloss said about slavery earlier for example) and then consider whether that is still the case in a changed context - you have to take the bible seriously, and doing that involves understanding what it actually says (ie, what the original languaages say, their nuances, literary allusions, jokes, puns, wordplays, possible misreadings etc, not just what our english translation says), and what that meant when it was written.
What we think the bible is is the crux of much of the debate here and in the wider church. Everyone who is a Christian agrees it is 'the inspired word of God' - but we differ enormously on what we mean by that!! The bible certainly isn't God's definitive Word - that is Jesus. A very clever Calvinist (ie about as unliberal as you can get ) theologian called Barth described the bible as 'words witnessing to the Word', which I think is very good. And different bits of the bible are different things. ('Bible' means 'books', plural) - some are history (which is different from what we mean by history, but still recognisable), some poetry, the psalms seem to be a hymn book, some is myth, some (like the gospels) are the equivalent of the 'oral history' you get now when asking old people about the first world war, some are people's descriptions of dreams or visions they had, etc etc. Very little even purports to be written by God himself without human intervention - the only bit I think off the top of my head that claims to be this is the 10 Commandments (which are described as being written by the finger of God on the stone tablets). But that isn't to say the whole can't be inspired by God.
After all, if you think about it, why do people think it is God's word (as so many indisputably do)? It can't just be because the bible says so - few people are so dumb as to believe a document because the document tells them to! And in fact the bible doesn't make any such claim - as someone said earlier, the books that go into the bible were only set in the 4th century, and there is no overall introduction or anything saying 'the following book is God's word' (I mean, there isn't in the bible itself). BUT, people do believe it. I think this is because something about the bible commands respect and to be taken seriously, people read it and EXPERIENCE it as being God's word because it has a transformative effect on them. I accept this may seem hard to swallow if you've read bits and pieces, and if you don't believe the whole thing. But if you try reading say one of the gospels - the whole thing at a time, in a good modern translation (say the NIV or RSV eg - not the King James Version!!) - and give it a try, they are only as long as a chapter of a novel - you may well be struck by something about it which rings true. I'm not saying I think you'll be converted and suddenly say 'oh yes its all true', I'm saying you'll probably find it intriguing, perplexing, some bits will really stike a chord and seem amazingly relevant, other bits will really annoy you. After all, why are we having this thread if people aren't interested?? People get very annoyed with the bible where it seems immoral, dangerous, wrong because for some reason it seems IMPORTANT that it be right. I don't think that's jsut becasue so many people do think its right, because it seems to have had that effect right from the beginning, through Jewish history before Jesus as well as in the last 2000 years. Yes its a human document, yes it is a variety of things and genres, yes it isn't God - but it is understood as inspired by God because people experience it as mediating God to them.
I'll have to watch it, I'm starting to sound like an evangelical
BTW, my sermon this morning went down OK - though a few raised eyebrows when I compared Jesus to marmite (yes, you get it, you either love him or hate him)...!!! Thanks for all your thoughts/prayers.