Feeling confused about my religion

[DSM]

I consider myself Christian, I believe in god and pray on occassion.

But, there is so much in the bible that I absolutely cannot agree with, particularly it's views on homosexuality and sex before marriage, though I am sure there is more.

It confuses me, can I still be christian if I don't believe in all of it? Can I simply pick and choose the areas I believe in, or agree with? Would my marriage, in a church be frowned upon by god due to my feelings?

I'm not wildly religious, I don't go to church (though was brought up going weekly) but I have my beliefs and just want a discussion, really.

I was in the same position as you. The thing was that the bible has been interpreted and rewritten so many different times and the religion itself manipulated by many in power it was so hard to take.

I believed in something "god" like but could not find a religion to compliment my beliefs.

I think tht faith and religion are, two different things entirely. Faith comes from within, it is your own spiritual path. Trust your instincts, they are hardly ever wrong. You do not need a church as a go between.

Personally I started to read about wicca and everything fell into place. It's not for everyone but I felt that I found that many of the christian aspects that I did accept had remnants of a pagan past anyway.

Thanks wubbzy.

So, what are Wiccan beliefs? Is it still about god?

The thing about the bible is that it is more of a library than a book, some books are in there for background, or to put the new testament in context. Some bits of the old testament are contradicted or refined by the new testament. Some bits need to be read in the context of the time they were written. It is a growing, developing and living - still living - continuing story of our relationship with God. It is easy to take a single passage and walk away with the wrong idea, and often people who use it to condemn others are doing just that. To me the core is the gospels and the core message of the gospels is of God's love for all of us, his mercy and compassion, to all of us, whosever, whatever we are. Also core is the commandment to love neighbours, to love enemies, to forgive, and not to be judgmental. That's hard and most of us don't acheive it most of the time, but that is what it is about, not about condemning people.

Hope you find some answer to your question

Acorntree - that's a lovely account. I like that.

Thank you.

HAve you tried an Alpha course? Think they are supposed to be good if you have lots of questions...

Can I simply pick and choose the areas I believe in, or agree with?

In reality, you can't do anything else if you're going to be true to yourself.

Some parts of the Christian church realise this, others don't - the Anglican church manages to span from fundamentalists to bishops who don't believe in the virgin birth; from those who believe homosexuals should be killed (Uganda) to practising gay bishops (USA) and all shades in between.

I was going to comment on this last night but was too tired to make sense but I was going to say pretty much the same as acorntree said.

I'm not sure that, as a Christian, I can 'pick and choose' exactly but what I can, and do, do is to work very hard at finding context and reconciling that and what the Bible says to my own instinct as to what is 'right' - and it boils down pretty much as Acorntree says. The fundamentals are that we love God and love ou neighbour. I am a Christian because believe that, whatever it is that God is, Jesus is his / its most perfect human representative. Everything else, I just have to figure out as I go along, but this is the start and end point of my faith.

Also - as an 'add on' to that, it is important to remember that failure to to those things are a 'sin'. But 'sin' in the NT is not actually the heavily loaded word that we hear when we use it today (after 2000 years of church history). To 'sin' is simply to 'get it wrong'. We all do it. I'm coming round to trying to make the point that we all sin, all the time and that in God's eyes, there is no hierarchy of sin. In his eyes all sins are equal. Folloiwing this logically - even if God regards as (using your examples) sex before marriage and homosexuality as sins, they are no worse than the sins of, say, gossiping, or feeling envious of something someone else has. We all 'sin' equally and none of us should be more or less condemned than anyone else.

I think it's also interesting to note that Jesus doesn't mention homosexuality at all. Not once. He does, however, speak out against adultery and divorce, and yet most churches have acknowledged and accepted into their congregation divorced and adulterous Christians! Go figure?!

Finally, I'll leave you with one of . It might help!

Sorry - I should have added that the West Wing clip is to illustrate that 'picking and choosing' goes both ways! But if you are going to do it, do it based on the right motives - do it through a desire to love God and your neighbour; not to judge or condemn them.

DSM, I find the answers to things are inside myself, which might sound odd. No one can prove or disprove god, but if you think god exists then that's what you think. I think going with your gut and listening to your heart are sometimes the right places to find answers.

When I went to be interviewed for training as a minister, I was asked if I believed everything in the bible. I said "I guess I can't, otherwise I wouldn't be here", referring to what Paul said in the bible about women being silent in churches.

There are some things in life there are never going to be a definitive answer to. I've met some lovely Christians who also just happen to prefer their own gender. I think that their trying to deny their sexuality is pointless. Does it make them a bad Christian? Does it make me a bad Christian? Who knows? All I know is that I answer to God alone.

I think God loves you for who you are and whatever you believe. THAT'S the important thing. Love God, love others, love yourself. The finer details are window dressing.

Acorntree, Mrs C and Mary - spot on. Great posts :)

Thank you all for your replies. I feel a sense of fulfillment in knowing I am not alone in feeling like my beliefs are not necessarily conducive to the bible, yet are accepted by god.

I guess my biggest concern was that marrying in church, in front of god, would not be wholly right, as I do not follow the word of the bible (as it is often preached) regarding sex before marriage, and homosexuality (though I am heterosexual, but have no feelings on homosexuality, I just don't see the difference, really).

I feel better about this, though I feel I still have many unanswered questions!

Well if sex before marriage is wrong, then marrying in the sight of God will make it right, surely? :)

What sort of unanswered questions? Or are they unanswerable questions? :o

Oh dear, where do I start?

I find the bible very hard to understand. I believe in creationism, though I think it's not as literal as people think, I don't think it was actually done in 7 days as such, maybe 7 'god' days, not our 24 hour days iyswim. I like to think of the bible stories as more metaphorical fables rather than real life events.

But then I wonder if I am completely wrong, and I'm thinking the wrong things and not only is it incorrect, but also blasphemous to 'rewrite' the bible for myself.

I believe in heaven and hell in quite literal terms also, which is probably crazy.

Remember the bible was written by people who were very metaphorical in the way they spoke - think of the way Jesus uses parables for example, using metaphor and stories to describe underlying truths was very much part of their way of doing things.

I remember when I was quite small my mother sat me down with an illustrated children's bible and an illustrated children's encyclopedia describing evolution and said look - the pictures are the same. They are different ways of describing the same truth.

DSM I think most modern Christians understand the Bible in these terms :) I know I do, and I do not in any way find it fatal to my faith!

I think all questions boil down to 'If X is true / untrue, does this affect my relationship with Jesus / God?' Only if the answer is 'yes' do I then go on and worry about it, try to understand it more deeply, find a context for it, try to reconcile it to my modern view of the world etc etc.

To take a couple of quite fundamental questions as examples:

Did God create the world as described in Genesis? (whether a literal 24 hour day or longer 'God' day as you describe). Answer: I don't know! Does it affect my relationship with God, whether Genesis is literally 'true' or not? No, it doesn't.

Another one: was Mary a Virgin when she conceived? It's a hard one to get your head round. Did an angel really come to her to tell her she would have God's child? I don't know. Does it matter? To me - no. It doesn't change my relationship with God one way or another, whether the Virgin Birth is literally true or not.

As I said above in my previous post, I have a personal 'crux' of faith: that Jesus is God's personal representative. My relationship is with him and my faith is based upon that, and what I can learn from that relationship. That doesn't mean I can't also learn from the Bible, but I learn it in the context - always - of what I know and am learning about that relationship with God.

Does that make any sense?

Good post, Mrs C!

"Another one: was Mary a Virgin when she conceived? It's a hard one to get your head round. Did an angel really come to her to tell her she would have God's child? I don't know. Does it matter? To me - no. It doesn't change my relationship with God one way or another, whether the Virgin Birth is literally true or not."

I actually think that anyone who can believe in God, who believes that Jesus is his Son and forgives us our sins, wouldn't find this a huge thing to believe in! How can we believe in one amazing, fantastic, incredible thing and not accept that the Virgin birth could also be possible?

Of course, there are those who believe neither and think I am a raving loon

DSM I hope you find the answers you are looking for. I can certainly recommend the Alpha course, I have done it and helped on it in the past.

I think that many Christians struggle with many issues. Struggling with things is part of life!

For me, as a Christian for the past 27 years (since age 18) the key thing is that Jesus died on a cross in my place, for all the bad things I have done, and for the whole world. Through God's holy spirit I am able to have a relationship with God the father and with Jesus (God the son) and this involves some praying and reading the Bible and being part of a local church where I feel I can get and give support and worship God in a warm and friendly family environment. Although the people at my church would not necessarily agree with all my views or thoughts, or I with theirs, we agree about what we believe about Jesus and we seek to support and help each other.

If you decide to find a church to visit or attend you may find one which does an Alpha course or a similar welcoming/open to new people course would be very receptive and welcoming to you, however often you wished to visit or how you wished to engage with them.

I sincerely hope you will find answers to your questions or work out exactly what you believe (baring in mind some of the lesser things change as time goes on!). But the very key thing is that God loves us and wants to have a real relationship with us, and that is pretty wonderful (IMHO).

All the best.

PS Your post made it sound like you are not actually involved with a church at the moment, my apologies is that is not the case and you do have a church!

If I have said anything to offend that was not my intention and I really do understand where you are coming from as I have struggled over the years with working out what I believe and what that means for me!

DSM - in the original Hebrew the word for 'day' is 'yom'. This can mean a 24-hour period, but at other times in the Bible it is translated to mean 'a period of time'. So it could be that God created the world in 6 lots of, say, 5 billion years - or something like that.

As for believing in all of the Bible, I haven't been a Christian for 20 years now, but I'm starting to explore it again and am attending an Alpha course. However, there are certain 'immovables' that I have (homosexuality, abortion, creation, role of women, etc) and if they stop me being a Christian then this means that it isn't the religion for me. I want a faith that fits with me, not the other way round.