Wives submit to their husbands...

[Gillian76]

Have just heard this reading at church and been a rguing with DH. How can I be part of an organisation that teaches:

"SECOND READING Ephesians 5:21-32

Give way to one another in obedience to Christ. Wives should regard their husbands as they regard the Lord, since as Christ is head of the Church and saves the whole body, so is a husband the head of his wife; and as the Church submits~ to Christ, so should wives to their husbands, in everything."?

And this is what it said to the husbands...

"Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless. In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself. A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, because it is his body - and we are its living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body"

Don't feel like I needed to be cleaned before he took me to himself...

And what's more, the priest totally avoided the issue, choosing instead to preach on the other readings.

I have a HUGE problem with this and being part of an organisation that thinks we are not equal to men. What's more I cannot bring my daughters up to believe this.

DH however is staunch Catholic and wants ut to go together.

How can we find some common ground on this?

But MrsBadger, the Bible claims to be The Truth..and the only truth. It also claims that all of it is God breathed. What do you make of that? Are these some of the bits you believe are wrong?

Nearlythree - with respect - and I mean that, as you are obviously someone who is well thought out and have considered your beliefs carefully - what do you believe that makes you say 'I'm a Christian' (I assume you do?). You have said you don't beieve in the nativity, the virgin birth, the ressurection, the infallible nature of the bible...what is left?

You have said you feel close to God and to Jesus, but I wonder how you know who Jesus is if you don't believe that what is said about him, and what he says himself in the Bible is true. Haven't you invented you own god?

I'm not trying to upset you and hope I haven't. I'm interested to hear your point of view.

The people who wrote and edited the Bible (yes, real human people) claim that it is all God-breathed and the one and only Truth.

They are some of the men with the funny hats on in my clumsy metaphor below.

so do you believe that any of the bible is true?

Perhaps it's more what people want to be true, rather than what actually is true.

oh sorry 80smum, was asking MrsB.

I
80smum - beleive the Bible is true, but think it would be an odd thing to make up, or to try and convince myself of. I beleive it because I am convinced by the historical facts and my own understanding of the human condition and my own sinfulness.

But if I were inventing a religion or picking the one I liked the best it would probably be one that says I can do as I please and that that would be fine by God. Do you see what I mean?

• I believe - don't know why my 'I' is up there!

I can't tell how much of the Bible is true - I have no idea whether Og was king of the Bashanites or the Rephaites and I wasn't there on the day that the disciples had an argument about heaven, so how can I know if the Bible has got those facts written down right or wrong?

What I can tell is that the Bible contains some pretty good ideas about how to live your life, and some fascinating accounts of people's experience of and relationship with God.
Personally I'm not asking it to do any more than that - I find enough in there that inspires me without needing to know whether Dan actually was the father of Hushim or not.

Belief and faith are such personal things and I often wish that I had them. But I can't make something be true just because I would like it to be. That's just my view and I'm so glad there are so many people who think differently and have found real faith. Religious people live longer, happier lives than the rest of us, I gather .

I think bloss said it very well earlier - that because the Bible measures up VERY well as an historical document, it mens you have to consider the other claims it makes very carefully indeed before deciding they are not true.

Almost everything the Bible says about historical events (eg, who was king at what time, where a certain city was in relation to rivers/mountains etc, which nations were at war etc)can be verified using other historical documents. The Bible is such a reliable document that many non Christian historians use it as a source.

So, if Bible is just a bunch of folklore, handed down and altered over many generations, then why is it so historically accurate?

And if it is historically accurate, then why would the 'spititual' claims it makes be wrong? Of course they could be, but they're not likely to be.

To continue with bloss' earlier analogy, if someone in a court room was found to have made 8 statement which were proved to be true, then you would likely give the other, non-verifiable claims some weight too, wouldn't you?

80smum, I agree with you, you can't make something true just by wishing it was. I can't make my religion true, it either is, or it isn't.

And conversely, the Bible isn't untrue just because I don't like/understand parts of it. It either is, or it isn't. Thats the nature of Truth.

80smum, perhaps you could have these things too?

Only skimming this thread but I came to a grinding halt at Astrophe's post of 1:12:49

"I'm just not sure why anyone would place any importance at all on 'spirituality' or indeed religion, if they don't actually believe that the Bible is true."

Nice put down of every other religion that isn't 'Christianity' there.

sorry to offend, St George, it wasn't my intention. This thread is about the Bible though. I respect your right to have whatever religion you choose, but I can't pretend to believe that all forms of spirituality amount to the same thing, or that all paths lead to God, because I don't.

I said I'd go away but I keep getting sucked in again...
"And if it is historically accurate, then why would the 'spiritual' claims it makes be wrong? Of course they could be, but they're not likely to be."
I'm sorry but this just doesn't follow at all. Lots of historical novels are correct in every detail as far as known facts are concerned , but they invent all kinds of other stuff. If someone 'invented' a religion today and wrote a book about it, the fact that that book contained accurate information about the society/country it was written about wouldn't make it's spiritual claims true.
Also, the Bible is not one book written by one person, and none of the historical/geographical stuff in the OT has any bearing on the truth or otherwise of the writings in the New Testament.

OK
Today is Friday, here are the readings for Sunday, meet back here after Mass,in case there is anything controversial.

Psalm 15

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8

James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27

Mark 7:1-8,14-15, 21-23

Astrophe is simply wrong about the historicity of the Bible.
Aside from big ones like the flood and creation, it's surprising even to atheists just how bad the correlation between the Bible and objective sources is.
One could form a good "Da Vinci Code" conspiracy by trying to explain why the bible is so spectacularly wrong so often.

Folklore even stuff like the political creations like King Arthur have some correlation with known facts. The Bible is way less accurate.

Jesus is supposed to have done big stuff, and be put to death by the Romans, who as we all know were quite into record keeping.
No Roman records have survived. Indeed there are no first hand records at all of Jesus. The Gospels seem to be 3rd or 4th hand and contradict each other. I take it you don't know about the "issues" with the dead sea scrolls ?
I don't know if you've seen "Smallville" ?
It's a retelling of the early life of Superman in the 21st century.
Thus it's not even an accurate representation of the original Superman myth pattern. Certainly more sex, and the original was not even faintly homoerotic.
But...
In Superman theree is a country called the USA. It has states, and cities, and a president. It is a market economy, and has many farmers. Oh yes, aliens are trying to take it over.

The Bible is way below that standard when describing Egypt.

The Old Testament states all sorts of really big horrible things happening to Egypt.
Except there is no record of these either. First sons dying, plagues, partings of seas, etc would not only have left records but were of such scale that you'd actually expect gaps in the records due to the sheer chaos.
Except you don't see the gaps or mentions.
The really early stuff, is either metaphor, or simply silly bronze age rambling by a tribe cut off from Greek thought depending on the degree of charity you wish to show.
Hint: the world is more than 6,000 years old.
Trust me on this.

Yes, the thread might be about the bible but to put down all religions because of your own personal beliefs is a bit off.

As Dave Allen would say "Goodnight, thank you and may your god go with you"

Hi,
DominiConnor you made me laugh with your Smallville thing. Who knows what future genreations in many thousands of years time (assuming we still inhabit this planet) may make of what was true or not in our times.
Anyway, I love the Bible and know huge swathes of it off by heart; I believe there is no book on earth like it. But then I'm speaking from a position of faith, and I think that therein lies the rub - if you don't have faith, the Bible will mean lttle or nothing (or whatever you want it to mean). One person apparantly used the gospels to prove that Jesus was a professional golfer. Another used the Psalms to prove that God is a chicken ('under your wings I find refuge').
I have a degree in English and the way I've been trained is to interpret everything i read, and even with a believing heart that is looking for comfort, reassurance, hope etc from the Bible every time I read it, I automatically interpret. Sometimes those interpretations may not be great, esp. when dealing with some of the more difficult bits. My way of having integrity in my faith is to return time and again to the Bible and to ask myself what it's really saying, how I can get as close to the original meaning and spirit of the text, and what ramifications it holds for my life today. This is quite a complex process of observation, interpretation and application with always the awareness that what I have right now is only some of the truth, not all of it, because I the reader am fallible and to quote Isaiah "God's thoughts are higher than my thoughts" so by definition I'm not going to be able to understand the fulness of who He is. But equally to quote Paul, as christians we are being changed into his likeness, so hopefully as time goes on we will understand more of who he is.
To my way of thinking this kind of approach to the Bible gains us so much more than trying to prove or disprove its historicity or whatever.
I'd also really strongly recommend the inductive Bible study method for those who really are interested in getting under the skin of what it says and what it means both for its original readers and for us today. It's a disciplined method of Bible reading that focuses on the facts as given in the text and then on key words, themes and so on. I really enjoy this as it exercises my brain and deepens my faith at the same time.
see yas!

Thanks for the support, Mrs.B! Totally agree that we are discussing faith, not fact.

Astrophe, the reason why I am a Christian is because that is what I am, first and foremost, before my sex, race or anything else. No, I haven't invented my own God, because if I had 'it' would be far more comfortable and safe than the one I believe in. Your list of the boxes I need to tick to be in the club, as it were, is one of the reasons I have left the church. I will not lie, and I will not be told what I have to think. I know plenty of people who cannot say the Creed and mean every word.

Bloss, there are aspects of the Bible I believe can be taken as true from a historical pov. There are consistencies in the way Jesus teaches, for example, which are a good way to assess which he is likely to have said. Then there are (as texasrose says) those texts which have meaning but which may not necessarily be historical. For example, just because I no longer believe the birth narratives to be factually accurate, that doesn't mean they have no worth to me. Luke's narrative in particular strikes me as showing how Jesus came to bring justice to the outcasts. And then there is my 'experience' of 'praying the Bible', when something that I might have thought not particularly relevant suddenly takes on new meaning.

To me it makes no sense to believe in the infallibility of a text that is so contradictory and full of holes, any more than my beliefs seem to some of you. Sometimes I wish I could go back to how I used to believe, it was a much safer place. Maybe one day I will; if there is one thing that I have learned it is that faith is fluid. And Christianity is most definitely my truth, but it cannot be the only truth.

Back to the OP...
Gillian - there are lots of splits in the Catholic church over this as well.

I was taught by feminist nuns who instilled us with the belief that women can do anything. I took it for granted until I walked into my first engineering lecture at uni where I was one of 10 women in a class of approximately 200.

Our local priest regularly prays for the church to include women priests during the mass.

My grandmother and her sisters (who were all staunchly Catholic) were a doctor, an architect and a lawyer respectively - they would never have held with a view of women submitting to men.

The 'official' views of the Catholic church can be quite conservative but at a ground roots level that is usually not the case at all.

Message withdrawn

bloss, once again I am readig what you write with awe and a real sense of learning something new every time. I only hope that when I have finished studying theology (am abou tto begin!), that I will have some of your eloquence and sense. Thanks so much!

Message withdrawn

Glad Bloss got here before me as was not looking forward to trawling the internet and all our books for the relevant examples to continue debate with DC . To be honest, I don't think its worth it really, as you seem to have made up your mind DC. I'm not really interested i arguing for the sake of arguing.

Nearlythree, thanks for your answer. I must confess to still not understanding your reasoning, as I understand the things you don't believe in to be the very core of the Christian Faith. I appreciate your considered discussion and will pray for you as you continue your journey of faith.

StGeorge - I've re-read the post to which you objected. Once again, I appologise for causing offence. Please read my comment in the context of the discussion though. What I meant was, that I don't understand why someone would be interested in Christianity (either the 'faith' or the 'religion' as in the organisation) if they didn't believe the bible to be true. I was not even saying that people should not be interested, just that I don't understand it.

For what its worth, I can understand why people would be interested in spirituality if they believe in - say - the Quran - but, again, don't understand why someone would call themselves a Muslim if they did not believe the Quran to be true.

I don't understad it. Feel free to enlighten me.