Following gestation over a long period my understanding of the Christian faith has moved away from acceptance of church doctrine and dogma. I do not regard scripture as literally the word of God nor that it is the result of godly inspiration. Scripture, doctrine and dogma are human creations in their entireties and not the result of activity by metaphysical or anthropomorphic sources.
The bible is not a statement of rules set out by an omnipresent god 'out there' that have to be followed if we are to receive the reward of eternal life. It sets out the ideas of authors over 2000 years ago. The world has moved on. Christian belief evolves: it is not set in stone by manuscripts written long ago. But we should not consign the bible to the dump. It is a valuable source and resource of concepts. Yet we need to remember that it is of human origin and not to be cloaked with the veneer of the divine.
It is my perception that we have allowed ourselves to be boxed in by church doctrine and dogma and by scripture. No matter what method of biblical interpretation is used: literal, liberal, historical, progressive etc, we permit our ideas to be contained and constrained by our interpretation of scripture. It is as though our understanding of God's purpose is frozen in time.
Surely we can do better than be boxed in by the gatekeepers and guardians of the 'truth'. We can be inspired by the concepts attributed by the authors of the synoptic gospels to a person we know as Jesus, but we need to appreciate that concepts are just that, subjective, not based on absolutes. Flexibility, not rigidity, is the order of the day.
You might think I am a humanist, or even an atheist, in expressing the opinions briefly outlined above. I reject both appellations. It is my opinion that inherent within each of us is the power to love, if you like, to love our neighbour. So I argue love is God given, it is our task to tease out what that means. Jesus points the way, but he is not the final word. Our understanding of what it is to love should not be boxed in by adherence to scripture. Scripture assists our understanding and action, it must not be used to prescribe or proscribe how we apply the concept of love your neighbour.
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