The End of Idolatry and the Beginning of Love

Rather than struggle on and on about this whole issue, I need to make up my mind to stand for God.  Wherever the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy is in opposition to the character of God, I will stand with God.  Where it opposes Beauty, I will stand with Beauty.  Where the Bible is written as sacred myth, I will let it stand as myth and learn from it.  I will stop forcing the Bible to conform to some man-determined ideal, and let God be the one true God. 

This will not be an easy transition for me.  I will have to overcome my past.  I have frequently put the Bible in God’s place.  I have become accustomed to taking God’s authority and handing it to this book of Scripture.  I bowed down to the material rather than looking to the Spirit.  I have defended the inerrancy of a book rather than defend the goodness of God.  I worshiped the creation over the Creator.

In the past I have undertaken militant and harsh crusades to rid myself (and others) of the idols of materialism, pride, lust etc.  At times I developed a bit of a paranoid obsession against “the world” and what the world told me was important and worthy of devotion.  Those were worthwhile endeavors, but I realize now that I was guilty of a much more severe idolatry and I never even noticed it.  Wow.

I don’t know exactly how all of this plays out from here.  This diary/blog is part of the process.  I want to think anew through my priorities, beliefs, and behaviors.  It will be a long process and I will never be completely free of my past, but I no longer have any excuses why I should not immediately begin.  I no longer need be bound by today’s evangelical version of biblical truth.

I will seek, teach, and defend Truth, Beauty, and Love, for God is Truth, Beauty, and Love.  And I will begin the long process of freeing myself of false, ugly, and hateful ideologies whether anyone or not thinks they are “Biblical”.