Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

My church is going through a phase of doubling down on doctrine.   My pastor posted this parachurch Statement that was the basic evangelical thing about how we need to take scripture as literally as possible and if we don’t believe that the Bible is a perfect document where every word is perfect from God then we are all doomed.   I posted the following on that Facebook thread. _____________________________________________________________ So, as far as I can tell, here's the mechanics that are work under the game of life... In every kind of social group there is a balance between cohesion and openness. (This applies to everything from political parties to art enclaves to sports fans to religious denominations) When a group creates policy that moves the slider more towards openness they start to lose the essence of what defines them as a group. This has the advantage of bringing more people to the group and the disadvantage of miscommunication/contention regarding the things

A proposed means by which we can view those who believe/vote/act in ways we find horrifically evil, to be, actually, just people.   Like us. I’m walking down the street and come upon a tussle.  Two dudes are fighting. To my left, a bystander points and says “Blonde guy started beating on Brunette guy for no reason! Help him!”  Being a person who wants justice and peace, I act immediately, jumping into the fray. Naturally, being an excellent puncher, I knock Blondie out. Another bystander runs up to me.  “What the hell is wrong with you?! Blondie was defending himself from getting mugged!  You just aided a crime! You absolute garbage person!” You might be surprised to learn that this didn't actually happen to me. It was an allegory.   Here is my point. What did I do wrong in this scenario?  You might say, “You just listened to the first person who told you what was happening.”   I would say: “It was an emergency, there wasn’t time to take a p