Peter

“Since, for most centuries since Jesus died, the majority of the population couldn’t read or had limited access to books, why would an all-knowing God think self-revelation through a book was a good idea? For 1,500 years or so after the death of Jesus, God’s holy book remained inaccessible to most everybody except Christian priests who did the reading and interpretation of the book. Does this sound like a plan designed by the “God of the Universe”?”
― David Madison, GUESSING ABOUT GOD

“It is now increasingly agreed that the Old Testament in its final form is a product of and response to the Babylonian Exile. This premise needs to be stated more precisely. The Torah (Pentateuch) was likely completed in response to the exile, and the subsequent formation of the prophetic corpus and the “writings” [poetic and wisdom texts] as bodies of religious literature (canon) is to be understood as a product of Second Temple Judaism [postexilic period]. This suggests that by their intention, these materials are . . . an intentional and coherent response to a particular circumstance of crisis. . . . Whatever older materials may have been utilized (and the use of old materials can hardly be doubted), the exilic and/ or postexilic location of the final form of the text suggests that the Old Testament materials, understood normatively, are to be taken [understood] precisely in an acute crisis of displacement, when old certitudes—sociopolitical as well as theological—had failed.[”
― Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins

“Within fundamentalism, humans are trained towards passivity and codependence because of the emphasis put upon external guidance and divine control.”
― Jamie Lee Finch, You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity

“For many, losing god feels like losing a parent, and that loss has the potential to be devastating (Winell 4). The loss of god is an extremely complicated grief. People feel shame for their grief, believing they should be able to get over the loss of god quickly or they should not feel so devastated. They may feel that their devotion was simply a set of cognitive beliefs, when in reality their belief had deep emotional and relational impact.”
― Jamie Lee Finch, You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity