Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
I've always thought one of the great strengths of Christianity is that we do not, in the majority, regard the Bible as the literal word of God. As an earlier poster said, it's not a book; it's a library, cobbled together over millennia. It's full of poetry, wisdom, mutually contradictory instructions, stories, weirdness, sublime passages, the works.

A childhood friend of mine became a monk. He had an interesting take on the ritual and mind-bending contradictions of the Bible: "All of that **** is poetry. God doesn't care about it, just that we do good works and live good lives." Which coincides nicely with Rabbi Hillel's take on scripture: "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."
That is close to Quakerism. Most high churches aren't going to say all their heirachy, money and power is tacked on and not required. Women are still not ordained, priests don't marry due to dogma.