A few comments on responses to my post.

 danutz

It is possible to resolve a number of the difficulties I have listed by extracting the “meaning and vision” of the gospels and discarding the “worldview” in which they are encased- which includes, if I understand you correctly, anything which is at odds with modern scientific understanding, such as the creation story, divine manipulation of the elements, healing miracles etc. You also want to exclude Jesus’ understanding of God as one that we should be committed to.

I am far from being a literalist as far as the Bible goes (for example, I do not believe that the Genesis creation account is literally true) but your approach eviscerates the gospels: it leaves Jesus as someone comparable to Socrates or Buddha. The only question remaining is whether his ethical and social vision is superior to theirs.

In any event, I do not think that your program for the divorce of content and worldview is an achievable one, whether for Jesus or anyone else.

Jazzact

You asked what I mean by the absence of God. Until perhaps 150 years ago nearly everybody in the West believed in God. Now it is no longer taken for granted and a sizable proportion of people are atheist, especially among the educated.

That is the environment in which our faith seeks to find its feet.

There are Christians who say they have direct experience of God, or a relationship with God. I am not among them. For me God is mediated, by the liturgy, other people, the beauty of the world but even on that understanding God’s face is veiled. I can readily say the first part of Psalm 22 but not the latter part.

Your points 3, 4, 5 in effect say that what I find to be difficulties are not difficulties for you. So be it.

On point 6, I am familiar with the standard theodicies and in my view they are profoundly unconvincing. You appear to suggest that matters will be resolved at Judgement Day. How will that help the people who were tortured at Auschwitz? How will it redeem (the Biblical picture of) a God who can intervene in earthly affairs but chose not to?

Russ

On babble- I suppose it has always been there but after two thousand years it is a deafening roar.

On exclusivism: this a peculiarly Christian and Moslem claim. Most religions are not exclusivist. I don’t deny that Christian exclusivism is rooted in the texts, only that it stretches (my) Christian belief to breaking point