(June 18, 2022 at 9:56 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: In my own situation, I bear much of the blame in that I was not inquisitive or intellectually honest enough. Also, though, I harbor a lot of resentment towards clergy and other people whose life's work this entails. I have interacted over the years with many I now hold negative thoughts about for willful obfuscation of information that would have challenged my assumptions. I think this is fair - these are people with a fiduciary trust over "souls", and releasing only the bits of information - all of which they are well aware of if they went to and paid attention in any reputable seminary - is akin to a stockbroker only highlighting the positive aspects of a company investment and intentionally not mentioning its pending bankruptcy. I'm not saying they need to preach all aspects of every issue from the pulpit every Sunday, but I have had innumerable one-on-one meetings with many, many pastors and theologians over the years over both trivial and weighty issues. I've had them to dinner at my house with my family. I've spoken to them on the phone, written letters and emails, etc, etc, etc. How is it then, that after *decades* in the church, I only now am really learning about the Johannine comma and other disputed scripture passages, for instance? (One example among many - textual, theological, etc).
I'm very much an outsider. Where I live is about 2% Christian, and I've never attended a church service in my life. From this distant perspective, it sort of looks to me as if American Christianity breaks down into two styles: community members and scholars. (Which is not to say that the scholars are necessarily good scholars.)
Probably for the majority, it's about community, group identity, pep talks on Sundays, some kind of sense that they are part of something that's aimed at the good. I suspect if you ask most of these people about the Johannine comma, they'd be happy to admit that it's above their pay grade. The experts can argue that, but we're working on the bake sale.
The only Christian in my immediate family is my niece, and she's very much this way. She does a lot of the music stuff for the church and has youth picnics, etc. She's at a liberal church in a biggish city, so they work on material support for new immigrants. They have gay weddings and state on their web site that they are welcoming to LGBT+ people. I doubt very much if she could point to a single textual issue that scholars debate.
The scholarly types are no doubt in the minority. So it doesn't surprise me that you came to this late. Probably your pastors didn't consider the textual issues to be crucial to how you lived your life as a Christian.
