Taking it all literally

My local Church minister gave an interesting sermon last week.

I like his sermons. He has a very analytical mind and he likes to get behind the scriptures and try to drill into how they came to be written and what they are supposed to say to us.

For me being a Christian is about accepting what Jesus was/is. The Son of God. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This is fundamental, it is what separates the divinity from a mere (deceased) mortal who was but a prophet and an all round good bloke.

The Bible is the Word of God, but written by human hands. If a reference is made in a Book of the Old Testament to an angel wearing a blue hat, is it necessary for me to believe or accept that the angel must have been wearing a blue hat? Does my Faith crumble about my feet if scientific research later establishes that he/she (what gender are angels?) was in fact wearing a red hat?

This is what concerns me about fundamentalism. The defiant refusal to accept that anything written in the Holy Book could be in any way allegorical, exaggerated, misunderstood, misinterpreted (through several literal interpretations) or just plain wrong renders it much more difficult for us to make the simple case for Christianity - that Christ was as one with God, was without sin, died for us, rose from the dead and is alive in us today. All, as it happens, beliefs that science has never been able to successfully refute!

It is an observation worth making that the Gospels do, in places, appear to contradict one another. Where they do it is difficult to conclude that both or all the conflicting stories are correct. And yet it is their differences which give them their strength and make their underlying message more ultimately believable. Here are four uncollaborated accounts of the life of Jesus, wholly different in time and emphasis, which all come together on the fundamental message.

When one considers what unites the Gospels, you won't find me arguing too much about the colour of an angel's hat.