Cherry Picked Theology


All of the verses referenced in the picture are from the New Testament, but don’t worry, there is plenty of misogyny in the Talmud and the Qu’ran as well.

I remember quite a few discussions in my theology classes in college where we talked about the role of women in the church. Since I was a student in one of the most progressive SDA universities out there, it shouldn’t be surprising that they figure out various tricks and games to dismiss these verses. They presented a hermeneutic (system of interpreting Biblical passages) that would culturally contextualize passages. Since these passages were all written by people immersed in cultures that viewed women as chattel, we can dismiss them as being an example of the culture and not of God’s will.

Nearly all Christians do the same with passages about slavery. Pacifist Christians do the same with passages about war and capital punishment.

If they could take that step with those topics, then why couldn’t they do the same with passages about creation. They were obviously written by people in a scientifically illiterate culture. If you look at it in the cultural context and remove the cultural baggage, then there would be no reason to reject modern science.

Let’s take it a step further. Let’s look at the supernatural passages in the Bible. Those were all written by people who carried superstitious, mythical cultural baggage. Remove that and then you could easily find yourself at naturalistic atheism.

I’m not trying to make a slippery slope argument here. I’m just saying that Christians need to find a consistent logical approach to what parts of their scripture they ignore. The liberal Christians who consistently give ground to the advances of science and culture and the fundamentalists who try to live by every word of the Bible just as it’s written are the only ones being consistent. Everyone else needs to go back to the drawing board.

(Image Via Nakedpastor)

1 Comment


  1. With Creationism, it's due to the fact that it is literally the only thing they have left. Science has explained what matter is, how the sun works, cellular and molecular biology, diseases and all manner of natural phenomena, like Rainbows, which were previously attributed to God. With every decade, science has gradually explained more and more about the universe, leaving less room for religious explanations.

    Simply put, The Origin of Life and the Universe is the last gap Christians can cram their god into. It's literally the LAST GAP. If they give it up, then there really is no reason for religion to exist any more. With Slavery and the other passages, that can be explained away as cultural things – but if you take god out of the origin of Life, then that's it – the game is up. If they admit that humans evolved, like any other species, then they admit that maybe there was no God to create us. If no God created us, then there's no such thing as original sin, which deprives them of their argument that you have to submit to the church in order to become a good person.

    Furthermore, if they admit humans evolved, then it also means that our mental abilities are biological in nature and arose through evolution. This eliminates the possibility of a soul, which then eliminates the possibility of an afterlife which eliminates the possibility of salvation, which eliminates the reason for their religion to exist.

    This is why they will NEVER give up. They have to place god at the beginning, otherwise, they leave open the idea that God was a human constructed concept and that religion is just another cultural thing. 

    So we can't expect them to embrace natural evolution. Even the moderate christian scientists I've worked with say that evolution was somehow "Started" or "managed" by God (although they are rational enough to admit they have no proof of this, and just go by the strength of their feelings on the subject).

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