While I have questions as to just what the Bible is, one thing I am sure of is that God speaks to people through it. I am grateful to live in an age and a country where Bibles are readily available to me and to practically everyone I know. I believe that anyone who reads the Bible carefully and in its entirety will meet God in its pages and will be challenged to respond to Him.
I also believe that God uses the Bible to critique (and judge) the way we live. In a society where Bibles are freely available and are being read, people can only keep on claiming wrong is right for a limited time: eventually the truth will out!
I was reminded of this yesterday, listening to an episode of Outlook (the BBC World Service's daily 'human interest' show) that I had downloaded earlier. One of the stories* was of Joan Mulholland, one of the many 'freedom riders' who were part of the US civil rights struggle. She told how, as a kid, she had ventured into the black part of town. She was shocked by the primitive conditions she found there because she had been taught at Sunday School to love her neighbour as herself. She saw what her elders hadn't noticed: that her neighbours included black people and that it wasn't loving to treat them so badly. When she grew up she worked to change the system that she realised was at odds with the teaching of the Bible.
* this link will only work till the end of June 2011
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