« Why is life sometimes so hard? | Main | And While You're At It... »
October 05, 2005
Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible
That got your attention didn't it?
In a new teaching document released by the Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland and aimed at both laity and clergy, the Catholic Church has further officially reiterated that portions of Scripture are to be taken "symbolically" rather than "literally".
“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.
In particular the document insists that the first 11 chapters of Genesis cannot be considered "historical" though they may contain "historical traces".
From the London Times Online:
In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.
The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”
They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.
The article suggests an example of such "fundamentalist" thinking and the contrasting perspective laid out in the new doctrinal document:
The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US.
Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.
Note the characterization of "Intelligent Design".
You can read the entire article here.
Posted by sdf at October 5, 2005 08:52 AM
Comments
It has been an issue of old !
Posted by: peter at October 12, 2005 02:56 PM
