The "Bible Only "Heresy 
FreeChristians

Jesus was unique among the men of his time in his ability to overcome all forms of authority-thinking. The only authority which Jesus might be said to have appealed to, was the authority of the truth itself. He did not make authority his truth, he made truth his authority. And in so far as the authority of God can be thought of as the authority of truth, Jesus might be said to have appealed to, and to have possessed, the authority of God. But when we speak of the authority of truth (and therefore the authority of God) we are once again using the word "authority" as a metaphor. Jesus did not expect others to obey him; he expected them to 'obey' the truth, to live truthfully. Once again it would be better to speak about power here rather than authority. The power of Jesus' words was the power of truth itself. Jesus made a lasting impact on people because by avoiding all authority-thinking he released the power of truth itself - which is the power of God and indeed the power of faith. 
(Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, pp. 121-124)

The abusive nature of Book Religion 

Most Christian cults pay lip service to the Protestant doctrine of "Sola Scriptura", or "Bible Only". The moment a cult-victim is convinced that the Bible is "the infallible word of God" he/she becomes vulnerable to the brainwashing techniques of the cult. Such victims simply accept "without questioning" any teaching, even the most bizarre, as long as it is backed up by some Scripture. 

Victims of spiritual abuse remain captive to the manipulative techniques of their leaders because of some Scripture that is used to "prove" their authority. The fear of being rejected by God (see: Hellfire Abuse ) is so strong that these unfortunate believers do not dare question the "biblical" authority of their manipulators. 

"Cult expert", Vincent McCann ( Spotlight Ministries ) has prepared a list of questions, in the form of a test, to help Christians identify if they are victims of cult brainwashing ( "Are you the Victim of Mind Control?" see: Mental Abuse). Two of the questions in this list are:

1. Does the group you belong to believe that it is an elite and exclusive organization which alone has ‘the truth’ and answers to life’s questions?

2. Does the group pour scorn upon, attack, and mock other Christian churches and their interpretation of the Bible?

This advice however, as it turns out, opens up a huge can of worms for the whole Christian religion. Whether Eastern Orthodox, Catholic,  or Protestant ( including Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons ), all Christian groups are proven to be (in varying degrees) mind-controlling cults! 

Each "mind control" religious group bases its authority on some exclusive "infallible" source. The Roman Catholic religion has its "infallible Pope". The Eastern Orthodox has its "infallible Ecumenical Synods". The Protestants have the "infallible" Bible. When the early Reformers accused the Catholics that they mistakenly considered the Pope as infallible, the Catholics responded by calling the Bible a "paper Pope". Ultimately, all parties, appeal to some external infallible authority. History has repeatedly proven that such mentality often leads to inhuman acts: 

"The worst evils are not committed by those who say, "An evil force made me do it", but by those who like Paul the persecutor say, "God made me do it". "The Bible made me do it." "The Law made me do it." "I was just carrying out orders from above." That's what all the men at Nuremberg said before they were hung. And what did good John Calvin say when he burned Severtus at the stake for denying the Trinity? "The Bible made me do it." What was Luther's excuse for his disgraceful conduct with Zwinglius over the Lord's Supper? "The Bible made me do it." What reason did that JW father give for letting his daughter die for want of a blood transfusions "The Bible made me do it." The pages of history are stained with the inhumanities, persecutions, injustices and just plain follies of Christians trying to live by the Bible" 

"we have to look at Paul's own personal history. This is what lay behind his great antipathy to life under the authority of the written text of the Torah (or Scripture). As Paul presents it, his very dedication and zeal for the Law turned him into a persecutor of innocent people. As he describes the situation in Romans 7, the Law had such complete dominion over him, that he could not see that anything was sin unless he could read it in the written text, and he could not see that anything was good unless that too was spelled out to him in the Book. The good that in his inmost soul he aspired to do he did not do, and the evil which he hated he did in spite of himself. Like every pious Jew, he aspired to have the Law clothe him as with a robe of honour, but instead he was forced to lament to that it clung to him like a wretched, stinking corpse. Paul was not arguing that the Law was an ass, but that it deceived him and made him into a religious ass who went on a rampage causing havoc and harm to innocent people. Paul did not discover what evil was by an even more scrupulous attention to the Book of rules, but by confronting a superior society and a new kind of humanity which could even forgive and accept him in spite of his crimes against the risen one and his people... In short, Paul was vehemently against living under the Law. He was against the ethics of a written text. He wouldn't have a bar of a rule-book religion. If we don't understand this we haven't even gotten into the vestibule of Paul's house of thought. As for Christians making a new Law out the things Paul wrote in one- off letters, that would have to be the ultimate betrayal of the man and the most appalling use of his writings. It would be like turning Adam Smith's libertarian economics into a socialist text book in the academy of Karl Marx" ( No Living By the Book, by R. Brinsmead, VERDICT, Essay 1E, The Scandal of Joshua Ben Adam  Part 8 ) 

Because all three branches of Christianity pay lip service to the Bible as an infallible authority, we shall focus on the Bible.

The impossibility of a uniform interpretation

First of all, it is impossible to achieve a uniform interpretation of the Bible because of the simple fact that the Bible itself is full of contradictions and inconsistencies (see: Bible Contradictions, and A Brief Survey of Biblical Errancy). Also, the Bible suffers from the moral deficiencies of those who wrote its various texts (see: BIBLE PASSAGES THAT ARE IMMORAL BY TODAY'S STANDARDS).

The obvious moral deficiencies of several Bible verses, force Sola Scriptura Christians to "justify" them through rationalisations. The result is even more contradictions and doctrinal divisions.

The problem is that not all Christians recognise or accept this. They simply bypass the contradictions by focusing on those parts of the Bible that agree with their doctrinal positions. 

Why Western Christians are now rejecting the Bible as "the word of God"

More and more Western Christians are arriving at the conclusion that the Bible IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD. They realise that the Bible cannot and should not be equated with attributes that belong only to God: "The purpose of all Scripture is to bear witness to Christ (John 5:39; 20:31). The Bible in itself is not the Word of God. The Word of God is a person (John 1:1). Neither does the Bible have life, power or light in itself any more than did the Jewish Torah. These attributes may be ascribed to the Bible only by virtue of its relationship to Him who is Word, Life, Power and Light. Life is not in the book, as the Pharisees supposed, but only in the Man of the book (John 5:39) (Brinsmead, Robert D., "A Freedom from Biblicism" in The Christian Verdict, Essay 14, 1984. Fallbrook: Verdict Publications. Pg. 12). Also: "Granting absolute status to the written witness was then and now a system of religious absolutism or religious fascism. It was then and now idolatry in its most insidious form because it makes a visible icon out of the witness to the Word of God. Taking that which belongs to the living Word (the eternal and inerrant attributes of God) and bestowing it on written Scripture compromises the uniqueness of the incarnation. As there is only one incarnation, so there is only one union of perfect divinity and perfect humanity. The one ideal, sinless humanity is the Word made flesh in Jesus' humanity." (Robert D. Brinsmead, "The Gospel and the Spirit of Biblicism, Part I", The Christian Verdict, Essay 15, 1984. Fallbrook: Verdict Publications. Pg 7).

Elsewhere Brinsmead writes: 

"It is demeaning to God to suggest that his Word is on trial in all the contradictions, historical mistakes and interpretative idiosyncrasies of the Bible writers. The plain fact is that the New Testament was first written by the church, and then gathered together and canonized by the church. It is not Revelation. It is not the Word of God. The documents are the church’s testimony to the Word of God. It is the church’s witness to the revelation given in Jesus Christ. God is transcendent, beyond our thoughts and imagination. The revelation of the infinite, unthinkable and unpronounceable One cannot take place in a book. His Word is spirit and life it can only be revealed in the spirit and life of flesh and blood. The claim that the Word of God can be laid out in cold text is bad enough; but to go on then and say that for it to be dissected, analysed and made the subject of scientific literary analysis is blasphemous. One thing that scientific literary analysis has achieved is that it has amply demonstrated the folly of calling Bible documents the Word of God. Further, to say that any written text is the Word of God is to reduce the Word to definition and proposition. The Word of God is God (John 1:1) and is not a propositional or subject to definition. The New Testament documents make no such blasphemous claims for themselves. They are the church’s testimony to the Word of revelation which is not found in a book but in a person. "God was manifested in the flesh." "The Word was made flesh". Nowhere did the primitive church suggest that the Word was made Book!"

"This brings us to reflect on the Catholic ( Orthodox ) – Protestant debate. Of course the Catholics ( and Orthodox ) were right when they said that the church produced the Bible, and that the acceptance of Biblical authority is the acceptance of church authority" (NOTES ON RELIGION AND MYTH, by R. Brinsmead)

Conservative Christian R. Beecham writes: "we must now think about the place of the Scriptures. Paul sums up this subject in his second letter to Timothy: 'All scripture (writings) inspired by God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for (child) training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work ' (3:16,17). These verses deserve more careful consideration than they usually receive. Paul here views the scriptures as the man of God's toolbox. They are part of his equipment for his ministry to others. It is significant that Paul wrote this letter not to a group of believers, but to an individual leader. Nowhere did he exhort believers generally to study the scriptures, though he often exhorted them to pray. Timothy had the task of ministering to others and his knowledge of the scriptures would have been of great benefit in the work committed to him... The general principle is, as we have seen, that God speaks by the Holy Spirit. If he has not spoken to us by the Holy Spirit, we will have neither the power to carry out any commands, nor the faith to receive any promises. To seek to obey commands that were given to other people at other times, and not to you personally will lead you into bondage, frustration and failure. Equally to seek to claim promises that were made to others will lead you to doubt God, or live with a sense of frustration that you are missing the mark because nothing seems to work out for you. It worked for other people; why doesn't it work for me? The fundamental reason is that you cannot receive either commands or promises through your mind. You must receive them deep in your spirit. You will then find their confirming echo as you read similar commands and promises in the pages of the Bible"

He adds: "The Scriptures and the Word of God are separate and should not be confused. Each has a different function. The Word of God is greater and was there in the beginning with God. The Scriptures must not take its (his) place. Good things in the wrong place can become evil things, and blessings turn to curses. Many an evil thing has been done by people who knew much of the Bible, but nothing of the Word of God. Let us hear again the heart-cry of Jesus, 'You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of me; and you will not come to me, that you may have life'. Let us find the true meaning of the Word of God and give it its rightful place in our lives. Let us also give to the Scriptures their rightful place - the place they give themselves, the place Jesus and the early apostles gave them, and the place given to them by the word of God in our hearts.

Yet another conservative  Christian, J. A. Fowler makes the same assessment: "Jesus Christ alone, as the living Word of God, reveals the Father. Jesus said, "No one knows the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matthew 11:27). Only God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit can reveal Himself. It is a personal revelation, not an impersonal revelation. The book called the Bible does not "constitute" divine revelation. God constitutes the revelation of Himself... To thus equate the Living Word, Jesus, with the written scriptures is to deify the book. The attributes of God cannot be attributed to created matter. Divine attributes such as eternality and authority must not be attributed to the Bible" 

Fowler adds that Fundamentalist Christians "have assumed fallacious presuppositions of thought. They make invalid equations of numerous ideas and words with the Bible: "word" (whether logos or rhema)=Bible; "law"=Bible; "commandment"=Bible; "ordinance"=Bible; "teaching"=Bible; "doctrine"=Bible; "authority"=Bible; "revelation" = Bible; "truth" = Bible; "precept" = Bible; "testimony" = Bible; "preaching"=Bible; "gospel"=Bible; "Holy Spirit"=Bible; "Christ"=Bible" Fowler then makes the point that when fundamentalist Christians read through the scriptures, "and whenever they find these words or concepts they eisegetically presuppose that it is referring to the Bible". 

Fundamentalist Christians (not only laymen but sadly, also leaders, priests, teachers, scholars, etc, "often equate the action of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with the Bible. Attributes of the Godhead are transferred to the Bible. Attributes such as eternality, absoluteness, authority, power, sufficiency for living, truth, life, wisdom, righteousness, holiness, faith, salvation, exaltation and inerrancy are all attributed to the scriptures. To do so is to deify the Bible. To thus elevate the scriptures is to engage in the superstitious mysticism of Bibliolatry. To attribute to a book, to attribute to any "thing" or anyone, what is only attributable to God is to engage in idolatry. God's attributes are essential, exclusive and non-transferable. God is the only One who is who He is and does what He does, as expressed in His attributes. Only God is God! To attribute God's attributes to a book is to make the book a "god," and to relativise God's attributes. Persons who hold such a view of scripture need to do a thorough study of the attributes of God and to recognize that these are attributes of God alone! Heresy usually commences with a deficient understanding of God"

"How can it be that we have been so thoroughly propagandized by the Judeo-Christian book-religion, that we so unquestioningly refer to the Bible as the "word of God," and mistakenly identify most references within Scripture to the "word" as references to the Bible instead of to Jesus Christ or to the gospel of Christ? Book-religion is very pervasive! None of those who wrote, by the inspired divine influence of God, the writings that now comprise the compilation of writings that we call the Bible; none of them apparently ever conceived that their writings would be collected and canonized into a book called "The Bible" or "The Scriptures," which would then be referred to as the "Word of God." That is not to say that they were not aware of God's influence in their writing, but whenever they refer to the "word" (either logos or rhema), or to the "writings" (either gramma or graphe), or to the scrolls or books (biblion), it is not a reference to the totality of the bound-book that we call the Bible. We need to be honest enough to admit that!"

Fowler's advice/warning to Christians: "the living expression of God can never be codified in the definitions and descriptions of written words. Such is the anomaly of Christianity. Could this be what John meant in the very last word of his gospel narrative when he wrote, "there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written" (John 21:25). The world could not contain the books if man even attempted to reduce to writing the expression of God in Jesus Christ, which is, of course, impossible. The activity of God cannot be reduced to volumes written in the vocabularies of man. The apostle John was combating the tendency of textualism in the early church... The Bible is not the "Word of God" in an absolute sense. It is a book comprised of a compilation of "words" about the Word of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said, "The Scriptures bear witness of Me" (John 5:39). The written words point to the Living Word, Jesus Christ. In fact, the Bible does not even "contain" the Word of God, for such would be sacramentalism. The Living Word of God, Jesus Christ, cannot be imprisoned in a book. He must be free to express Himself as God in man, and that unto the functionally free humanity through which God intends to glorify Himself" (Christianity is NOT a Book-religion, ©1998 by James A. Fowler)

The common practice of Christians in appealing to the Bible as an absolute authority is clearly idolatrous. The only "absolute" authority is God who cannot be contained or adequately expressed through a written text. Robert D. Brinsmead is correct when he says: "When will that branch of the church which so proudly labels itself "evangelical" recognize that authority and certainty are not found in the transmission of inerrant information which reduces the gospel to an ideology or a scientific formula? True Christian certainty is a Spirit-induced certainty. The resurrected One is present in the message of His resurrection and seals to the heart the truth of the apostolic testimony. Therefore the attempt to derive a sense of certainty in the possession of an inerrant Scripture is misguided. Might this not indicate a loss of the prophetic (gospel) Spirit?" (Robert D. Brinsmead, "Letter and Spirit." The Christian Verdict, Essay 16, 1984. Fallbrook: Verdict Publications. Pgs 4,5, source: http://www.christinyou.net ). He adds: "Church history has amply demonstrated that... The written record became absolutised. The prophetic spirit was quenched. The Christian Scripture became a rigid Christian Torah, a rule book for everything Christians must believe and teach. The gospel became a new law. Faith was confounded with orthodoxy, which was really theological legalism. The church ceased to be a charismatic community and became an institution. Instead of the Spirit there were rules. Instead of the priesthood of all believers there was wretched clericalism. Instead of the Spirit and presence of the living Christ there was religious canned goods. Instead of the living gospel there was dead ideology. Instead of freedom there was bondage. Yet, like the Pharisees, we have desperately tried to substitute an incredible devotion to the letter of Holy Scripture for the prophetic Spirit. Instead of having the certainty which the Spirit inspires, we have looked for certainty in endless apologetics and theories of textual inerrancy. (Robert D. Brinsmead, "The Gospel and the Spirit o! f Biblicism, Part I", The Christian Verdict, Essay 15, 1984. Fallbrook: Verdict Publications. Pg 9).

James M. Campbell writes: "One of the dangers from which the Church should pray to be delivered is idolatry of the letter of Scripture. The letter exists for the spirit, not the spirit for the letter. Literalism is the grave in which spiritual religion is buried. The New Testament is a book which is to be spiritually interpreted. It has no greater enemy than the thorough-going literalist who would fetter its free thought by confining it within obsolete forms. It has no greater friend than the teacher who can give to its time-worn metaphors freshness and power by translating them into the language of the present." (James M. Campbell - The Heart of the Gospel: A Popular Exposition of the Doctrine of the Atonement. Fleming H. Revell Co. 1907. pg. 19, source: http://www.christinyou.net )

Jacques Ellul gives the following advice to Christians: "We are not to make the Torah ( Old Testament ) into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself." (Jacques Ellul - Living Faith: Belief and Doubt in a Perilous World. Harper and Row San Francisco, 1983. pg. 191, source: http://www.christinyou.net)

Brinsmead adds: "We must stop using the Bible as though it were a potpourri of inerrant proof-texts by which we can bring people into bondage to our religious traditions. (For in practice the only inerrancy we ever defend is the inerrancy of our religious traditions and our way of reading the Bible.) We must no longer use the Bible as the Pharisees used the Torah when they gave it absolute and final status. Christian biblicism is no different from Jewish legalism. It is the old way of the letter, not the new way of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6)." (Brinsmead, Robert D. "A Freedom from Biblicism" in The Christian Verdict, Essay 14, 1984. Fallbrook: Verdict Publications. Pg. 14, source: http://www.christinyou.net).

Another prominent Christian writer, Karl Paul Donfried makes a similar point: "The one thing the New Testament forbids us to do is to treat it as a static document to be used as a set of proof-texts for instant solutions to complex and controversial contemporary problems. To misuse the New Testament in this way is to deny its dynamic character and to fail to realize that the Word has to be applied in a specific context. ...A static interpretation of the New Testament is dependent on a frozen Christology, one that views Jesus as limited to the first third of the first century; a dynamic interpretation of the New Testament is based on a Christology that views Jesus not only as the human manifestation of God in first-century Palestine, but also as the Risen Lord of the church present yesterday, today, and tomorrow... As the contemporary church remains obedient to the Risen Christ in her midst, the gospel can become a dynamic Word." (Karl Paul Donfried, The Dynamic Word. Harper and Row.1981. pg.199, source: http://www.christinyou.net ).

Wendell Krossa makes the following, very interesting comments: "New information... is now demystifying the Bible and showing it to be very much a human effort and a very fallible book... The argument that the Bible is the inspired word of God has been used by religious people to bolster their claim that they have a special source of information about God. They alone, of course, have the ability to interpret what the inspired book means. And they will mediate this knowledge only to those who subject themselves to the control of the particular religious group making the above claims" (Rescuing God From Religion- Part 2)

He adds: "Another interesting point in relation to the Bible as a form of written law is the fact that Jesus never urged anyone to write down anything about his life and teachings. This is either an incredible oversight or it was done intentionally. We suggest that Jesus' disinterest in written scripture may be due in part to his realization of the danger that people might coopt his teaching for use as a form of law to control others. Jesus was not at all enthusiastic about written traditions in the same manner that many of his so-called followers are today. We would suggest that contemporary devotion to the Bible has more in common with ancient Pharisaic devotion to Scripture. We remember the brutality toward people that inevitably came from that devotion to written law. In regard to a written tradition with its respect for final versions of holy scriptures, Jesus and others warned that the letter (written law) kills, but the spirit gives life . Letter, such as the written Bible, effects closure, finality, and rigidity. This is not conducive to the spontaneity and diversity of the free spirit of human life. To the contrary, it distorts and destroys human life. We would also add that the word 'letter' used in the New Testament book of Galatians (chapter 4) synonymously covers law, scripture, and religion. The meaning is unquestionably clear. We are no longer to be under law, scripture, or religion. Why is this fact so stubbornly ignored by religions like Christianity? We suggest it is ignored because it completely undermines the authority and even the very existence of power-holding elites in these religions" ( ibid )

"Jesus understood well the danger that written traditions hold for human freedom. In oral traditions there is room for diversity and change. Each messenger can add or delete details or change overall emphasis of any message for new situations. The messengers are free to give their own spontaneous and unique versions of stories. This method of communicating truth or values preserves the freedom for individual expression. It is more suited to the process of the free flow of life, whereas law is more suited to the rigidity of institutions as objects. The problem with written traditions is that one version is set down as the only correct version of a story or event. The message or story then becomes closed, final, the 'truth'. All followers of that tradition must then conform rigidly to that one final written form. This is especially true if that form is considered sacred, or from God. Diverting from the true version brings down the wrath of the religious authorities with charges of heresy, ostracism from the chosen group, and even final damnation. But we would argue that such rigidity is not from the free and human God. That rigidity does not inspire life but instead destroys life. This is the danger of written traditions. They do not accommodate the flow and evolution of changing life. To the contrary, they constrain the ability of people to change or to express spontaneity or creativity. Written forms tend to become rigid objects instead of remaining free, open, life inspiring processes. This explains in part the death dealing nature of written law... In regard to written traditions, it is also worth noting that a Biblical scholar once stated that all through the Bible the term 'Word of God' refers repeatedly and almost exclusively to a spoken, personal word and rarely to a written word. As a personal spoken word mediated through diverse people in unique ways, the word of God has life and freedom. It is dynamic and changing, not standardized or final for all people who follow. It becomes a unique word in every person" ( ibid )

"...we are not denying the value of the Bible as literature or as a useful source of information on the life and teaching of Jesus. But care must be taken in the use of the Bible as much has been added to it in an effort to remake Jesus into a vertically oriented and institutional God. While it may appear to some that in saying these things about the Bible we are attacking something very sacred, it is important to question this book that has been so widely used as an instrument to control people's thoughts and behaviour. Care must also be taken in viewing the Bible too seriously as some special authority from God. Excessive respect for the Bible as an authority over life and behaviour leads to subjection to outside control and constrains freedom of thought and behaviour to categories based on Biblical parameters. These Biblical limits are often interpreted and set primarily by elite religious experts. Such practices embody controlling authority which is not conducive to true freedom and human development" ( Krossa, Rescuing God From Religion )

Brinsmead ("The Status of Jesus Re-Examined" in Verdict, 1998, Essay 1A, p.11)also writes: "Jesus shows us that God is encountered on the ordinary human level. God, who is spirit, is not found in a Book (as Fundamentalists think) much less in religious rituals, monasticism, mysticism, dreams, voices and visions of the bicameral mind, he is not found by scaling up into heaven and digging down into the deep. He is found on the ordinary level of human existence. So Jesus taught! The domain of God is discernible neither in the solitude of the dessert or in the secret chamber. His presence (kingdom) is in you and among you, as you go about ordinary human affairs. He may be seen in the employer being generous to the latecomers, the despised Samaritan showing compassion to a man in need, a forgiving neighbour, a person loving and doing good to an enemy, the father welcoming home the son who is a waster, and man who invites outcasts to his table. In short, we may see the face of God in those who enrich us, support us or who depend on us for support. Like Jacob of old, we should awake with the startling realization, 'The Lord is in this place, and I knew it not', or with Isaiah who exclaimed, 'The whole earth is full of his glory'... Jesus encountered ordinary poor and lonely people who 'thought God was not close to them. Jesus called them to change this way of thinking. Convert! God IS here- in your loving, in your caring, in your generosity, in your visiting. And more! God is ALWAYS here, even when you are conscious of your failure, your sin, your low status in life, and when everything seems to be going wrong... If Jesus was an ordinary human person, then ordinary human existence is the arena where God is manifested. God is not encountered by an escape from the human condition, but by real participation in it. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the kingdom of God is present just as Jesus said and acted out"

Krossa makes the following point regarding the heart of the gospel: "The main concerns and the central focus of the life and teaching of Joshua Ben Adam ( Jesus Son Of Man ) are summarized very simply- liberate the poor and oppressed (Albert Nolan in Jesus Before Christianity, p. 45). Joshua was referring to poverty and powerlessness- the two great curses of human existence and society. His response to these social conditions went to the root of the matter and struck at the heart of humanity and inhumanity, good and evil. But his response also opened the way for all of us to discover true human freedom and existence. It was a way to genuine human happiness. If people would respond to what he said, then they would experience life in God's society (kingdom). They would know true humanity with all its liberating, exhilarating festivity. What did he urge in response to poverty and powerlessness? Give or share all you have and do not dominate or control anyone. Do not aspire to any position of power or control of resources which allows you to lord over others. Serve instead. Don't amass assets and investments. Give what you have to the needy. This is the essence of being human. This is the society God wants. This is love" ( see: Joshua Versus Jesus, by W. Krossa, From the series "Taking the Vertical Out of God" )

"But these teachings on sharing all and not dominating others have been called the hardest sayings of Joshua. Because of this, for millennia the so-called representatives of Jesus, Christians, have watered down and thereby rendered them meaningless. In place of this radical Joshua, Christianity created a less scandalous version called Jesus; an institutional God-man whom Christians then employ to condone possessiveness, prestige and power-holding. With their new Jesus, Christians created institutions that amassed wealth and power. But those institutions and ideologies now deny the very essence of Joshua's life and teaching. He simply can not be used to support the greed, competition, and domination that are the primary values of contemporary societies. In using Jesus to validate contemporary consumerism and contemporary cultural values, Christians have made a mockery out of claiming to represent the historical Joshua who more than any other person in human history urged the giving up of wealth and condemned anyone holding power over any other person. They have simply created an inhuman distortion that removes the scandal and radical subversity of Joshua. In doing this, they have completely undermined the humanity of his life and teaching" ( ibid )

The fear of freedom that many Christians have, has a lot to do with the fear of being rejected by God if they get it wrong theologically or morally. This is why many Christians prefer the (false) security of fundamentalism in the form of Book-religion. But, "if we move in the direction of biblial absolutism ("the religion of the Book"), how can we escape turning the New Testament into a Christian Torah and the gospel into a new law? Once we do that, religious fascism with all its sectarian ugliness cannot be far away. Far better a mistaken Christian (a heretic) who has somehow caught the Spirit of Christ, than an orthodox Protestant who thinks that the Spirit is mediated to him through the letter of correct theology." (Robert D. Brinsmead, "Letter and Spirit." The Christian Verdict, Essay 16, 1984. Fallbrook: Verdict Publications. Pg 5).

Our foundation is the perfect goodness and love of God, not a book written by fallible men

At the end of the day, our sure foundation is the goodness of God. Of course, fundamentalist Christians fail to see or grasp this foundation mainly because they are locked up in Book-religion, which demands that they accept as literal "absolute" truth all those disturbing references to God (especially in the Old Testament Scriptures). 

I think that Andrew Moore adequately addresses this issue...

Further Reading

For further reading regarding the related problems of fundamentalism and Biblicism, I recommend the following links:

NOT OF THE LETTER "That the Bible is inspired seems to be evident in its character and insight. Despite the fact that its many books and letters were written over a period of nearly one thousand years, its unity as a whole is impressive. It contains conceptions of the divine that rise above culture and occasion. Its moral and ethical teachings, as well as its invitation to a new and better life in God, continue to inspire and challenge the individual as well as society. And yet, in our praise of the Bible, it is easy to get carried away and make an unrealistic assessment of the character and authority of Scripture. Does the Bible contain absolutely no errors or contradictions? Is it wholly and completely the "Word of God?" Read on and decide for yourself."

Language and the Scriptures David Judd ( Queensland Pastor )

To Those Who Worship the Bible Idol by Dave E. Matson

The Gospel and the spirit of biblicism, by Robert D. Brinsmead,

Infallible Bible Belief Puts you in a religion box you can't get out of
By Rev. Russell

The relativity of Bible ethics by Joe Edward Barnhard. "Next time your pastor claims that the world practices moral relativism, while the Bible teaches moral absolutes, take a look at this." 

A look at the Bible