I've always find it kind of ironic, and rather frustrating that the most progressive churches that are the ones constantly condemned as heretics by the fundies also tend to be really traditional, full of a lot of mechanical rituals, won't play music past the 19th century and people would think you're crazy if you so much as put your hands in the air. Of course these are also the ones where people are more likely to dress up as well (though at least I'm sure if I went they wouldn't deny me entry or throw me out for wearing a T-shirt and jeans like might happen at some Southern Baptist or rural Pentecostal church.) Someone giving a pro-gay marriage sermon is far more likely to be wearing one of those pastoral robes than jeans. It seems that if anything this should be a very conservative attitude. And most of the churches that aren't "conservative" in that way at all still tend to be very fundie and conservative otherwise. Most new evangelical churches don't care how you dress either, at least outside the south.
What's frustrating is that while there are unsurprisingly still plenty of churches that are "conservative" in both areas including entirety of the Catholic Church, very casual, unritualistic and charismatic liberal churches are extremely rare and the "generally progressive but neutral on gay marriage and still regarded by some people here as insane holy rollers" one I'm going to now is the closest one I've found in those regards. It all strikes me as very ironic. Anyone have any ideas as to why?
Huh? I go to a fairly conservative SBC church and 40% of the congregation is wearing jeans on a given Sunday. Another 40% are wearing khaki's and a polo shirt or collared shirt without a tie. Only the old people and pastoral staff wear suits and ties or even a sports coat/blazer...
And that's more conservative dress-wise than I see at most other Southern Baptist churches (unfortunately, imo).
did Jesus and the Apostles interpret scripture literally?
That's an extremely vague question, considering none of them left behind any hint of an organized epistemology.
so, you're saying, based on their interpretations as recorded in scripture, there is no way to tell whether they interpreted the OT literally or not?
They didn't, not in the sense that he's speaking of. They interpreted almost everything Christologically, which as I'm sure you know has always been the gigantic stick in the spokes of traditional dispensationalism.
Of course the authors of the NT had a very high view of scripture, which is what people are really attacking when they throw out the "literal interpretation" slander.
