Unfortunately, many religious believers today have taken religion and their religious texts literally without understanding and critically examining the text and the context.

The consequences are appalling, as the world is haunted by terrorism, which has its roots in a self-righteousness that is the result of the literal reading of their religious texts.

Jaroslav Pelikan, who teaches at Yale and is also a world authority on the Christian tradition, quotes the word of Paul in the Bible, "the letter kills, but the spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:6), arguing that in order to grasp the meaning of the Bible, one needs to study both the biblical text and the context.

He observes that, it is necessary to interpret and reinterpret the Bible by engaging in word-by-word exegesis, being aware of interpretations that have gone before us, and willing to ask new questions.

In short, one needs to know the essential spirit of the Bible as a whole, instead of what some biblical passages say literally.

sibu by election 090510 sibu scared heart church It is no surprise that many theologians and biblical scholars today have concluded that if we examine the biblical passages that have been used against homosexuality, one would find that they do not mean what they appeared to mean literally.

The most obvious reason is that it would be an anachronism to suggest that Paul, as one of the writers of the Bible, taught that homosexuality was wrong, as the term homosexuality did not exist until the late 19th century.

People in the past might have understood sexual relationship between men as a form of sexual behaviour, but have had no idea about homosexuality as a sexual orientation.

Depending on word, ignoring reality

Christian fundamentalists, however, fail to understand this simple fact and insist on reading the Bible literally, just as many Christians in the past had adopted the literal reading of the Bible to justify the institution of slavery.

Christians who read the Bible critically had become the advocates of the abolishment of slavery, and of course, they were deemed "unchristian" by many conservative co-religionists at that time.

If we are aware of the history of that religion, we find that many historical blunders committed by its followers are due to the literal reading of the holy book. I have enumerated many examples in my previous articles, which I will not reiterate here.

If Christians really believe that God is love, and that the love of God is for all humankind, how can we say that everyone must believe in Christianity and that non-Christians will be sent to hell? Is God a tyrant or love?

If Christians really believe that God is love, and that the love of God is for all humankind, how can we say that being gay is wrong and that gays choose to be gay willingly, even though many gay people have told us that we have not chosen our sexual orientation? What kind of God would punish us simply because of who we are?

Christian fundamentalists are obsessed with the literal reading of the Bible. In order to defend their understanding of the Book, even though many of them are well educated, they are willing to sacrifice their intellectual integrity and honesty.

Steadfast in tunnel vision cause

They ignore or condemn research, evidence, and arguments from science, scholarship, common sense, and rational analyses that are contrary to their beliefs.

Religion is not a bad thing, but religious fundamentalism is. The chief characteristic of religious fundamentalists is their literal reading of their religious texts. Because of that, they do not hesitate to condemn, discriminate, persecute, even kill in the name of God.

In the United States, there is a small group of Christians who engage in handling and passing around venomous snakes as part of their religious ritual during Sunday services.

The reason they do this is simply because the Bible says "...[G]o ye into the all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them..." (Mark 16:15-18).

Many have died and been seriously injured by snakes but those who survive still practice snake-handling simply because "the Bible says so." Most Christian fundamentalists in Malaysia are a little smarter than their counter-parts in the United States, at least they do not handle snakes and believe that they "shall not hurt them."

So, should we take the Bible literally?