Let’s pretend that Scripture somewhere says, “Two plus two shall equal five.” Let’s go further, then, to suppose that somewhere in the New Testament it says, “Yea, not I, but the Lord Jesus Christ says, 'Two plus two absolutely and undeniably equals five.'” In what position would literalists find themselves? It could be reasonably expected that at least two schools of thought would emerge. There would be those who, because their belief is in scripture as the inerrant word of God, would challenge the science of mathematics by insisting that if the Father, Son and Holy Ghost says that two plus two equals five, then it must be true in spite of all the evidence against it. There then would be those who, because of their belief in the universal truth of science, would say that religion is for idiots and continue merrily on their empirical way.
Of course the Bible contains no such passages, but nearly all of the faith traditions of the world have developed some form of written communication to convey what is thought to be Truth. It has been observed that taken out of context, text becomes pretext. Someone would literally have to have her/his head in the sand to not realize that religion is profoundly impacting the peoples of the globe, and so I no longer see it as a viable solution to pretend that the problem will go away if ignored. Rather than insisting that truth is as Christians, Jews, or Moslems define it, the way of the Christ is to ascertain the universal Truth that will set all of God’s children free.
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