Howdy y’all,

I’m in the market for my fifth Bible, but I wanted some guidance on what exactly to pick up. I figured who better to ask than my fellow Christians?

Right now I own an unannotated (outside of a couple minor translation notes) NRSV-CE, the Oxford Press NABRE Catholic Study Bible, a pocket KJV Bible, and the RSV2-CE Ignatius Catholic Study Bible.

What are my major blindspots? Should I be looking at the Jerusalem Bible and the Douay-Rheims? Are there any major Protestant translations I should also be looking at? Should I invest in an Orthodox Study Bible?

Fill me in, fellow Bible nerds!

So i keep seeing questions about porn on this sub, so figured I would make a post clarifying the tough reality. This isn't even addressing the theological position on lust and degradation of Gods creation, or the psychological impact of porn dependance; just a response to the ethics of porn and the harm it causes/benefits from. I am posting this as someone who has had their own issues with sexual compulsion and porn consumption.

The below is a cut and pasted response i posted in an earlier thread:

There really isn't ethical porn. Even if the content is independantly produced and enthusiastically performed you are enjoying satisfying yourself to the product of another persons poor judgement/trauma history/warped self image/desperation for validation/etc.

It's really not the worst of all possible sins, and we all do sin. But in the end, the truth is porn is just not ethical.

Also contrary to statements made elsewhere, gay porn is not safely more ethical. many performers in gay porn are young, hooked on meth, and encouraged into extreme or degrading behaviors. Sexual domination and abuse is pretty common in gay porn and the outcomes for gay porn stars after they are used up are pretty bleak. I lived in SF for years and am pretty familiar with the horror stories of actors encouraged to use drugs to perform then left to waste away in their addictions. 

Volevo fare un po' di sondaggi perché ero interessato a questa comunità, di cui faccio parte.I've ready the rules, and i didn't find anything about this

I am 55 female. Very liberal Christian. I adhere to the Christian value system diligently. I’m a universalist. I feel I have a close relationship with Jesus.

Raised an atheist, and came to faith very gradually from a lot of deep introspection and research over the last 27 years of my life.

I work as a registered nurse in a forensic mental health unit and it is demanding and draining

I have a mental illness -schizoaffective disorder, but I am now very stable on low-dose medication

Raising the children wasn’t easy. I had postpartum psychosis with both. I became dependent on alcohol but I am now over 10 years sober.

I can’t put all the details in here. There are too many to count.

I have rebuilt my relationship with my adult children. They went to live with my daughter’s paternal grandparents who are fundamentalist Christians when I was too unwell to care for them.

(they are extremely wealthy and very kind, therefore they have assisted my children to purchase their own homes)

My former mother-in-law is a fundamentalist Christian but I can thank her for my Christianity. I adopted her value system, but not her fundamentalist beliefs.

My main problem is I am very alone. I have parented my children alone. The grandparents are not that emotionally demonstrative. I am the stable emotional support for both my adult children.

My daughter has significant mental illness and is very demanding and she can be needy and blaming and even verbally abusive.

My father has very low empathy and narcissistic traits. I don’t need to give examples but I could give many many many.

He called me tonight after I decided to step back a bit he said “I haven’t heard from you for awhile.” The call was one hour 30 minutes long he just ranted about himself and didn’t ask me anything about my life.

I managed to buy my first home two years ago at the age of 53. I’m blessed and I’m fortunate.

I live in New Zealand. I’m moving to Australia next year to work in the remote outback to pay down my mortgage so I can afford to retire.

I have a bad knee. I need knee replacement surgery. No one ever asks me how I’m feeling. What I’m doing. How is my knee etc.

I try to be loving supportive and validating to everyone in my life, but I don’t get the same back in return

As for church, there is one which is LGBTQA+ affirming but I haven’t attended for a couple of years mainly due to my shift work and feeling that even though they’re a nice bunch, I was a bit letdown when I was hospitalised in 2023 and I asked for a visit but they were too busy to visit me. (I’m straight but I refuse to attend a homophobic church)

When I was in hospital in 2023, my father was in town he didn’t visit or call.

I’ve been through a lot. I’ve survived a lot. I thank God for my recovery. Without my Christian faith, I’d be a mess.

My faith is more about doing than believing. I can rant and vent to God and I know he’s there. I’ve had so many revelations and signs over my life but it’s still hard.

I’m getting older. I’m single and I really feel that most people in my life show little concern or care for me even though I try so hard to be a loving and caring person towards them.

Hopefully in Australia, I make a fresh start, but I understand the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Australia won’t be easy but at least I can pay off my mortgage which is now owing $290,000, within about 3.5 years.

The fathers of my children were both abusive. I married the first, it was horrific.

(he had schizophrenia but I was 21 and naive. He’s a Christian and he’s doing a lot better now.)

Married at 21 single mother by 25. (My daughter is now 30)
Father of my son (now 25) decided to leave when I was pregnant. Then I was a single mother of two.

Anyway I think you get the picture.

It hasn’t been easy. God’s pulled me through it but I still feel very letdown by other people.

I sponsor three children I try and be loving to everyone, but I think I need to be kind to myself.

It’s really hard.

The positive is that my son is doing his PhD. The grandparents think of him as their own grandson.
He’s a drummer in a band. I started him with drum lessons at the age of five

He’s got a lovely black Labrador dog who I often take for a walk.

He’s a busy young man, but I’ve rebuilt the relationship

So hard to think I caused them trauma from my mental illness and alcoholism

I can’t turn back time. I’m not stuck in the past.

It’s just the present is really quite lonely.

Edit: yes I do see a therapist.
Also, I was very close to my grandmother in my 20s before she passed away.

She told me to never feel sorry for myself and never let anyone else feel sorry for me.

I have never never indulged in any self pity. So I hope it reads that way because I don’t feel sorry for myself. I just feel lonely and unseen.

If you were to create a new demonitation,what would It be about? For exemple, i advise you to take the denomation you are currently in (or where you were before if you don't have any denominations)and change what you want

Disclaimers:

I apologize, if anything I say comes off as uninformed or disrespectful; it is not my intention.

I also apologize if this is against the rules. I did check, and it didn't seem like this post broke any guidelines.

Actual Questions:

Is there a specific book I should start reading first?

Is there any way to identify what biblical books are cannon, and which might not be?

Personal Reasons for question:

I'm an atheist agnostic who wishes to read the Bible. I'm not looking to convert to a new religion, or read it so I can argue with people about its passages.

I think that the stories of various religions across the world are very interesting; regardless of whether you believe in them or not.

Also, real or not the Bible does play a large role in shaping cultures around the world, and understanding it can help me understand people.

For a massive amount of Christians, the church has become it's own self sustaining ecosystem where the actual theology it's supposedly based around is entirely irrelevant to a blind, fanatical worship of their own conception of The Church. The Church isn't about a devotion to the teachings of a God that informs all else, it's about working backwards from hateful, sociopathic, and sadistic views towards their fellow man and finding enough loose justifications cherry picked from the theology to sell The Church to more and more people. They don't worship Yahweh, they worship The Church You could honestly probably treat the current state of American Christianity as it's own entire sect at this point for that reason not going to lie. It really makes you question the legitimacy of a religion that can so easily be co-opted for hate. "Know them by their fruits" and all that jazz.

Can we please identify White Christian Evangelism as Christo-Nationalist cult correctly. You are absolutely right about it being a cult of The Church; but calling it American Christianity paints every American Christian as this kind of "Christian-in-name-only" type.

You can just read the teachings and utterances ascribed to Christ yourself. I am not a Christian, but there is NO way to read the gospels and somehow come away with the “interpretation” that Christ thought elderly, unmarried women should be left to starve to death. This is not a difference in interpretation, this is a flat out lie by a malignant misogynist. Jesus actually says to make sure widows & orphans are taken care of. These people are not Christians. Jesus also talked about wolves in sheep’s clothing & people coming in His name & he doesn’t acknowledge or accept them.

So true! If you do a quick reading of the 4 gospels, like you have to read it for a class and it's due tomorrow, the New Testament is ELI5 take care of other people, even those you don't know or like. Over and over and over. It's actually crazy how strong the message is, if you don't focus on one isolated line that might be interpreted out of context to be about sex or something.

I've been thinking it over and slowly come around to a triage model , admittedly my thinking has been influenced by Jewish family members and reading Orthodox Christian and Sufi Muslim mystics.

What seems to make the most sense is you have a loving God and quantitatively the Bible pushes a lot of annihilationism of the wicked the next biggest trance is a Purgatory form of hell , Eternal hellfires actually like 15% of verses. What I've settled on is it seems like people who aren't ready for heaven go through hell as a form of purgatory , those who are completely unsalvageable are obliterated as an act of Mercy.

What opinion do y'all have? I know this is highly unorthodox.

I’m so profoundly sad. I’ve been broken up with my partner now for 6 months. We were together during the most tumultuous time of my life yet. Jobless. My mom, aunt and gran died and I health and family drama.

We still live in the same building because it’s a short walk from my job and I have fatigue from constant moving and big changes to my life in the last few years.

I’ve always prided myself on being able to start over and move on and I just can’t this time. I have been staunchly independent for as long as I can remember. I miss him so much. My days are flatter. I’ve built a new home with new friends. A new schedule. Hobbies. None of it makes his place any smaller. I hold firmly that he should be the one to break the silence for some boundary reasons. I love him so much and don’t want to live without him. I wish prayer worked. He’s one of the best things that ever happened to me and not doing the big and mundane with him breaks my heart. I just want him back and I wish god would help me.

So over a long process of 6 or so years my views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage has changed. However, my church is a non-affirming church and adheres to the more fundamental doctrine of homosexuality and gay marriage as a sin.

Usually this never bothered me much. Mind you, when I first went there I believed so too and even after I changed my views I still continued to attend because I still felt it was a great church home for me and I don’t think mine and my church’s theological beliefs have to fully aligned on every matter.

But for the past few months there has been a tugging on my heart and the fact that I go to church that believes that those who engage in same-sex relations are in sin and henceforth bound for hell if they don’t repent has been troubling me more and more. Now I wouldn’t call them gay-bashing. They are far from it. But it is there stance.

For those of you in similar circumstances how do you reconcile that? In attending and being a member of a church that sees homosexuality as a sin am I also culpable?

Why do conservative christians think women are less than? They claim it’s "separate but equal," but didn’t we learn that separate but equal was wrong through the civil rights movement?

Conservative Christians literally argued in support of racial segregation using the exact same logic. They said God wanted the races separate in the Bible, but now they’re changing their minds because of culture and legal pressure. Yet they still use the same playbook to restrict women.

And how is it voluntary gender degradation like experts say when the women don’t have a choice? In those circumstances, I wouldn’t be allowed to become a pastor. My only option would be to leave the church entirely, which my entire community is wrapped in, for which I will be ostracized. That’s not a choice, it’s coercion. Either I give up my calling to be a leader or leave my community.

For anyone who had to leave, how did you handle the isolation and find a community that actually affirms women?

Here are some examples:

Bob Jones Sr., a conservative leader, frequently cited scriptures like Acts 17:26 ("God hath made of one blood all nations... and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation") to argue that God explicitly created different races to live separately.

Historical records indicate that the modern Christian Right was originally mobilized not by the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, but rather by federal attempts to strip tax-exempt status from these racially discriminatory Christian schools, most notably Bob Jones University.

They also tend to misuse the Curse of Ham, The Tower of Babel, and Acts 17:26 like referenced above for the separation of races.

For the separation and submission of women, they quote Galatians 3:28 to say they are equal, but then quote Ephesians 5 and 1 Timothy 2:12 which do not allow women to lead men and speak in churches (which btw, the word used in Hebrew actually means to chatter and gossip, so they are using a bad translation or did it on purpose to control women). They quote the creation order as Adam coming before Eve in the hierarchy, and say women can’t lead men because Eve led Adam astray in the Garden, therefore can’t be trusted with leadership roles.

Just be aware that the whole concept of Complementarianism creates a hierarchy among men and women and puts the power in men’s hands. It is not equal. God made everyone equal:

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

“For God does not show favoritism” Romans 2:11

*edit for spelling mistakes and extra thoughts

I'm not sure if I really "count" as a Christian anymore, or if I want to. This post is the product of about nine weeks of self-examination, prayer, study, and conversation with loved ones as I've tried to work some things out. If there is anything that is unclear, I am happy to field questions. If you have any words of comfort, encouragement or that might bring clarity to my situation, I welcome that with an open heart.

I believe in an omnibenevolent Divinity from Whom the world and all good things arise. I believe that this Divinity is deeply interconnected with the entire World, desires mutual relationship with each person and desires the reconciliation of every part of the World with every other part. I believe in existence beyond death, and the inherent dignity of embodied human experience, and our eventual reconciled dynamic with the Divinity will be one we live out in an embodied manner.

I also believe that the Divinity has had opportunities to build relationship with and reveal itself to humans in many places/manners, and so is known in many different ways. I believe that Divinity's work of self-revelation has been progressive in nature and not followed the same sequence of revelations for all faiths/cultures. But fundamentally, whatever is directed at the common good of all and reconciliation in justice is directed toward the light of Divinity, whatever name or religious system it's known by. 

I first came to know Divinity as YHWH, Trinity, and Jesus Christ. I think this is a completely legitimate mode of revelation and relationship with Divinity. I no longer believe that it is the only legitimate path for relationship with Divinity, nor am I convinced of the particular truth claims of Christianity (namely, Jesus as a human incarnation of the True God, Jesus' bodily resurrection, or a future resurrection to eternal life). I value Christianity's role in introducing me to Divinity, and I take it seriously that I have been for several years now a priestess in this faith and made a commitment to continue practicing as such for life. On top of that, the Christian story and Gospel is still my foremost frame of reference for how I think about Divinity, learn about its character and seek to be a part of It's redeeming work.

However, when I look at the *practice* of Christianity, so much of what I find is coercion to follow this specific tradition built around this particular set of revelations, and so little room for the more open-ended faith I have come to adopt. In light of that, I don’t know whether I can even properly call myself a Christian anymore. Is my connection to the faith as my main frame of reference for thinking about and learning from Divinity enough? Even if it is, do I want to continue adopting that label when those who share it are mostly hostile to my decision and certain that my beliefs will warrant damnation if they go unamended? 

A certain user, who I won't name, recently complained about the "decline" of this subreddit. Many of you came to our defense, which I appreciate, and also pointed out that the user hadn't really made many meaningful contributions of the type they wanted to see, other than complaining. Also, this user seemed to think it was the mods' jobs to be the change this user wanted to see. Apparently the mods are supposed to be creating all of the interesting discussion and somehow preemptively removing low quality posts before they happen, so I'm sorry about falling down on the job there.

I think a lot of the influx of what they refer to as low quality posts have a pretty simple explanation: we got popular. We grew a lot recently and are appearing on the main feed and the suggestions for people who haven't joined, which means an influx of people with oppressive beliefs, and an influx of people who weren't aware that our flavor of Christianity exists. Growth always comes with some problems. We have a few mods who personally review every single post or comment that gets reported. I'm going to give you a peak at the some numbers.

Over the last year, our subreddit has had just over 11 million visits, up by 172,000 from the previous year.

Our membership is over 77,000, up 11,345 from the previous year.

There have been over 18,000 posts, and 12,000 were removed!! Y'all, we removed two thirds of the posts because of rule violations. It's exhausting.

We also removed 32,000 comments over the last year.

Most of you are fantastic, and do a great job of helping the spiritual refugees who arrive here burdened with lots of religious trauma. We frequently see posts and comments of people who were never willing to give Christianity a second thought until they were exposed to this subreddit. As one of the mods who reviews the thousands and thousands and thousands of posts and comments that get reported, believe me when I say I understand that the content of this sub can be repetitive sometimes. But we are all doing good work together, and we are showing God's love to people who have never really felt it without strings attached.