However, I'm not at all surprised if someone experiences push-back within evangelical circles if they are seeking to contextualize something that many evangelicals don't think of as being contextually limited. And yeah, the average evangelical in the pew is often going to skip the nuanced discussion and go straight to its being a matter of obeying biblical authority. Bummer that we are all so hard headed.

You do agree, I suppose, that in some cases an over-contextualization can occur? Certainly not by you but that there are, in some circles, those who would explain away any uncomfortable or unpopular Biblical demand by relativizing it to the time and place of the Biblical writing? (like the untrue but popular story that there was a gate called the needle's eye outside Jerusalem that camels could squeeze through if they got down on their knees. Or like the de-mythologizing of the bible that goes on in some mainline circles, where all supernatural events are explained away as a literary product of a superstitious ancient culture). My bet is that your evangelical acquaintances are so afraid of this danger that they are over-reacting too far in the other way. Ignorantly fearful of giving away the farm if they make the slightest admission that context and genre might be relevant.

When pressed on that issue and after a bit of explanation, most evangelicals I've known who lean that way pretty quickly acknowledge that ok, it really is a matter of determining which passages in question are meant to apply literally and universally, vs. which aren't. It seems like those folks who wouldn't admit this would have a hard time sticking to that position when you point out they probably don't wear head coverings, abstain from wearing jewelry, etc. Just as the self-avowed anti-literalists and uber-contextualists have a hard time sticking to their hardline anti-literal position when it's pointed out that they do take some parts of the Bible very literally and universally, such as commands to feed the hungry and care for the poor and love your neighbor.

So I can be dismissed as a heretic and relativist if I say that women can speak in church or question the historical veracity (although not spiritual truth) of say the book of Job.

In my experience, except for the very extreme fringe of fundamentalism, there aren't many true "literalists" nor are there many "liberals" or "anti-literalists" who actually don't take significant portions of scripture quite literally themselves. The whole "literalism" argument can be a red herring, when the argument is really one of genre, context and intent, and which parts of the Bible are meant to be taken literally (even if they also have other, multilayered meanings and applications) vs. which were never meant to be taken literally.

It's the hypocrisy of calling me a liberal for just owning up to what we are all doing that irritates me.

When I see someone use the word literalism and its variants that many times in a single paragraph, I wonder how they have been wounded. And also, I wonder to whom they are referring with that term. Are they thinking of literalists like the ones I knew in a fundamentalist (Bob Jones-ey) context? Or are they referring to anyone who dares to actually believe the words of the Nicene Creed in anything *other than* (as in: in addition to) a symbolic sense? I encountered many people in the Episcopal Church (you can buy their books) who would apply the pejorative term "literalist" or its cousin "fundamentalist" to the latter group of people, and that's both ignorant and unfair.

On the topic of multilayered meanings in both scripture and nature, are you familiar with the writings of Jonathan Edwards on the topic?

…but isn't that also what is being done by his use of the term "right wing"? One must assume that such a generalized term is used here precisely because of its loaded negative connotations, not because it imparts any clearly defined meaning. HIs argument would work equally well without the adjective-cum-invective. Certainly "left wing" is often used equally pejoratively as a label (perhaps by those who might think pejoratively of Sallie McFague as a "liberal feminist" "theologian"). Sauce for the goose…

Good blog.