I grew up in a traditional, conservative, Baptist family.   My dad was a minister, we were in church every time the doors were open and even sometimes when they weren’t.  We were taught that the Bible was the inerrant word of God, completely factual and true.  And I bought in hook, line and sinker, without question.  In fact, it never occurred to me that there might be a different explanation, and those who brought up the possibility were obviously not truly Christian.

I like to think I’ve grown up some since then.   I believe I was made in God’s image and that includes the fact that I am gay.  I don’t believe I’m going to hell just because I don’t believe in a literal seven day creation story anymore.  But I still bristle when people espouse alternate theories about events portrayed in the Bible.

Which is why today in church I got my “panties in a wad” as they say.  The minister had just read the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (which didn’t count women or children – a different post for a different day) with just 5 loaves of bread and two fish and dared to say that it didn’t matter if the story was literal or not, what mattered was the message to be gained from the story.  Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I remember what the take away message was, I was too upset that a minister would say – out loud – that the Bible might not be a true account of an actual event.  The horror!

I had to stop and remind myself that I was not still that rigid fundamentalist.  I’m growing and allowing others to have their opinion about things without freaking out.  In addition, I’m not sure I still believe that the Bible is a perfect accounting of events.

Unfortunately, what happened today was that I missed a good message that might have made me a better person because I got hung up on a petty little thing.  How many times in life does this happen to us?  We get lost in the fact that the person talking might look different, or have a different opinion on things and completely miss the importance in what they are saying.