The Lamp the Light the Path, Psalms 119:105-112

What this episode covers

This week, we respond to a thoughtful listener question from Tumblr about whether progressive Christians can understand the Bible as uniquely authoritative, or whether it should be treated as inspired work alongside other great works of literature and poetry. We look at how different Christian traditions approach scripture, why “authority” depends on community and context, and how revelation can be understood without requiring inerrancy or literalism. We have to have a more nuanced engagement with scripture that challenges false dichotomies between taking the Bible seriously and reading it critically. In the second half of the episode, we queer Psalm 119:105-112, unpacking how poetry, song, and metaphor function within the Bible. We invite you to consider what it means for God’s word to be “a lamp to our feet and a light for our journey,” not as the path itself, but as something that illuminates the way as we navigate faith, queerness, relationships, and life.   Resources: Our resources have moved! You can find the workshop contents within our free resources at my.queertheology.com   This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions. 1 (9s): Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. 2 (13s): And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from 1 (17s): Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how 2 (23s): Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. 1 (33s): Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Queer Theology of Podcast. 2 (36s): This week we’ve got a listener question from Tumblr and they ask, are there progressive non literalist ways of talking about the Bible as uniquely authoritative and communicative of revelation? Or are the scriptures only inspired in a relativized sense alongside great works of literature, poetry, et cetera? 1 (57s): Oh, I love this question. So this 2 (1m 1s): Is a great 1 (1m 2s): Question. Yeah, it get really gets at the heart of what we’re talking about on this podcast and in our work. I think it’s important to first name that there are gonna be a bunch of different answers to this question. Certainly if you survey all Christians, like conservative fundamentalist Christians are gonna have a different idea than other folks. Like there’s a whole range, like if you, if you survey fundamentalist Christians, if you survey Mormons, if you survey Catholics, if you survey progressive Christians, if you survey, you know, black preachers, if you survey whoever, we’re all gonna have different ideas about this. And also then, like, I think within each of those people are gonna have different ideas that there will probably be other L-G-B-T-Q, progressive Christians who think differently about this. 1 (1m 55s): And Shay And I actually think slightly differently about this, you know, or we might not. So I just wanna name that. And there’s not, so it’s not about like trying to find like the objective truth of this is gonna be impossible, which I know is an unsatisfying or might be an unsatisfying answer, especially as someone who comes from a, from a tradition that taught that there was always one correct answer for everything about God and religion and faith. And as someone from just sort of like a secular perspective, like really math and science just like gets me going. And so like there’s a formula, like a squared plus B squared equals C squared, right? Like you can like add things up or divide things out and get, get like the answer. 1 (2m 37s): And so figuring out like what the answer to this is is gonna be tricky. There’s always gonna be some nuance and some, some room for personal interpretation. Shay, where would you start? Yeah, 2 (2m 47s): I think the phrase t