Reply #134: Trying to put in a nutshell what I believe...

[helleborient]

Much of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount... (The "blessed are..." part of the Jesus story) and also Jesus' ideas of a radical form of "all are created equal"...from my understanding to him that would include women as well. Also, that the early Jews had it right in the idea of Jubilee (the basis for Bono, etc.'s approach to forgiving 3rd world debt...Bono is another Christian, by the way)

I look to much of the rest of the Bible in order to understand more about where these ideas of Jesus and the early church came from and whether or not there were mistakes and human errors happening in application of them.

I don't believe rule-making is an important part of faith or faith communities. I do believe that if a strong effort is put into understanding what Jesus meant in his teachings, pro-social behavior is the likely result.