But to read all Scripture narratives as if they were eye-witness reports in a modern newspaper, and to ignore the poetic and imaginative form in which they are sometimes couched, would be no less a violation of the canons of evangelical literalism than the allegorizing of the Scholastics was.
The idea of literalism in the Bible is a very new phenomenon. In many ways, it's a product of the scientific revolution.
The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said about religious literalism.
To live without that enchantment of beauty is to interpret frugality and simple living with a puritan literalism
In reality, there are no biblical literalists, only selective literalists. By abolishing slavery and ordaining women, millions of Protestants have gone far beyond biblical literalism. It's time we did the same for homophobia.