For the rationale behind the experiment that resulted in Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, look no further than her piece today for CNN’s “Belief Blog” on the inconsistency with which every Christian interprets and applies the Bible:
When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.