They should have my job. It requires, oh, maybe 8 hours of work a week and the rest is free time...which means lots of time for music, and reading good books like "Beyond the Cascade".

Right now I'm reading some cool books by John Shelby Spong, an American theologian from New England who has written some great stuff challenging fundamentalism and Biblical literalism. Got one here about Mary called "Born of a Woman", which challenges the old church ideas about the alleged "virgin birth", "immaculate conception", etc. Got another called "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism". He is much appreciated in more liberal Christian quarters, and considered THE enemy in fundamentalist quarters. ;-D

Regarding the writings of Paul, for example, he states that it is extraordinarily naive of people to assume that every word Paul wrote is "the Word of God", because God didn't write it...Paul wrote it!...therefore it is the words of Paul!...and Paul of Tarsus was a man deeply affected by his culture, his time, his background, and his own personal hangups (which would appear to have been numerous).

This is not to say that there isn't some valuable spiritual insight to be gained by reading Paul...or by reading any other spiritual documents that various people wrote back then, providing you understand who they were and where they were coming from, and what their prejudices and beliefs were.