renaissance and relevance 2a: the big story

One of the questions I'm asking of the different theologies doing the rounds is how they correspond to the bible's content and storyline.

what does being 'biblical' mean?
There's a lot to be said here for a good degree of caution in this regard.

- It's far too easy to forget about the assumptions we bring when we read texts - to forget that we have our own "glasses" on, which have not only been shaped by our culture, but also by our personal experience.
- It's also fairly easy to string together bible verses and present a fast-food systematic theology by working deductively - starting with ideas and looking for proof-texts.
- Yet there's a sense in which this has to be our approach to texts. What I mean is: We have to start with what we already know and work with analogy to come to a new understanding. Just as we start learning language with the category "apple" and later find out about "golden delicious" and "granny smith", so we start with our own category "love" when we read the bible for the first time. This gets developed as we read more. Perhaps we manage at first to find proof texts which back up our definition, but as time goes by our definition gets challenged and changed. This process takes time.
- Because proof-texting can be too easy, judging competing theologies should not be like ten-pin-bowling (i.e. "I've got a verse which knocks you out!"), but more like a glacier forming a valley (i.e. "This has got significant weight and momentum from the whole of scripture and that rock over there is going to be well and truly worn away!")