...I do not think this would have to make churches irrelevant, IF they but embraced its meaning.
I often have the debate with Christians about abortion after learning what I have about that afore mentioned meaning of the reference to Jesus as "Word" in John. They have nothing to say about it after that. It does not change their mind, however, even though the entire culture in Jesus' time embraced this attitude that life begins at birth. Jesus never questioned that belief if he had some sort of "mysterious" knowledge from God with Whom he supposedly was in constant communication Who would surely have questioned it if it were relevant. Abortions happened then as now. While the more children the better in Jesus' culture, still in order to not have pregnancy while traveling across the desert, doctors could insert a seed into the uterus (many seeds such as the apple seed contain strychnine and so does the apricot seed, which makes the uterus "hostile" to the planting of sperm). Prostitutes had to routinely do it in order to be able to ply their trade without children. This was not an unknown practice.
But instead the intentional ignorance continues. Sexuality has become so distorted in our conservative churches, particularly among women, we are seeing the overt destruction of a woman's rights to her sexuality imposed upon her by mostly men. We also see very perverted behavior by these same men twisting love into something sick with children. They hide their own sexuality with other men when all of nature shows that God created gays too. The very idea that Jesus may have had a sexual relationship is foreign to them. They even had to make Mary Magdellan a prostitute (which she was never called in their own scriptures) rather than admit she may have been Jesus' wife. Talk about heresy, especially if Jesus himself even called Mary his "first disciple" much less his wife (recorded in the newly discovered Gospel of Thomas who also says he publicly "kissed her on the mouth" a scandalous thing in his time for any woman including his wife) ~ the whole inclusion of this woman was a VERY radical thing to do in his time!
This is why those Very Serious Conservative Christian leaders are almost laughable to me as they show their ignorance every time they open their mouths. Many religions and Mysteries in the world say that the Universe is powered by Love. If these churches would but admit that we humans are sexual creatures and that Love can manifest itself in many ways. It should mean that real Love comes from God. This should indicate that any real love is not decided by themselves but it is of God, and if we saw this, we would come a far way towards eradicating a lot of needless agony, IMO.
My two cents
Cat
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