Poor Sells - always trying to flog a very dead horse. A horse frozen in the stone of the now archaic relics of Europe.
These references give a unique Illuminated Understanding of the nature of Truth & (Quantum) Reality.
http://global.adidam.org/books/gift-of-truth-itself
http://www.dabase.org/aletheon.htm various essays including these two
http://www.dabase.org/illusion-weather.htm
http://www.dabase.org/dogmas_of_social_morality.htm

These two references describe how the usual dreadfully sane Christian doubt-mind is bereft of any kind of pyscho-physical or Spiritual sensitivity - which is precisely the case with the world-view promoted by Sells.
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/nirvanasara/chapter1.html
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/gnosticon/universal-scientism this essay was originally published as The Psychosis of Doubt

Plus these two references we the hidden/lost dimensions of esoteric Christianity
http://www.aboutadidam.org/articles/secret_identity/beyond_hidden.html
http://www.beezone.com/esoteric_christianity.htm

Proof perfect why the Church of England has an over abundance of empty pews.
This is pure theologian talk and Peter has learned it well. The Bible has gone from being hidden away from prying eyes to literally true and when that all got too embarrassing then it became a "message" to be taken in context.
Goal post shifting at it's finest.
The Bible of course contains some moral wisdom but nothing to indicate it was all institute by a god rather than a group of late Iron Age humans trying to figure out the complex world around them.
The Jesus story is interesting only in that is combines many aspects of religious beliefs at the time. A window into history.
Interesting to see from the census figures that many ex-Anglicans were smart enough to figure out what religious institutions are really all about.

Its no mystery that the Bible was heavily edited word-by-word by a self-interested band of old, male, Romans after the Romans conveniently had Christ killed. In that male-only editorial process sections-"books" were deleted on womens' equality and participation.

In the first centuries AD Rome's decline in military power was largely replaced by Rome's use of Christianity as a form of religious power projection throughout the Empire.

What a silly question, Mr Sellick.

"Is Christianity 'true'?"

Of course it is true.

In precisely the same way that to the citizenry of China during both the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, it remained perfectly true that Chairman Mao was the Great Leader. No matter that tens of millions of people had died as a result of that "Leadership", the truth remained, clearly - and frequently - articulated by the people. Similar examples exist elsewhere, in North Korea, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich etc.

Essentially, "Truth" cannot be corralled into a simple set of absolutes. And any attempt to do so is almost certain to be the work of a tyrant.

In Mr Sellick's story, there is no tyrant. Just the same-old massive gap between belief and logic, undertaken my millions, every day. Just as it was in Mao's China.

A couple of paragraphs explain that "[m]uch of [the Bible] is certainly not true", and we are also invited to use novel-writing as an analogy, in that the Scriptures are "similar to the way that modern novels are completely made up stories that take us on a path of recognition".

However, we are then informed that "[i]t is proclaimed in Genesis that God made man in His own image."

If this is purely figurative, but at the same time the fundamental message of Christianity, this only serves to put the Bible on the same intellectual level as the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, Watership Down and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Which should - but clearly isn't - a problem to Mr Sellick's promotion of Christianity as the definitive religion.

Exactly what Pericles said.

What I find confounding is the number of people who need take the bible literally and are leaving the 'older' Christian denominations in droves.

I have a re-issue of the original Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Chock-a-Block with moral lessons. They're more entertaining and nobody takes them literally. Prefer it to the mostly poorly written oft translated bible any day.

I agree Yvonne, it confounds me too that while the pews are emptying in Catholic, CE, Uniting, Mormons and other mainstream churches, we are getting more people singing in the aisles of mad congregations like Hillsong and other 'born again' bible believers!

The bible has not become any more believable over the centuries, but I guess there will always be people who need the comfort of belief in a historical book or a god or two, to try to make sense of this world.