Reader Question- Why No Bible Quotes?

I guess my main concern is that nothing you said in your blog was backed by Scripture.
-Anonymous 
--------------

I've wondered if something like this would come up. I addressed the idea in brief when Anon mentioned it in the comments elsewhere, but thought it was worth an entry of it's own.

For people who are used to reading blogs by pastors, mine might stand out somewhat in that I do not spend much time quoting, or even referencing, scripture in my blog. There is a strong tradition in the church for whom this is nearly anathema, where making a statement without an accompanying Biblical Bibliography is almost unheard of.

The thing is, most of what I say in this Blog is backed by Scripture. (I say "most" because, try as I might, I am unable to find solid Scriptural Attestation to the awesomeness of comic book movies.) I have decades of experience with the Scriptures, and I take them very, very seriously. They form the backbone of all of my theological thought.

So why not quote them? Several Reasons. To the list!

1- It can be really annoying to read blocks of quoted text. I'm going for readability, here, and huge blocks of reference text is exactly the sort of thing that might get an internet reader to stop.

2- Hardly anyone checks reference texts. I have read so many documents that were constantly throwing out random Biblical text addresses. Even in an age of Google, looking them all up is even more interfering with the reading than block quotes. So no one does... and then what do they prove? A lot of those references I have seen had exactly zilch to do with the ideas they were supposed to be backing... which leads me to believe their authors knew how much they were used.

3- Scripture is easy to Twist. The first thing the Devil said to anyone was a misrepresentation of the words of God, and later in the Bible Satan quotes scripture directly. Clearly, simple knowledge of the scriptures does not make one a good exegete. Or a good person.

4- Atheists don't care. I have a strong atheist/agnostic/whatever demographic who reads the Blog, and to them, space spent quoting scripture is wasted space. They don't care what the book says, for them it has no meaningful authority. If my thoughts and words can't be persuasive of themselves, all the Bible Quotes in the world won't change that.

5- It doesn't make me unassailable anyway. Even if I put in all the work and gave a full Bibliography for each of my posts (hard for a work of love, "do it as you have time" project) at the end of the day, so what? Another Christian could (and would, if so inclined) rebut me, with quoted scriptures of their own. And once all were quoted, we would be right back here at the beginning, two people talking through their differences.

There is this perception among Christians, especially in Evangelical circles, that all you have to do is throw down a good scriptural quote in order to win a Biblical argument, like scriptures were cards and a good Bible Scholar has all the trumps. But that isn't true, it never has been.

The scriptures aren't there to solve all of our problems, or make the world easy. The Bible is a complicated, living document representing hundreds of worldviews, some of which differ and contrast internally. What it DOES provide is a useful common language for discussion.

So that is why I don't spend time quoting the Scripture that helped me form my various philosophies, ideologies, and opinions. At the end of the day, if I can't provide a cogent argument in words for why you should think the way I do, you won't, no matter who or what I quote. And in the meantime, I save everyone a LOT of time and keep these posts WAAAAAY easier to read.