Richard says,

...All too often I've heard people say, "The Bible says it, I believe it!", without thinking about the fact that no two individuals can read anything without filtering it through their own life experience. Interpretation is the way our brains interact with the world around us. That doesn't take away from the idea that we can agree upon a communal interpretation of a specific event.

"I believe in God, the Father almighty..." (Voice in my head: "Wait a sec... what do you mean by 'God'... how about 'Father'... how about 'Almighty'?")

Yeah, Richard, that voice in your head seems to catch the essence of it. And thankfully, where it leads us, I think, doesn't have to be a place of immobilizing doubt (which seems to be the fear of so many when it comes to the question of inerrancy). Rather it goes to a place of honesty and humility, where we admit that the world of interpretation has never been black and white.

And doesn't that honesty reduce the amount of things that we can really be conviced of, the things that are worth fighting for?? For me, that reduction is a blessed thing, because it can bring a very real unity, based around Christ as the revelation of the Love of God, which is the bedrock of what I can be convinced of in scripture, and is the only thing I really want to "fight" for, rather than whichever denominational issue.

But I suppose there are plenty of Christians who would disagree that the basic thing God is trying to communicate through scripture is "Christ as the revelation of the Love of God". Sometimes I wonder what common ground I have with those ones. Are we even on the same team??