Elaine Pagels Believe Quotations

Christianity becomes just a set of things you believe in. It's almost an intellectual kind of abstract issue.

There are some kinds of Christianity that insist you have to believe literally in doctrine. The Gnostic gospels open out the complexity and multiplicity of approaches to this. If you think the story of the virgin birth is mistranslated, for instance, it doesn't mean you have to throw out the whole thing.