I'd hoped to reply to your comment on GermanWrench's site, but she's enabled Friends Lock. Which is too bad, since I liked arguing theology with her...

As for your comment, I'd agree that it's important to take things in the bible in context, both in terms of the text itself and the historical context of the events. But that quote from John, where Jesus basically says to the Jews, "why are you calling it heresy that I call myself God, when your own sacred texts call you gods?" is a really interesting one, that to me brings up questions of what his meaning is when he calls himself the Son of God and the Son of Man. Perhaps Jesus doesn't make as much of a distinction between himself and other people as we do for him - he gives the power to heal to his disciples, shows them that it's possible for them to perform miracles as well. He says that no one gets to the Father but through him, but maybe he doesn't mean it in the way we all take it. Maybe it's more that he gives us a way to live that will bring us redemption, including sacrificing his life for a greater cause. Living through his example brings redemption, not simply living as a "christian".

I'm a big fan of actually reading the bible before deciding what it means (or having it decided for you, which is how it seems to go nowadays). But for full disclosure, I don't consider myself a christian any more than I consider myself a buddhist, taoist, jew, hindi or pagan. I just have a lot more experience and knowledge of the christian religion than most of those others. Plus, I like to argue with many of the christians on xanga, because for the most part I know my bible better than they do, and because many of them are towing a dangerous fundamentalist line that I find scary and disturbing.