I believe in Christian values but not the church. Love your neighbor. Give second chances. I believe in a higher power. I do not believe that higher power speaks to or through the pope. The Bible did say being gay is wrong... from 1946 to 1971, My God does not reside in the pages of a book. If it did it would not be the Bible. I went to church. I went to Bible camp. I was baptized. I went to my nieces christening. I respect the traditions of Christianity. The Bible was written to help people understand Christian values, but times have changed. Christian values and tradition are so much more than one book and trying to flatten thousands of years of heritage into a few hundred pages is insulting.
Well I respect your views on it, but I'd advise being careful about using the term Christian, as it's reserved for those who fall under its meaning "follower of Christ" and using it to encompass whatever beliefs you have can be seen as rude, if you know what I mean. It's like calling myself a vegan despite eating meat just because I respect what they stand for. There's nothing wrong with respecting other beliefs, I'm actually happy you do :D but the terminology exists for a reason.
I'd also be careful about establishing what the Bible was written for when we weren't the ones who wrote it, unless you did thorough research ofc. The Bible's purpose is not sharing values, but leading people into a relationship with Christ. It repeatedly makes it clear that everything else comes second, and without Christ, following the values means nothing. It's much deeper than you'd expect and I'd suggest looking into it. You seem to already have an interest in the faith, so I'm sure you'd like it
One last thing, it's true Christian tradition "changes" but one beautiful thing about Christianity is that even when the world around you keeps changing, God doesn't, and you can rely on Him the same as centuries ago. Trying to change that doesn't encompass more of Christianity, but gets rid of one of the main things that make it special. I hope that helps you understand why we find the Bible so important!
I don't think you and I are in disagreement. I did not intend to be rude. I am sorry if it came off that way. I don't see a need to split hairs over who is or is not a "true" Christian. Christianity has existed long before written language. People have been able to find God long before the Bible was conceived. God is celebrated across the world by countless people in countless ways. If the Bible helps you connect to God that is great. And I am not going to tell you that you are not a vegan because you eat meat. I agree words have meaning and the meaning of words is important, but not everything is always black and white. There are multiple kinds of vegans. Whether you knew it or not that is actually a perfect analogy.
"I'd also be careful about establishing what the Bible was written for when we weren't the ones who wrote it." you are saying to the person who is arguing the faith is more than the book. I agree 10,000%. The old testament is also known as the Hebrew Bible because it was written by Jews over the course of hundreds of years as you could probably guess by the fact it contains hundreds of years of actual human history. Twenty seven books were added onto it and it became the new testament. The new testament was written in Greek. St. Mark began writing the new testament about 60 years after the death of Jesus. Who was St. Mark? We don't know. His story was ironically lost to time so we gave him the name of one of Jesus's followers. Same for the other authors of the new testament. St. Paul wrote half of the new testament. Mathew and Luke wrote their portions around 80 years after the death of Jesus. Luke was not a fan of the Jewish people. The Bible as we know it today (kind of) was codified by Bishop Athinazia of Alexandria 300 years after the death of Jesus banning hundreds of scriptures as heresy for not fitting his vision of what he though Christianity and The Bible should be. When I said I was a Christian I meant it.
I never argued God changes. I said the tradition was one of the things I loved about the faith. People change. The way we celebrate our faith changes. The Bible changes. Different denominations have different versions of the Bible. People fight all the time about which Bible is the one correct version. I refuse to be one of them.
As far as I can tell you and I are in agreement. The only difference is that you believe the Bible is important and I believe the teachings of Jesus are important.