Hello again, everyone. A while back I left the site, mainly in reaction to what I perceived as a hostile environment towards differing opinions. I do feel that this is a valid complaint, but I won't dwell on it. At the same time, this is the site where I discovered my faith in Christ, and many of the people here have offered prayer and support. For that I am grateful. And in particular, now that I find myself questioning my faith, I think that this, the place where it began, may be the best place to come seeking answers.In particular, I can't help but avoid the question of whether I believe something is good because Christ deemed it good, or whether Christ deemed it good because it is good. This is an age-old issue perhaps best articulted in Plato's Euthyphro. My intrinsic judgment when I see a moral claim made in the Bible is to ask whether it measures up to my own standards first. This is something that I am sure many people here will object to, but I also think we all do it more than we care to admit.The issue of slavery stands out. It takes little effort to find condonement of reprehensible practice in the Old Testament (stoning adulterous women to death, killing family members who adopt a different faith, etc.), but we can generally sweep that under the carpet - dirty secret though it may be - because of Paul's renunciation of Mosaic law. The New Testament, then, should be where our moral code all comes together. Nothing objectionable here, right? But we can't help but ignore the numerous times that Paul condones slavery, or his repeated assertion that the woman be subordinate to the man in the household.Some members of this site have actually upheld this second position, with one going so far as to imply that we ought to revoke universal suffrage. (Perish the thought!) But I have never seen anyone defend slavery. Why is this? We all have on the one hand our notion that slavery is obviously wrong. This comes largely from secular argument and social standards. But surely the word of God trumps this; that is the mantra, after all. The Word of God before the word of man. Why shouldn't we hold slaves, then, if the New Testament not only permits it but specifically instructs the slave to be subservient to his master?This is the key issue that I am struggling with in my crisis of faith. I simply cannot will myself to discard a secular humanist justification for ethics in favor of Christian law. I find myself happy when they happen to coincide - and I think they do coincide more often than not - because it feels as though my faith is being vindicated. But I simply don't know how to respond when they don't. If I were to be presented with an irrefutable argument that Christianity does, in fact, condone slavery, I simply don't think I would have enough faith to discard my humanist instincts and go with Christianity in that case.I find the same problem with the issue of homosexuality. Paul is fairly unequivocal in his rhetoric about homosexuals, and yet at the same time I actually lack the ability to take him seriously on the issue. I am powerless to do anything other than see that it harms no human and conclude that any just God would not condemn such an act.This particular issue has made me question what the actual role of the Christian faith is in my life. I feel as though I was drawn to Christianity because it, in so many respects, lined up well with what I already believed. But such a view makes Christianity completely extraneous. I can, of course, always simply reject the inerrancy of the Bible, but I feel as though what the historical Jesus leaves me with hardly constitutes a faith. It is coherent (usually) with humanism, but not necessary for it. And at the moment, I simply don't know how to answer that problem. Christianity was, for a brief moment, a very powerful force in my life. While I am confident that I can remain a good person without it, I would like very much to be able to maintain it for my own sake at the very least. I am just afraid that I do not have the will to believe anymore.