If the books in the Bible are to be regarded as Truth, would the Canonical theory argue that knowledge and understanding of God have a limit?

I agree, Steve, which is why I asked the question about our understanding having a limit. I, too, believe we continue to learn through human-God interactions today. Martin Luther King Jr. is an example of someone who challenged our thinking and made the world a better place. Appreciating his influence on our society is, in my view, one way of "discovering God in a modern context", as you stated.

I have tremendous respect for scripture, but I believe our relationship with God extends far beyond the Bible.

I agree, Sue, about the language.
I, too, am having a difficult time relating to this theory.

I agree with you for the most part, Sterling. I have a tendency to view the Bible as Gomes does and make it nice when it isn't (I think Pam may have said that in our last discussion). However, in the case of homosexually (and women), I do not think the Bible supports a sensitive approach. I wish it did…However, the Bible does teach compassion, particularly in the New Testament, and I continue to hold onto that as a means of dealing with the insensitive and cruel texts that you referenced in your post. Jesus had enormous compassion towards people feeling marginalized.

It concerns me deeply that homosexual people do not feel accepted in many of our churches. It is my strong belief that God invites all of us to have a relationship with Him, and His love is all-inclusive.
Proverbs 10:12 states "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses".

Sterling,

I really appreciate your point of view and am grateful you are challenging us to examine these texts. You are not being adversarial at all; please continue to challenge our thinking.

Mary

Brenda, I like your words "we come away with a greater understanding of the text's message and an invitation to find our connection to it". I have not really thought about reading scripture this way. But you are right, it is a personal connection that grows and evolves, rather than merely an experience that has an end point.

Thank you for the description, Mandy. I, too, find this method very interesting and helpful.

Reader-response criticism is a theory that focuses the attention on the reader's experience of the literary work rather than on the author or the content of the text. It is a postmodern theory, beginning in the 1960s and 70s in America and German, largely influenced by Norman Holland, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, Roland Barthes, and others.

Reader-response criticism theory argues that without the reader, the text has no meaning. The text is the object, the reader the subject. The author's intent is ignored and the reaction of the reader is of primary importance. According to this theory, "a text is not complete until it is read and interpreted" (Gioia and Gwynn, The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction). Gioia and Gwynn state "rather than declare one interpretation correct and the other mistaken, reader-response criticism recognizes that different insights are inevitable. Instead of trying to ignore or reconcile the contradictions, it explores them".

Wikepedia states "Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates his or her own, possibly unique, text-related performance. It stands in total opposition to the theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role in re-creating literary works is ignored. New Criticism had emphasized that only that which is within a text is part of the meaning of a text. No appeal to the authority or intention of the author, nor to the psychology of the reader, was allowed in the discussions of orthodox New Critics. The New Critics' position assumed an objective, fixed text that could be studied apart from any human being, and this assumption persisted even into postmodern criticism".

What a nice analogy- your performing without an audience. I agree with you. I think the reader plays a primary role, but the text plays an important part as well.
I believe the reader makes the experience whole.