#consequently people ignore them in favor of finding some obscure or esoteric way to guarantee that they're 'in'

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

I have to say I don’t think I really believe in “Bible study” in the way that many Protestants practice it. Though I believe in sola gratia and sola fide, Protestantism’s theology as applied has a strange quirk that makes some Protestants obsessed with making sure they have actually said the magic words necessary to acquire salvation, which necessitates believing the correct things, or discerning the means by which one knows one is saved, which often spirals into a strange obsession with trying to understand what the Bible is “really” trying to say and what it “really” means, usually involving selective and haphazard dives into etymology, dead languages, and ancient cultures, our knowledge of which is imperfect, and a strange intensity bordering on conspiratorial paranoia about the act of translating a dead language into readable English.

This is as far as I can tell one of the Pharisaical elements of Protestantism, in that people become obsessed with knowing all the right things, but are still, as we all observe with painful regularity, tremendously unpleasant people.