Brian Mclaren — though discussing the church in general and not me in particular — does a good job articulating why I left my previous church:
The author makes an accusation almost all fundamentalists make, one I used to make in my more conservative days: that when people use their minds to interpret and apply the Bible, they place their own “authority over the Bible instead of placing [themselves] under its authority.” That dichotomy is very simple and popular, but I find it highly problematic.
Texts don’t exercise their authority until they are interpreted, and all interpretation involves the mind, values, and interests of the interpretive community in and for which the text is interpreted. So when people claim to be under the authority of the Bible, they may in fact be under the authority of an interpretive community’s interpretation of the Bible, whether they realize it or not. It’s far easier to say, “The Bible says!” than to say, “The leaders of our interpretative community say that the Bible says…” That’s one reason why it’s so hard to change one’s interpretation: doing so often means one is no longer welcome in the familiar community where one has been nurtured and to which one belongs.
To be “under the authority of the Bible,” then, presupposes the authority of this or that interpretive community and its rules of interpretation. That’s why the existence, assumptions, and vested interests of any interpretive community should be made explicit and critically scrutinized, because fundamentalists of all varieties have an interpretive agenda, assumptions, and interests they bring to the text – just as “liberals” and “moderates” in all their diversity do.