My father was a Southern Baptist pastor. In his sermons he followed the usual language and most of the tenets of his fundamentalist church. I started very early in life conversing with him about these matters up to the day of his death. I was encouraged to see that he always tried to give me intelligent answers squarely beyond common cliches, and that he displayed a deep and sometimes contentious interpretation of the scriptures. He believed that the Bible was essentially right as long as it wasn't read literally. These dialogues with my father are the point of departure of these reflections....