the same basic problem besets the red-letter Christians.
1) by what authority do they trim the existential roast to the bits in quote marks?
2) by what process (which includes the German sense of the word, by what judicial trial of the proffered evidence) have they established that the red text is a Good Thing?
3) what durable and unconditional boundaries to human behavior can they refine, reduce, distil in this manner from the vast noisy stage of human experience using the text as a guide?
Imo they have done nothing to resolve the core fail.
Arriving @ my own answers…
1) the authority vested in them by the ‘priesthood of the believers’, in which individual Christian’s are held to morally competent to understand, teach and apply the principles THEY DERIVE from TWoG (ie, what the reformation turned into here - aka, ‘everybody with a Bible is a fukken preacher’. Similar authority is invested in anyone with a brain who cares to use it.
2) I’m quite sure not court finding or judicial procedure in people individually deciding that Jesus was the important part (“his picture’s on the box!”), and that the remainder were accretions that distracted from the example & teachings thereof
3) Whatever such they care to & choose to assay for their own purposes? If this was an assignment, I bet none of them know about it.
Honestly, those seem like weird questions to ask of someone only ACQUAINTED with the practice & and vociferously *NOT* a christian, and I’m not sure why you (seem to) judge their practice so harshly & seek to call them to account for…not being legit christians or something? I’m confused.