[stuartcr]

How can the actions of individuals be deemed irrelevant, when we are talking about individuals killing others? Texts do not kill people, it is the actual people, interpreting these texts, that kill.

[agrace]

Well, the actions are never irrelevant in the sense that their consequences do not matter. What I meant was, they are possibly irrelevant when measured against the text.

If a Christian, for example, murders in the name of Christ, his actions mean nothing in the light of Christian teaching because the text does not advocate murder, no matter what he professes. The KKK often invoked God, but just because they liked to ignore that Jesus was a Jew and that the Bible in no way advocates racist violence, doesn't mean God ever honored their actions or the text ever sanctioned them.