The complete picture

Re Mark Tremblay letter, December
Was Luther fishing for laughs when he posted his 95 theses? Or why should it mark an erosion of tolerance and diversity of opinion for people to express an opinion other than Zander Dunn's? (Letters, March) Isn't this kind of open expression of ideas what tolerance and diversity are all about? The alternative would be a denomination in which nothing was ever challenged. I'm sure that's not what Tremblay would want.
Tremblay seems to have forgotten that, although the Bible speaks about faith as an attitude of trust, it also speaks about “the faith” which has a particular revelatory content. Disregarding that content may not undermine faith as an attitude (which can have virtually anything as its object) but it does undermine “the faith” which we are told was once for all handed down to the saints.
Tremblay also speaks about things not making theological or philosophical sense. What I find nonsensical is the suggestion that one can believe in Jesus apart from believing certain things about Jesus. Certainly a belief in Jesus has to begin with a belief in the fact that He's real. It also has to include a belief in the fact that He lives and can still make a difference in the lives of people today. When people talk about “believing in Jesus,” apart from needing to “believe things about Jesus,” what's really being said are some things about Jesus which they are prepared to believe and some facts which they aren't. Let's be honest about that rather than trying to pretend that you can have a Christian faith devoid of content.
Finally, Tremblay suggests that the absence of any discussion of Jesus' birth in Mark or John must be a great concern to those who put so much weight in the idea of a virgin birth. Yet the argument works both ways. By Tremblay's logic, it must also be a great concern to those who put no weight in a virgin birth that Matthew and Luke both include it. The question for us to consider is whether it's more likely that we've been given four gospels so that we can safely ignore parts of some or so that, by looking at the four of them together, we can know that we have the complete picture?