Whatever else one may think of Pastor Andy Stanley, I think he has an interesting (and probably good) response to this that I plan to keep in mind in my own discussions with people going forward. He has determined not to keep saying “The Bible says…”, but instead give the more specific claim: ‘Jesus taught…’ or ‘Paul teaches…’ or ‘Moses wrote…’ and so forth. His reasoning is that to claim “the Bible teaches…” reinforces the mistaken perspective that the Bible (and really then, some claimed interpretation of it too) should all be taken as one seamless unit, and that “as the Bible goes, so goes one’s faith.” I.e. if the Bible (or the privileged interpretation) is shown to fail at any point, then so must a person’s faith.
I’ve been thinking about how much I hear this (and have spoken those words myself) - which is quite a bit! I think Stanley is on to something there in terms of being aware of our language and what it reinforces.