The second question which Brian Mclaren puts forward in "A New Kind of Christianity", "The Authority question". Again just a few thoughts.
Mclaren uses the analogy of many Christians using the bible as a type of constitution. Where all of the questions and possiblities are found in the Bible.
While in actuality the Bible is a lot of things; history, poetry, parables etc etc. Never a black and white document.
I can always remember listening to a message by Billy Graham and his justification of his message. The answer was because "The Bible tells us". At the time this seemed perfectly ok. I actually think that this is not a bad response to some things. Yet in other circumstances its not.
In many ways my thought is that the Bible it is a signpost. I don't think that Mclaren actually wrote this but I'm sure that he would think the same thing. This crystallisation came about 15 years ago for me.