Long ago during my brief stint in a Christian school I learned about a concept called “theoneustos”, literally, “God breathed”. The idea was that God breathed through the writers of scripture, so we can know every word in infallible and true.
I have always had a hard time believing that a document in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church for a millennium wasn't doctored with. I wouldn’t trust them with an altar boy, never mind the written basis of a huge religious group.
Anyway, these believers, millions of them in the US today do some odd cherrypicking. To whit:
If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
Leviticus 20:10 we ignore, because we can’t go around killing people such as, oh, let’s say the leading Republican candidate?
You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those which I have set apart as unclean for you.
Leviticus 20:25 we ignore because it’s ceremonial law. Oh yeah? Who gets to pick?
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
Leviticus 18:22 is the basis for the number one political concern of American (mostly Christian) Republicans. Not hunger, poverty, illness or any of the stuff their religion’s namesake actually said was important. What is the basis for the right’s obsession with sex anyway?
2 comments:
In my humble opinion, I think the Right's obsession with sex has to do with power. Sex is one of the most powerful forces on earth.
It seems as if everything is animated through sexual desire/attraction.(My job as an artist, sometimes, is to make stuff sexy. Take ideas that are completely heady, and esoteric, and make them attractive for consumption.)
Anyway, I think they suppress sex, or have hang ups about it, like dictating rules of engagement, etc. cause its a messy part of the equation for power.
And, well....
as for picking and choosing...
yeah,
It appears that this picking and choosing scripture to tailor a specific cultural way of life is LAZY. And that's it.
LAZY.
Intellectually, and socially LAZY.
We all know what is right. We all know what's going on. At least a good idea. We all have the same emotions and needs. Damn.
Is it that hard?
Am I being naive?
But I don't expect anything to really change that much.
I didn't mean to avoid your point. Maybe I missed it, but it wasn't a purposeful avoidance. I thought your point was this:
You know, I wasn’t just yelling into a closet when I asked for an explanation from any Christians on how to tell what parts of the Old Testament are ceremonial and therefore to be ignored, and which ones are eternal and important.
So I tried to make an explanation. The beauty of the Bible, as I have come to know it, free from our shared past experience with confused and confusing ideologues, is that my explanation really means nothing anyway...you need to see for yourself.
Now you have stated a different point, and so I am sorry for wasting your time. I hope I will not waste it more by trying to respond.
I have to say here ( I was just talking to Mom, and mentioning how Joshua is quickly surpassing me in speed, and soon it will be depth of intellect, and comparisons to you came out, as the smarter of the two of us) You are smarter, and better educated and more well read than me. Some things I say that follows might sound uppity or like I know it all. I want to acknowledge that I might be wrong, and so can say what i am thinking freely...and if it sounds prideful, it may well be, but I guess I mean to say, even though I think I have spoken with God, it doesn’t mean I understand any more than anyone else. I only THINK I know what I know. I really want to pursue this theme on the merits, and not get bogged down by seeming to be patronizing.
Here we go:
I think in this case you have stated the main premise regarding Bible study:
Can we believe any of it, all of it, or part of it. If part of it, which part?
Can we agree to accept firstly the idea that there are historical parts, and poetry parts and Commandment parts, and that Poetry shouldn’t be taken as Command, etc? I know that people try to do that, but I think we can say here it is wrong.
The “rub” comes when the historical parts don’t seem to agree, or the commands don’t seem to line up or play out. Then, you are also referring to the affect of modern manipulators of said passages. Lots of variables.
I think Aaron pointed one aspect...intellectual laziness tends to make things black and white, and so people who have purported to be God's spokes-people have made a simple determination, and the lazy followers (who were not gay, or other "socially unacceptable" types, yet wanted God) said Amen. But I don't think God asked them to be His spokesmen, and so the logic breaks down. I think you are upset at the very people God is upset with: those who would pervert and subvert his word.
But God will not be mocked, even by the religious folks. (Matt 25:41) The amazing thing i have personally experienced, is that God actually spoke to me, and asked me what i needed as proof that i could trust His word. He then fulfilled that test and promise. I have since really appreciated (moderately critical evaluations and probing to test historical accuracies, etc included) having a relationship with God's word, as illuminated and taught to me by His Holy Spirit. It has been everything promised by Both 1 Tim 3:16 and Deut 29:29. This may seem like a cop out, but I think when He promised that even the tiny parts of his word ARE eternal, regardless of the religious right, and the Catholic Church, he meant he would protect it, and help me, and you, and Aaron, if we want to know what He has to say.
The mistake is to try to comprehend, rather than allow it to be “living and powerful”. Trying to pin a live wasp onto a biology board is risky. Same with a living word. It confounds the attempt. I heard a sermon once, where the guy was challenging a habit of people who sensed that god had given them a prophetic insight. He said “ Don’t say “God told me to tell you X, Y and Z” “ His point was, If god told you to say it, say it. Then God will use it appropriately. He went on to say the extra moniker of “God told me…” held more possibility for problems, and was probably more a reflection of the insecurity and self righteous craving of the speaker, than God. He then said, If you really want to hold on to that, and you want to use as a reason the fact that the Biblical Prophets said it that way, well, OK, but we will then institute the command to “not let a false prophet live” in your case!
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