WOW. WHEW boy. THAT woke everybody up, didn’t it? Apparently I need to throw a little more controversy up on here! Stir the pot, I guess. Okay, here goes:
Gay men are better at interior decorating than straight men.
Is that going too far?
Anyway, I suppose I should respond to the responses, but I should post a few disclaimers:
- Sunday school is routinely held at the same time as choir practice in all of the churches at which I’ve worshipped. Since I’ve been singing in choirs of one kind or another since I was roughly 12, I haven’t had a lot of theological instruction in almost 2 decades. Any insight I have on the subject is stuff I’ve gathered from Dilbert cartoons.
- My theological beliefs are entirely colored by my experiences, not the other way around. I’d like to believe God exists, but so far He hasn’t revealed Himself to me fully. And that’s fine; maybe He will someday. Meanwhile I have to live my daily life in a Schroedinger’s Cat situation of “God exists/God doesn’t exist,” so I hedge my bets (example: instead of donating all my cash to the poor and wandering the earth in sandals and a robe, I toss a few bucks to worthy charities occasionally and spend the bulk of my money on, say, housing, food, diapers, and high-end electronics). What I’m saying is, if God really “hates fags,” then he needs to find a better way to say it than Fred Phelps, ’cause the gay folks I know are pretty much all awesome.
Having said that, let me make a few points:
- To quote my boy HeavyDluxe:
Interestingly, the Bible itself really presents you (in numerous places) with an all or nothing proposition. It either is all true, or it’s a complete lie. Doesn’t really give you a middle ground, sadly.
I’m not sure about that. The fact that the Bible is technically the Word of God as written down by fallible humans means to me that, if we were to assume that God Himself was telling folks what to write down, some things got lost in translation. Genesis, for example, was passed down orally for generations before being put to parchment somewhere between 900 and 450 BCE. The New Testament is obviously different, since theoretically it was written down by people who knew Christ, or at least knew Him second-hand, but it speaks volumes to me that there are numbers of gospels and other documents that were considered for canonicity and discarded. It’d be nice to think that they were excluded because historical documents abounded showing them to be false testaments, but from what I’ve read it seems like often they were thrown out because they showed Jesus in a light that the church leaders didn’t like (as more of a man than the earthly manifestation of the divine, etc.).
What I’m saying is that there are probably parts of the Bible that are true, parts that are outright false; most is somewhere in between. My view of BELIEF of the Bible, however, is either you believe it wholeheartedly, or other. (Other can be “I believe it’s not a literal account of anything, but shows a greater truth” or “I only believe the New Testament, because it’s clearly intended as a replacement for the Old Testament” or whatever.)
I do concede the point that the rules outlined in the Old Testament may be there to show that nobody can be perfect, and the New Testament shows the way to heaven despite our imperfections. I had not considered that before. So in theory you CAN believe that the Bible is entirely literal, and still get your bacon on. I’m not sure that I like the implication that God is basically saying “Okay, here are the rules. Now don’t worry about them, break them as much as you want, but MAKE SURE YOU BELIEVE IN MY SON.”
- The Bible is merely one of many documents, including the Koran, the Vedas and Upanishads, etc. that purport to show some kind of True Way (although they all seem to lead to different places). The only reason most Americans follow Christianity at all is because it’s what they were raised with. It’s like preferring steak and potatoes (Mmmm…steak) over vegetable curry (Mmmm…curry).
If an alien was flying through space alone, searching for the meaning of life, landed on earth, and decided to pick himself a religion because he wanted to believe in SOMETHING, which one would he pick? They’re all pretty much equally well-documented. If he wanted to pick one based on which had the EARLIEST documentation, it’d probably have to be Hinduism. If he picked the one followed by the most people, it’d probably be a form of Christianity. If he landed in downtown Mecca, he’d probably pick Islam. In the end, he’d have to make a decision based on whichever religion felt right to him. It’s all a matter of faith.
I guess what I’m saying is that when it comes to religion, you have to choose what FEELS right. To get back to the reason I originally opened this massive ridiculous train of thought (anti-homosexual feelings in the Christian church), a God who makes a person gay, and then denies him the right to be who he is, is not a God who feels right to me.
- One more HeavyDluxe quote before I get back to my usual thoughts of booze and women:
God = Holiness + Justice + Love + Wrath Against Sin. God without wrath/justice/holiness is neither God nor loving.
Which makes sense short term, but not eternally. For example, I love my son. I show this by smothering him with hugs and kisses whenever he gets within reach, and also by disciplining him when he, for example, tries to touch a hot light bulb, because I don’t want him to get hurt. With God, it seems like he wants you to believe in him, and if you don’t, you get eternally damned. Which is similar to Charles refusing to acknowledge me as his father, so I kill him. That’s not an act of love. That’s solely an act of vengeance.
Of course, that’s projecting human feelings onto an omnipotent being; I obviously can’t know how God thinks. What I do know is that I have a hard time having faith in a God who is reported to be loving and yet supposedly lets people burn in eternity, often for the simple act of growing up in a remote place that hasn’t heard of Jesus yet. I actually have a much easier time believing, for example, that if you are a dick to people you get reincarnated as a tapeworm, but I like celebrating major Christian feast days, so I’ll stick with what I got.
Okay, I’ll shut up now. Remember: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. Next week: how God demonstrated Himself to me by way of a massive jolt of electricity through a 5-iron!
I’ve been restraining myself here, but a brief two cents:
1. Everything that made the “final cut” in the Bible (a.k.a., the Word that was supposedly handed down from God(dess) unchanged) (HA) is there because it served a social agenda. It served an ideological purpose according to whomever was in power at the time (generally elite men). Hence, the exclusion of the Gnostic gospels, etc.
2. Whenever you see something like “don’t covet your neighbor’s wife,” etc., it usually means that was happening, and probably pretty rampantly, hence the need to include the prohibition. Social control, people. Yoked to the supposed mandate of divine will.
3. Literalistic interpretations are, at this point, laughably obsolete. Even the most respected Biblical scholars note that the Bible should be referred to as a mythical work offering general life guidance, translated horrendously wrong over the course of the years (note the huge differences in entendre, etc. in Hebrew vs. Greek vs. English translations, etc.). Point being: you can’t take this shit seriously.
4. Amen to your last points. A God of love would not doom God’s blessed creations to a life of carnage in hell. Hell is here on earth, and enlightened theologians recognize the need to emphasize the struggles of the material world over the transcendent one, which has traditionally allowed tunnel-vision “Christians” to ignore social justice issues on earth while shiftiing their attention to other-worldly fantasies of redemption. Hence, Marx’s “religion is the opiate of the masses” comment.
That is all. (Good times!)
Hi all, again. A lot here to respond to:
Starting with Matt’s post:
I’m not sure about that. The fact that the Bible is technically the Word of God as written down by fallible humans means to me that, if we were to assume that God Himself was telling folks what to write down, some things got lost in translation.
That’s a nice, and valid, philosophical point. But, again, the Bible itself claims something very different:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Tim 3:16)
“For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Pet 1:21)
In the first verse, the word ‘all’ is literally *ALL*. And the idea of “breathed out by God” (theopnuestos in the original) implies the same kind of inspiring, life-giving breath as the Genesis narrative. In the 2 Peter reference, the recording of prophecy (which includes teaching, in Peter’s context – not just ‘predictions’) are the direct product of the work of the Holy Spirit.
My point simply is that the Bible sets itself up different than any other ‘holy book’. It says it is all absolutely true, or all absolutely false. It claims *divine* authorship through human means…
Your understanding of the issues of canon is a little off. I’d be happy to rant on about the modern ‘rethinking’ of the historical evidence for the canon made so popular by Bart Erhman and the DaVinci Code, but that would take way too long. Sufficed to say, there is document evidence that the church accepted the books we currently call ‘New Testament Canon’ within 30 years of their writing. The later issues taken up by the Nicean Council and others was more to definitively weed out agreed heretical books that were gaining (note the verb tense) acceptance in some regions of the church. These late, supposed ‘additions’ to the canon were roundly trounced. And, contrary to Dan Brown’s prose, the vote wasn’t close.
I’m not sure that I like the implication that God is basically saying “Okay, here are the rules. Now don’t worry about them, break them as much as you want, but MAKE SURE YOU BELIEVE IN MY SON.”
Ummm. No.
The point isn’t that we can go on breaking the rules willy-nilly. That’s a slap in the face towards God. It is, instead, to show that God is holy and just *and* loving and merciful.
The right response to that love and mercy isn’t to try to figure out ways to gleefully go on “getting our bacon on”, but to respond in growing appreciation for and obedience to the one who saved us.
Mark Driscoll says better than I ever could in this video.
I guess what I’m saying is that when it comes to religion, you have to choose what FEELS right. To get back to the reason I originally opened this massive ridiculous train of thought (anti-homosexual feelings in the Christian church), a God who makes a person gay, and then denies him the right to be who he is, is not a God who feels right to me.
Just for the record: The message of Christianity is, fundamentally, that was feels right to us is the very thing that God hates. So, going by what feels right is leaning into part of what makes us broken in the first place.
[‘Disciplining’ judgement] makes sense short term, but not eternally. For example, I love my son. I show this by smothering him with hugs and kisses whenever he gets within reach, and also by disciplining him when he, for example, tries to touch a hot light bulb, because I don’t want him to get hurt. With God, it seems like he wants you to believe in him, and if you don’t, you get eternally damned. Which is similar to Charles refusing to acknowledge me as his father, so I kill him. That’s not an act of love. That’s solely an act of vengeance.
As you note, your judging God on your terms. Again, check that video. The point is that God cannot violate his own nature – eternally. Sin, an infinite offense against an infinitely holy God, must be punished. That punishment is either something we bear ourselves or it is carried by another.
I actually have a much easier time believing, for example, that if you are a dick to people you get reincarnated as a tapeworm
And, let’s be honest, why wouldn’t we? That’s a much nicer idea than eternal, conscious torment in hell!
The question is which is true. And that makes all the difference.
And since Rach commented…
It served an ideological purpose according to whomever was in power at the time (generally elite men). Hence, the exclusion of the Gnostic gospels, etc.
Assuming human, pragmatic authorship… Sure. Obviously, I disagree. I would also reiterate my point re: your very ‘pop’ understanding of the issue of canonicity.
Literalistic interpretations are, at this point, laughably obsolete. Even the most respected Biblical scholars note that the Bible should be referred to as a mythical work offering general life guidance.
“Most respected” based on whose criteria?
My point is far simpler. The Bible claims absolute truth for itself (and the core of Christianity is absolute truth claims). If it’s wrong, the whole thing can – and should be – discounted and we can go on living our lives by some other standard. The Bible either *is* or *is not* what it claims to be…
A God of love would not doom God’s blessed creations to a life of carnage in hell.
But that’s exactly what God claims to be prepared to do. If you choose to believe something else, that’s fine… However, you can’t tease out plain ‘doctrine’ from the Bible and discard it piecemeal. You may build a different, more palatable religion – but it’s not Christian by any stretch.
Lastly – why is it that it’s ok to insinuate that my intelligence is less than yours because I believe something different than you? I find it a fascinating trend in society that reasoned disagreement has gone the way of the dinosaur.
At any rate, I stand where I stand… I can’t – for rational and experiential reasons – stand anywhere else. And I believe, with all my heart and head, that there’s something to this…. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here shouting into the wind.
As the video I in-lined states, you must wrestle with the claims Jesus made about Himself and the claims the Bible makes about itself. If you choose to discount them, that is certainly your right. But I respectfully urge you to do business with them on their own terms.
I just wish one of those pansy “do me in the nether-reaches” designers would visit my house. I can’t seem to pick a single color that the wife OR the crucifix likes.
Cuz, you know, Xbox 360 green doesn’t have that swoon factor unless you’re 14 and just starting to shave. And both totally talk to me in my sleep.
I’m just trying to understand. How does this:
This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
(I apologize, I’m lazy, I didn’t want to look up any of the other outdated passages in the bible, so just copied that one.) Agree with this:
The Bible claims absolute truth for itself (and the core of Christianity is absolute truth claims). If it’s wrong, the whole thing can – and should be – discounted and we can go on living our lives by some other standard. The Bible either *is* or *is not* what it claims to be…
The two do not in any way shape or form go together in my mind. Am I missing the point? I must be.
Religion plays such a major (or minor) point in so many people’s lives. The problem lies in the fact that so many people believe so many things. Hence, most of the world’s population believes the other part is going to hell. I personally get a kick out of listening to two sides argue out a verbal battle, but sometimes it’s like trying not to get angry at a racist. On the issue of homosexuality, I just cannot accept a person’s views when they publicly advocate an irrational hatred of another group’s existence.
However, I’m a stubborn drunkard, and the bible must be completely counted, or completely discounted, so please decide amongst yourselves and let me know if I will or will not be stoned for my offences.
First off: Matt feel free to tell me to shut up and let this all stop… This is your blog, after all.
In the meantime (*grin*), responding to Stefan:
Most important point first: On the issue of homosexuality, I just cannot accept a person’s views when they publicly advocate an irrational hatred of another group’s existence.
Just to clarify, I do not hate homosexuals nor their existence. I know that some ‘christians’ (using that term loosely) do.
As I’ve noted before, there isn’t a lot of difference between my tendency to overeat (gluttony) and someone else’s homosexuality. Both are sins against a holy God and are sufficient grounds for punishment. We’re both guilty.
Recognizing that, for me to harbor hatred against someone else for their sin is just absurd and hypocritical. That said, there is a critical point to be made. If someone is living in open, unrepentant rebellion against God, their is an eternal risk. If I believe what I say I believe, it would be the height of wickedness to not say anything.
So, I say again: We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. We can either plow ahead and bear our own punishment, or we can repent and turn to Christ who bore the punishment for us. The latter implies an ongoing attempt to submit our lives (in gratitude) to the one who rescued us.
That’s all… For the record, there is no hatred here. And you can ask my gay friends from college (I was a music major, after all) if you want verification.
Moving on:
I’m just trying to understand. How does this:
[citation of Deut 21:18-21]
…Agree with this:
[my statement re: the Bible’s absolute truth claims]
I’m sure Matt’s mortified with all this anyway, so I don’t want to turn his blog into a hermeneutics lecture. I’d refer you to these posts I did on my blog. I don’t deal with the passage you cite specifically, but I do cover several equally inflammatory ones.
Briefly, the point of the passage you cite is in the last phrase: “So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.” The entire book of Deuteronomy is a retelling of the Law as Israel prepared to enter the promised land. In context, the point is that God is holy and has a righteous standard for how we live. If Israel obeyed and “purged the evil from their midst”, they would be blessed. If not, then God would hand them over to their enemies.
And here we arrive, again, at the larger arc of the Bible: God’s people were sinners at their core and couldn’t keep (moral inability) the commands God has given. And yet, rather than completely squash them, God displayed His holiness and mercy by preserving a remnant in the midst of judgement. The inability to keep the Law should’ve made Israel cry out for redemption (culminating in Christ), but it didn’t.
The Bible tells one story, over and over again… A wicked, rebellious people are shown great grace by a loving, and yet holy, God. Through the atonement of the cross, we are credited right standing before God through the suffering of Christ. Paul says it better in Ephesians 2:1-10 than I ever could.