January 12, 2007
The Devil Can Cite Scripture for His Purpose
I overlooked it when Avedon Carol linked to it, but Roz Kaveney noticed and remarked upon Avedon's link to an entry on Faithful Progressive about the degree to which the alleged fundamentalists in the Christian Right movement in the US cherry-pick the Bible to suit their preconceived agendas, rather than taking the Bible as a whole as their guide.
Faithful Progressive quotes in turn an essay by University of Chicago Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, Margaret M. Mitchell, entitled How Biblical is the Christian Right? Mitchell examined biblical quotes on a number of prominent Web sites of well-known figures of the Christian Right. Mitchell's answer to the question "How Biblical is the Christian Right," it turns out, is "not very."
Here's Mitchell's money quote:
The Christian Right represents biblical interpretation in a conjunction of two selective circles: of what are the key issues in the political realm and what are the central passages in the biblical record. It represents an odd alignment of each. The canonical delineation is striking—a focus on the Old Testament, with special prominence given to Judges and 1 and 2 Chronicles, as well as to Genesis and Leviticus; and in the New Testament, to selected moralizing passages of the Pauline letters and Revelation. It is easy to see then what is missing: the prophets of Israel and the teachings of Jesus (the Gospels). Along with them go concern with social/political issues such as economic inequality, peace-making, love and forgiveness, and critique of religious hypocrisy (just to choose a few!).
In other words, the prominent advocates of the adoption of the Christian Bible as the foundation of American political and moral values willfully ignore the bulk of the teachings of that same Christian Bible.
If I were a Christian, I would take a mighty dim view indeed of the leaders of the Christian Right promoting and publicizing such a thoroughly distorted version of Christianity, built on a foundation of intolerance, hate, and cruelty. It's no wonder that so many decent people cringe when they hear the word "Christian." If these leaders actually wanted compassionate people to reject Christianity, they could hardly do a better job.
Posted by abostick at January 12, 2007 10:58 AMIndeed, and I do. But the best I can do is keep living out what I believe -- which includes doing what I can to shift my communities in the directions I want them to move. However tempting it is, though, it definitionally cannot include bopping people over the head until they agree with me... !
Posted by: Gramina at January 12, 2007 01:14 PMYou know, it's hard to imagine a person actually shaping his morality around what he reads in the Bible.
Don't get me wrong. I do understand that there are people who attempt to read the Bible critically, and there definitely are Christians who are tolerant and peace-loving. But those Christians, too, I believe focus on what they want from the Bible in order to promote and reinforce their own gentler brand of Christianity. Now, it just so happens that the principles of those people align more closely with my heathen values, but I think they're cherry-picking too, in essence.
What person goes in with an intelligent mind but a blank slate and forms one's moral values from what he reads in the Bible? We're all influenced by the teachings of others at a young age and by the time we can read the Bible critically, we already have a framework completely ready to bias us.
