The Great I Am
MANIFESTO
I have a colleague with whom I—astonishingly—get along. We have a good relationship as long as neither he nor I discuss politics or religion. He crossed this line a week or so ago when he asserted that he believed crap like this. I responded that the Bible demanded that rebellious children be stoned to death. He didn't believe me. It was apparent that we weren't going to convince each other of anything, so we pretty much agreed to drop the subject.I recount this episode to follow up on something Digby recently posted wherein he opines
[I]t's a little bit odd that the vast majority of people in a country that prides itself as the most religious in the world can't name the writers of the gospel, but really, whose fault is that? The last I heard, there were tens of thousands of churches in this country. Is it too much to ask that they be in charge of religious instruction? Isn't that their specialty?To answer the question: No.
[M]any of the conservative mega-churches spend most of their time instructing their parishoners on Republican politics and holding Christian rock extravaganzas so they don't have time for actual religious teaching.I know I've blogged about this before: I'm a nominal Christian who happens to believe that the bases of Christianity should be found in Luke chapters 4 and 25—and not Leviticus 18:22.
This all goes with an item that appeared in USA Today this morning wherein we find (not suprisingly) that
Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.Walk the walk? Cripes, most Americans can't even talk the talk. I know it'll never happen for these modern day pharisees, but I wish so-called Christians would quit spouting this crap about the violence associated with Islam or other religions until they know a little bit about their own religion's spotty past.
In other words, I wish they'd look at the plank in their own eyes rather than be so concerned with the speck of sawdust in their brothers' eyes.
And that's today's sermon.
posted by monocle at 3/15/2007 09:29:00 AM
2 Comments:
Great post, great sermon. My unfortunate girlfriend heard a similar, far less articulate rant right around the time "the bones of Jesus" were found by James Cameron.
I always find the modern evangelical fascination and referce to the books of the Old Testament mildly amusing.
Great sermon, and great foundational scriptures for Christianity. I wholeheartedly agree.
As one who admittedly knows little about Islam or the Qu'ran, is there a similar Old Testament/New Testament separation in the Islamic text where Muslims can point to commands by God that were before Grace and the section that is now covered by grace? If so, I could see how those texts can be taken in the same (or similar) light that we take Leviticus (and other OT) passages now. If not, what do we do when we try to understand the actions of this other religious group through the eyes of their teachings?
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