The Case for Biblical Interpretation

I spend too much time on Facebook following a conservative United Methodist page. I often post articles which I know will elicit strong responses, and I have to laugh at some of the mental gymnastics some of these people (many clergy) go through to justify their “Bible-believing” positions. A recent exchange serves as a good example of why we can’t take the Bible literal, and why discernment is critical when you try to use the Bible to support a position.

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Trump and Religion

Donald Trump has basically been caught in a lie about his personal convictions. We start with him making a big thing in an interview about how religious he is, about how much he loves the Bible, about how he really likes both Testaments equally, and how he reads it all the time. I’d say, then the wheels come off, but they were never even actually on.

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The Literal Inerrant Bible

As the teacher of an Adult Sunday School for a few years now, I’ve had to do a lot of study, and while I’m not biblical scholar, there is one things I am absolutely certain about…the Bible is not literal nor is it inerrant. There, I said it. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect the Bible as Holy Canon, but it could not be applied to our lives today were it to be taken literally. A video by Mike Huckabee makes that point.

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Christian Values – Burn Another’s Holy Book

Just incredible is about all I can say. Gainesville’s Dove World Church, made famous last year for its “No Homo Mayor” campaign, is planning to burn Korans on September 11th. According to this “Christian Pastor,” it’s OK to burn a Koran because it’s not the Christian holy book, but can you imagine the tantrum and outrage that would follow if a Muslim group planned the same thing for the Bible.

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Christian Values – Burn Another's Holy Book

Just incredible is about all I can say. Gainesville’s Dove World Church, made famous last year for its “No Homo Mayor” campaign, is planning to burn Korans on September 11th. According to this “Christian Pastor,” it’s OK to burn a Koran because it’s not the Christian holy book, but can you imagine the tantrum and outrage that would follow if a Muslim group planned the same thing for the Bible.

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A Discussions of Pauls Letter to the Romans as Concerns Homosexuality

So, what is going on and who is being spoken to and about in Romans 1? The book was written as a letter by Paul somewhere between 54 to 58 AD while he was living in Corinth. It was carried by Priscilla to the church in Rome; Paul would not even visit Rome himself for another five years. The letter was written about twenty five years after the death of Jesus.

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Scaring People to Christianity

Easter Sunday afternoon me and Lay went to his parent’s farm down in Ruskin to hide Easter eggs and eat. At one point, I was running to a nearby Walgreens to pickup a couple of items. I was stopped at the traffic waiting to turn in and noticed a young man on the corner holding a large sign and his Bible. I felt sorry for him, because the picture was one of an angry God, and I have trouble with that image, but it’s an image held by too many on the religious right.

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Book of Eli, The – A Movie Review

In the not-too-distant future, a solitary man walks across the wasteland that was once America. There is no civilization here, no law. The roads belong to gangs that would murder a man for his shoes, an ounce of water… or for nothing at all. But they’re no match for this traveler. It’s not his life he guards so fiercely but his hope for the future; a hope he has carried and protected for 30 years and is determined to realize. Overall, this movie is probably worth watching, but wait until it is out on video.

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Trolling for an Assassination

From time to time I have a discussion of politics with someone at work. He’s very much a conservative Republican. Yesterday our discussion went to how far off the cliff the most extreme elements of theright-wing have gone. He kept insisting there were extremists on the left as well. And now come forth the Psalmists. Apparently they are now printing the phrase, “Psalm 109,” on mouse pads, bumper stickers, and even teddy bears. The Biblical verse Psalm 109: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children become fatherless; and his wife become a widow.”

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The Conservative Bible – Because Jesus Was Just Too Liberal

Turns out the Bible is just too progressive in its views for some. So the Conservative Bible Project has been formed to use Wiki technology to create a whole new, and more conservative, translation of the Bible. The group cites a few reasons why the Bible is too progressive: “Lack of precision in the original language … lack of precision in modern language” and “translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.”

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Hotels Now Offering Sex Kits Instead of Bibles?

This must be from the “are you shitting me” category. Krazy Kristian Kook, Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association is now warning that hotels are taking out the Gideon Bibles in favor so “intimacy kits.” I never really expected to write a post that included Goldfish, sex and iPods as tags. Leave it to good old Don to come through though.

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