The Conservative Bible Project has received lots of comments already, and it really kind of speaks for itself (in a Poe’s Law sort of way — if someone did it as a parody, some people would call it an over-the-top caricature). But I love the way people who call themselves “Bible believers” still find ways to justify ignoring, twisting or just plain defying the parts of the Bible they don’t like.
It’s the same sort of people who use the Old Testament description of “abomination” to describe homosexuality, and then either ignore the fact that the same chapter of Leviticus calls eating lobster an “abomination,” or point to a New Testament passage showing that the old Leviticus laws don’t apply (because the author of the book had a dream vision in which he got to eat shellfish), but somehow insisting that the other parts of Leviticus (the parts they like) aren’t also invalidated.
Sure, it may be true that the “adulteress story” (where Jesus says the one who’s without sin gets to cast the first stone) isn’t authentic, but somehow I doubt they’ll be applying the same rigor to the parts of the Bible that appeal to them.
Posted by Patrick Oden on October 12, 2009 at 4:47 am
Great post. The idea behind a conservative re-write, whether true or satire, is the same idea that Christian conservatives accuse Christian liberals of wrongfully using as justification: “our ideas are right, now we just need to interpret the writings to fit our ideas.”
Posted by Sunday Sermon: Conservative cafeteria Christianity, continued « Atheist Etiquette on October 18, 2009 at 12:56 pm
[…] Sunday Sermon: Conservative cafeteria Christianity […]
Posted by lali hyde on October 29, 2009 at 6:11 pm
i’m a christian, and I agree with this post, in part.
if christ came back, most of my friends who claim to love him would reject him: his pacifism, his poverty, his forgiveness of people who did wrong, his love for the unlovely, his blunt honesty. christ was sort of uncomfortable and convicting. people didn’t like him. they killed him. he wasn’t a sparkling clean popular guy like today’s politicians.
that’s why the religious right is so terribly ironic.
conservatism =/= christianity. christianity is, as christ intended it, radical and inexplicable love for people who don’t like you or even hate you. it’s meeting people where they’re at, rather than expecting a facade.
but didn’t hitler say, if you mix truth with a lie, you make the lie that much stronger? the paradoxical combination of christ with greed and hatred has made conservatism into a cancer. but then the other side of the political spectrum has issues, too. 🙂
Posted by Bob Williams on October 5, 2011 at 9:10 am
I doubt that most Christians could accept that Jesus would come back ….as a Jew, looking for a temple for worship.