The Pennslyvania State House recently designated 2012 as "the year of the bible." Who knows why -- maybe it had something to do with the anniversary of the King James bible.
How did an atheist organization respond? It erected a billboard in one of the city's most racially diverse neighborhoods which featured an African slave with the biblical quote, "Slaves, obey your masters." It lasted less than a day before someone tore it down.Now, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is investigating and is meeting with both the atheists who sponsored it as well as leaders of the NAACP who found it offensive.
This billboard is provocative and dumb and, yes, does quote directly from scripture. There are many deeply disturbing and offensive passages in scripture and reading the bible requires both discernment and a willingness to understand the cultures and in which it was written, along with context. We know that in the debate over slavery in the 19th century some Christians quoted this Colossians passage to justify it, while other Christians abolitionists took a broader view of the liberating message of Christ to work toward emancipation.
In other words, we are not biblical literalists in our tradition, and I frankly have little patience with those who earnestly claim to believe every jot and tittle as divinely inspired. This would mean they approve of genocide, condone self-mutilation and physical abuse, and steer clear of seafood restaurants as though they were possessed by the devil.
Of course I have to roll my eyes at the literalist, fundamentalist atheists who assume all Christians take a simplistic approach to the bible and set out to offend anyone and everyone in stunts such as the one described above. Grow up people - we get it that you aren't keen on religion!
What are your thoughts about this? Do the "naughty bits" of scripture unsettle you? Have you figured out over time that you don't have to be a biblical literalist to be a Christian?
3 comments:
I think a literal interpretation of the Bible is a dangerous point of view. I think a literal view of ANYTHING is dangerous!
I've mentioned this here before, but few things frighten me more than dealing with those who take the bible literally. I see such belief as a frightening display of irrationality.I have been yelled at, sent to hell, and dismissed as non-human in such encounters and these experiences made me stay away from church for years.
Having just spent many a mile on the I-75 reading billboards, and American newspapers filled with conservative,literal religious views, I was well ready to get home.
Sometimes those passages do unsettle me, mostly because of the potential for misuse,(and it would just be so much easier if they weren't there) but they also make me work hard at understanding and re-understanding my own faith. Simple, easy... if only....
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