I just finished watching "For The Bible Tells Me So," a documentary about how the "Religious Right", Focus on the Family, and fundamentalist evangelical Christians have abused the God of love and the Bible by stating homosexuality is an abomination to God. First off, I want to thank a lovely young woman who used to watch my children at seminary for recommending the video to me. Rachel, the video made me cry and angry at the same time.
I cried because people of good will, people who have loved God and continue to do so, use God to discriminate, to ostracize, to exclude others from the church because of who they love. I cried because people of good will, people who have loved God and continue to do so, have stood by and let others discriminate, let others ostracize, let others exclude people because of who they love. I cried because God cries at this.
I am angry because, as people of God continue to fight, people continue to die. I am angry because, as the Bible continues to be used as a weapon, people continue to die. People die because of who they are, because of who they love, and because of who God created them to be. For centuries, God and the Bible have been used in ways that are contrary to God and the Bible. Anything that is not of love, anything that is not about giving life, anything that makes people an outcast, demeans people, or dehumanizes people DOES NOT come from God! Even parts of the Bible that say God kills or that God hates or that God destroys IS NOT from God, it IS NOT part of the Bible that is authoritative for God's people today! Those parts of the Bible come from the people who wrote the Bible trying to justify their killing, their warring, they extermination of others. IT IS NOT FROM GOD!!!
When we let this happen, we become the people of Nazareth who forcibly take Jesus out of the town to the tip of the ravine and try to stone him. We are people who try to destroy God. God is a God of love. God is a God of liberation. God is a God who wants nothing more than for us to help the Divine help others live and love and share. Do we stone Jesus more than help him?
2 comments:
It is too bad that all the American Church has given the catholic church is the idea of Biblical inerrancy. For century’s Christians did not read the Bible literally, it took American “Polity of Exclusion” to turn the Bible from a Book of Faith to a weapon. It is our job to change that idea around; we have our work cut out for us.
I never thought of it that way Ray. What a legacy! I hope we are up to that work!
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