{"id":1382,"date":"2010-04-15T09:29:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T09:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/04\/picking-and-choosing-in-the-news\/"},"modified":"2010-04-15T09:29:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T09:29:00","slug":"picking-and-choosing-in-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/04\/picking-and-choosing-in-the-news.html","title":{"rendered":"Picking and Choosing in the News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Rick Phillips<\/a> has commented on the resignation of Bruce Waltke<\/a> over his views on evolution and creation. His view is that acceptance of science over the Bible on even one point undermines the whole thing.<\/p>\n

I assume that either he believes that there is a dome<\/a> over the earth, or rejects the Bible altogether, because apparently he believes those are the only two consistent positions \u2013 believe it all, or reject it all. But of course, I\u2019m sure he has found some convoluted way of both reconciling science and the Bible on some major points, and persuading himself that his opposition to evolutionary biology and his literalistic approach to Adam and Eve are not selective, not \u201cpicking and choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/div>\n
Adam Walker Cleaveland shared a tweet<\/a> he came across advising Jennifer Knapp, a contemporary Christian singer who very recently came out as a lesbian, to read Leviticus 18:22. I am sure the person who tweeted this doesn\u2019t observe everything that is in Leviticus, much less everything in the Bible. Even within Leviticus 18, there is a command not to have sexual intercourse with one\u2019s wife if she is menstruating. I wonder if anyone has done research on whether the \u201ctrue Christians\u201d mentioned in the tweet are strict observers of this commandment. But as we\u2019ve discussed here recently, just over the page in chapter 19 of Leviticus there is plenty that Christians think is valuable,\u00a0interspersed with\u00a0much that is ignored.<\/div>\n
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Picking and choosing doesn\u2019t bother me per se<\/em>. If someone finds some things valuable, others not so much, and is honest about their selectivity, what is there to complain about?\u00a0What bothers me\u00a0is when people pick and choose, pretend they don\u2019t, and then quote those verses that support their viewpoint, as though they would be quite happy if someone quoted any verse\u00a0at them that they do not observe in the same way, and that they would quickly change their behavior as a result.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

So I call upon Rick Phillips to publicly\u00a0affirm the existence of the dome, and Ivette Maymi (the author of the tweet) to throw out all her cotton-wool blends. Or alternatively, you could both just acknowledge the complexities and selectivity involved in reading and applying the Bible today. And it would be great if you could also stop insulting and demeaning those who, in what seems to me to be their greater honesty and knowledge of the Bible than yours, acknowledge that the Bible tells us to do many things that we are persuaded we don\u2019t need to do or even should not do, and\u00a0as a result\u00a0refuse to use the Bible as a source for sound bites.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m including below a cartoon I shared before which I think\u00a0addresses this subject poignantly.<\/p>\n

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Rick Phillips has commented on the resignation of Bruce Waltke over his views on evolution and creation. His view is that acceptance of science over the Bible on even one point undermines the whole thing. I assume that either he believes that there is a dome over the earth, or rejects the Bible altogether, because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPicking and Choosing in the News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rick Phillips has commented on the resignation of Bruce Waltke over his views on evolution and creation. 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