{"id":14939,"date":"2013-06-13T10:31:45","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T14:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=14939"},"modified":"2013-06-13T10:31:45","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T14:31:45","slug":"betraying-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/betraying-the-bible.html","title":{"rendered":"Betraying the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

John Shore has the following to say in a post today<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The conservatives\u2019 kill shot has always been\u00a0a silver bullet with four words engraved into it: \u201cIt\u2019s in the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A wife is to submit to her husband. A woman shouldn\u2019t speak in church. Spare the rod, spoil the child. The Earth is the center of the universe. God\u2019s plan is for the\u00a0white man to have slaves. Gay people are a moral abomination. People who die without having accepted Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior must spend eternity burning in the hellfire of damnation.<\/p>\n

The conservative Christian makes this sort of ruinous proclamation, and then shrugs innocently, smiles with humble assurance, and says, \u201cHey, it\u2019s not\u00a0me<\/em>\u00a0saying it. It\u2019s in the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

But much like the Hollywood movie publicist who cobbles together a glowing review from a savage one by carefully selecting from the latter a few choice words and then tossing the rest, the Christian right is ignoring\u00a0the entire point of the Bible.<\/em>\u00a0Repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, Jesus insists that equity, compassion, humility, fairness, and love supersede any specific \u201crule\u201d in the Bible. Christ instructed us not by prohibiting specific behaviors and prescribing others, but rather, in principles and parables, making clear that he expects us to use our hearts, minds, and the Holy Spirit to translate his words into actions appropriate to our time and place\u2026<\/p>\n

The Christian right only pretends to take the Bible seriously. But what they actually\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0is to take out of context, and\u00a0then<\/em>\u00a0take very seriously indeed those few and far between words in the Bible that serve to bring them (gee, what a coincidence) the very power that they want.<\/p>\n

They do not serve the Bible. They use the Bible to serve themselves. And, incredibly enough, they\u2019ve learned to turn that fact into the ultimate in offensive weapon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is just an excerpt. Click through<\/a> to read the whole thing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Shore has the following to say in a post today: The conservatives\u2019 kill shot has always been\u00a0a silver bullet with four words engraved into it: \u201cIt\u2019s in the Bible.\u201d A wife is to submit to her husband. A woman shouldn\u2019t speak in church. Spare the rod, spoil the child. The Earth is the center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":14940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,131,139],"tags":[903,1140,1835,1848,3678,10394],"class_list":["post-14939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-christianity-religion","category-fundamentalism-religion","tag-authority","tag-bible","tag-christian","tag-christians","tag-fundamentalists","tag-right"],"yoast_head":"\nBetraying the Bible<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Shore has the following to say in a post today: The conservatives\u2019 kill shot has always been\u00a0a silver bullet with four words engraved into it: \u201cIt\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/betraying-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Betraying the Bible\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Shore has the following to say in a post today: The conservatives\u2019 kill shot has always been\u00a0a silver bullet with four words engraved into it: \u201cIt\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/betraying-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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