Tired of carrying that big heavy Bible around? Well, Pastor Andrew Farley has a heretical novel solution…..

Let’s chop it in half!!

That way we don’t have to deal with any of those difficult passages in the Old Testament. Why do exegesis when you can just ignore the passages you don’t understand like?

After all, Mark Driscoll has built a very “successful” ministry around this very premise.

Besides, it’s not like the New Testament is interested in the Old Testament anyway. It only quotes it about 300 times or so. Clearly the New Testament was written for 21st Americans with no real connection to the Hebrew Bible.

If only somebody had thought of this before. Oh wait they have…..

Pastor says today’s Christians don’t need the Old Testament traditions

By IRIE PRICE

Got religion? Well, it’s time you lost it, says the Rev. Andrew Farley in his new book, “God without Religion.”

Christians need no spiritual relationship with the Old Testamet, including the Ten Commandments and the principle of tithing, considered by many Christians as traditional hallmarks of the faith, posits Farley in his book.

Farley is a Texas Tech associate professor of applied linguistics and pastor of the church Ecclesia.

“God without Religion” peaked at No. 8 on the Washington Post’s best seller list in early June.

The book’s ideas have elicited opinionated responses.

“Your book cannot go to press,” Farley recalled someone emailing in response to one of his “God without Religion” seminars.

Farley’s insistence about tithing as an unnecessary spiritual discipline irked the email sender, the author said.

Although the sender claimed Farley’s message would damage American churches, Farley asserts just the opposite in the book: abandoning religion may help Christians reclaim their faith.

“People love Jesus in general,” Farley said during an interview with The Avalanche-Journal. “But maybe they’ve been burned by the church one or two times.”

Judgmental followers, guilt trips and calls for adherence to Old Testament commands may cause the burns, but they are the result of religion, not New Testament teachings, Farley writes.

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