A Baptist church in North Carolina that accepts only the first King James version of the Bible is planning to burn "satanical" works such as "the New Revised Version Bible, the American Standard Version Bible, and even the New King James Version."
As well as inappropriate translations from the original Hebrew and Aramaic, the pastor and his associates will be burning books by various Christian authors, as well as music of every genre.I'll defer any commentary.
“[We will be burning] books by a lot of different authors who we consider heretics, such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren… the list goes on and on,” Pastor Grizzard told reporters.
Another day, another pseudo-Christian nutjob in the news, er, in outlets that go for cheap outrage. *Yawn*
ReplyDeletePeople like this exist in most religions, and in their own little cults. It's nothing new and doesn't reflect on... anything, really. If you want to dig into the long-standing and complicated debate about translations of the Bible, there's some interesting stuff there. But somehow I doubt this particular nut has anything worth adding to the conversation.
Agreed. I reviewed an interesting book on that subject four years ago -
Deletehttp://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2009/07/misquoting-jesus.html
A friend of mine is in a similar church. I even went there for about a year. They're nice enough people but they're obsessed with the purity of their own version of Christianity... so they have the 'correct' book, the 'correct' formula for baptism, the 'correct' dress-code, the 'correct' definition of who God is (hint: NOT the trinity). It's all pretty stressful and cult-like... as members keep a close watch over each other for who might be 'backsliding'.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about feeling like they have some special revelation... about demonizing anyone outside their tiny worldview.
Just last night I heard my friend telling her kids, "Yes, the Jews are the people that killed Jesus."
We argued for a bit, then I left.
A relevant quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob deZoet:
Delete"Oh. Well, as my friend the dean observes," Marinus says, leaning on the rail, "we have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love..." (p. 395)
This might be a nuthob thing. Or this might actually be more sublime a plan than it seems at face value:
ReplyDeleteThe different reactions in the christian world as compared to what would happen in the muslim world if they were to burn quorans will be telling; also the reactions of international politicians who will most probably not condemn this and demand apologies by US officials...
But let's see what happens.
This story is from 2009
ReplyDeleteI hadn't noticed that. Wonder why it ran in the Telegraph today? In any case, tx for the heads-up - I've moved the post back to 2009 in the blog.
DeleteRegardless of whether it's from 2009 or not, as a fairly hard-line Christian myself (some people call my church a cult) hearing people do things like this makes me upset and disappointed.
ReplyDeleteOur whole job as Christians is to a) get 'saved' by the Holy Spirit and stay faithful so we can get into God's Kingdom and b) tell others how they can do the same (by being good ambassadors and examples for God). How does burning books get people saved? What's the point? If anything it would be more likely to turn people off 'yep, there's another Christian nutjob'. The New Testament age (which is what we are still part of) preaches love, not intolerance.
Yes the bible is good to use an example of how to lead our lives, but ultimately as the bible says if you are saved God's word is written in our hearts - whether you use one translation or another is ultimately irrelevant. Peter and Paul and the other apostles only had parts of the Old Testament yet they were still able to do the right thing based on guidance from God through the word written in their hearts. To me if you need to burn books and CD's to feel more Godly then you are doing it wrong.