Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sometimes I Get An Icky Feeling...
...when I read stories like this from the Washington Times:
I also think the idea of adding pop psychological "meditations" to scripture seeks to supplant its authority.
I would love to see some demographics about who buys these things and the so many others like them. If it is serious church-going, God loving and fearing people then we have a much bigger problem in the church than I suspect. I tend to think its people on the periphery of the church, if they are in a church at all. I go to a very mainline church with a significant liberal group in it and I never see this stuff. Serious Christians tend to take their scripture seriously.
In the end though this is just a symptom of a much broader disease. In ways far more subtle we try to make God suit us instead of us suit God. I wonder if we could develop our sense to the point where we got that same slimy feeling when we did it in our subtle ways as we do when we encounter egregious stuff like this. I wonder if we might then have the power to be so winsome for Christ that stuff like this would simply disappear?
The Busy Moms Bible is simply a New International Version with multicolored inserts containing short meditations. One, called "pillow talk," is a pep talk about sexuality with a verse from the Song of Songs. "If you're just enduring sex rather than enjoying it, then you need to talk to your husband," the insert says before listing some of the problem areas.In a nut shell, that is not turning to scripture to hear the world of God, that is tailoring scripture to suit our needs and desires - prooftexting on a volume scale.
[...]
Next on the pile is HarperOne's Green Bible, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), with environmental verses in green ink and a forward by retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The green lettering, the preface says, is meant to highlight how the Bible speaks to "how we should think and act as we confront the environmental crisis facing our planet."
I also think the idea of adding pop psychological "meditations" to scripture seeks to supplant its authority.
I would love to see some demographics about who buys these things and the so many others like them. If it is serious church-going, God loving and fearing people then we have a much bigger problem in the church than I suspect. I tend to think its people on the periphery of the church, if they are in a church at all. I go to a very mainline church with a significant liberal group in it and I never see this stuff. Serious Christians tend to take their scripture seriously.
In the end though this is just a symptom of a much broader disease. In ways far more subtle we try to make God suit us instead of us suit God. I wonder if we could develop our sense to the point where we got that same slimy feeling when we did it in our subtle ways as we do when we encounter egregious stuff like this. I wonder if we might then have the power to be so winsome for Christ that stuff like this would simply disappear?
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