That was the title of an article that caught my eye today! Now, it was on Fox News, and given Fox's penchant for exaggerated article titles for effect, I decided to read the article before making a judgement. After reading the article, however, I was surprised to find out...yep, that's exactly what the pastor is doing this Halloween.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569121,00.html?test=latestnews
Apparently, a North Carolina pastor plans to host a Halloween event at his church to burn heretical books. Okay, okay - you may be asking - what are they planning to burn? I mean, I am absolutely NOT for burning books, but if we're getting rid of pornography or some sort of Satanic material then I won't put up too much of a fuss I guess. But here's a few of the things that this pastor and his 14 member congregation (um, yes 14) consider heretical and are planning to burn:
-all versions of the Christian Bible EXCEPT the King James Version, which they consider to be the ONLY "true word of God." So all NIV, New Living Translation, the New King James, etc...are all considered "Satan's bibles" and will be burned.
-all other Christian texts (with the exception of the KJV) written by Christian authors are considered sacreligious. Authors like Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Mother Teresa, (these are authors specifically listed by the pastor), etc.
The church's website calls the event "Burning Perversions of God's Word" and urges parishioners to "come celebrate Halloween by burning Satan's bibles." Complete with a barbeque dinner to round off the evening!
So, as I sit here...I don't even know what to say in response to this. Obviously I felt compelled enough to blog about it, but how does one respond to ignorance? It's an interesting thought really. If someone is absolutely 100% convinced in the very fiber of their being that the sky is green, how do you convince them otherwise? You probably couldn't reason, using God's word, logic, history, or science with someone like that. They would consider it heretical and wouldn't be open to such talk. But can you blame them? Really, if you think about it - it would be like someone trying to convince me that the God that I know is someone completely different. I mean, I wouldn't believe them for a second.
So I guess I don't really know the answer. I guess we are just to pray that the eyes of their heart are opened and that in the meantime their influence on people is limited and minimal. We are to pray that the Holy Spirit moves within them and releases them from the bonds of church legalism and shows them the generous, gracious love of God our Father. And we are to love them in spite of our differences and idealogies. Maybe if they are not open to "hearing" about God's love, they'll be more open to "feeling" God's love lavished upon them.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
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4 comments:
oops, I accidentally deleted my post...
Wow, the whole KJV bible argument always gets me. It just doesn't even make sense. Do they think the original authors wrote in old English? Shouldn't they ban everything but the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek texts. And do they know that much of the bible was an oral tradition before it was written down the first time? I would love to hear a convincing argument on this sometime.... no one has come close to presenting one I find the least bit believable.
If you google KJO some very, uh lets say interesting, sites come up. Like the one called www.lovethetruth.com. Among seemingly endless amounts of crap on that site, the author tries to prove that the NIV is a Nazi bible that promotes genocide. Huh. I guess as long as there are people, there are opinions!
For what it's worth, several biblical scholars agree that there is less than a 1% difference in text between the NIV and the KJV. Did you know that the KJV requires at least a 12 grade reading level to understand? The NIV, only 7th grade. The list goes on and on. But perhaps the best argument against the KJO camp I have heard:
After all, it is not the written word that is the object of our worship, but rather the living Word – Jesus Christ.
But really, why must the Church divide over such small and insignificant things? Just think what a banded group of Christians with a singular and Godly focus could accomplish in this world! But no, we are too busy fighting over bible translations, Halloween celebrations, and people's sexual preferences. I think so many of us Christians have it so wrong. How have we gotten so far off line?
I think the real travesty here is that our media picks up on this and makes it a story. This church isn't as big as an extended family (or the Gates and the Humrichous families combined. If you are reading this and don't know them, you should. They are awesome). And yet, it makes National news. What? This ISN'T even worth talking about. Except that we love the ridiculous in America. Take reality tv for example. Ridiculous.
Emily, I'm disappointed. You sucked my wife into this conversation.
Crap. And now me.
You guys are funny!
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