Newsweek
They wave their Bibles at passersby,
screaming their condemnations of homosexuals. They fall on their knees,
worshipping at the base of granite monuments to the Ten Commandments
while demanding prayer in school. They appeal to God to save America
from their political opponents, mostly Democrats. They gather in
football stadiums by the thousands to pray for the country’s salvation.
They
are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible
verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side
orders for lunch. They are joined by religious
rationalizers—fundamentalists who, unable to find Scripture supporting
their biases and beliefs, twist phrases and modify translations to prove
they are honoring the Bible’s words.
This is no longer a
matter of personal or private faith. With politicians, social leaders
and even some clergy invoking a book they seem to have never read and
whose phrases they don’t understand, America is being besieged by
Biblical illiteracy. Climate change is said to be impossible because of
promises God made to Noah; Mosaic law from the Old Testament directs
American government; creationism should be taught in schools; helping
Syrians resist chemical weapons attacks is a sign of the end times—all
of these arguments have been advanced by modern evangelical politicians
and their brethren, yet none of them are supported in the Scriptures as
they were originally written.
The Bible is not the book many American fundamentalists
and political opportunists think it is, or more precisely, what they
want it to be. Their lack of knowledge about the Bible is well
established. A Pew Research poll in 2010 found that evangelicals ranked
only a smidgen higher than atheists in familiarity with the New
Testament and Jesus’s teachings. “Americans revere the Bible—but, by and
large, they don’t read it,’’ wrote George Gallup Jr. and Jim Castelli,
pollsters and researchers whose work focused on religion in the United
States. The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm, found in 2012 that
evangelicals accepted the attitudes and beliefs of the
Pharisees—religious leaders depicted throughout the New Testament as
opposing Christ and his message—more than they accepted the teachings of
Jesus.
Newsweek’s exploration here of the Bible’s
history and meaning is not intended to advance a particular theology or
debate the existence of God. Rather, it is designed to shine a light on a
book that has been abused by people who claim to revere it but don’t
read it, in the process creating misery for others. When the illiteracy
of self-proclaimed Biblical literalists leads parents to banish children
from their homes, when it sets neighbor against neighbor, when it
engenders hate and condemnation, when it impedes science and undermines
intellectual advancement, the topic has become too important for
Americans to ignore, whether they are deeply devout or tepidly faithful,
believers or atheists:
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/
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