Editor:
I was pleased to read about the “ambiguously Christian” pastors of Catalyst Church (“Beer Me, Jesus,” Aug. 19). The contrast between Dan Davis and Baptist pastor Larry McCain is the worldwide religious problem in microcosm. People seek certainty in the kind of fundamentalism that McCain (and Islamic fundamentalists and Jewish fundamentalists and Hindu fundamentalists) preach, even if their doctrines are based on selective reading of their sacred texts and selective history.
McCain is for “traditional marriage,” but which tradition? There is the tradition where the parents arrange the marriage and the bride’s father pays the groom a bribe in the form of a dowry to get rid of his daughter. There is the tradition where a man has multiple wives. There is the tradition where a man may divorce his wife if she does not produce sons. All of these are Biblically sanctioned forms of traditional marriage, so why should they be a hindrance to McCain and his ilk?
Anyone who can declare the Bible inerrant when its various books cannot agree about the day of the week on which Jesus’ crucifixion occurred, much less what he said and did during that foundational moment of the Christian religion, should have no difficulty sweeping minor discrepancies in marriage practice under the carpet. In contrast, I find Davis’ view of the Bible as literature and his willingness to reevaluate his stance on gay marriage refreshing and realistic. Would that more people could gracefully accept the ambiguity that is the reality of life.
Stephen Sottong, Eureka
This article appears in Sympathy for the Brownfield.
Which tradition? The one God made, marriage between one man and one woman.
All the rest are man-made traditions: polygamy, arranged, gay, etc. All man-made traditions that contradict the bible are called sin, falling short of perfection. But no worries, while we’ve all fallen short in one way or another, God forgives us and made his forgiveness accessible by communicating it by becoming a man and dying at the hands of religious people. Yes, religions is about how man does it, but Christianity is about how God does it.
While McCain may have lacked some grace when going on his own opinions, he did hold firm to the truth. On the other hand, Dan lacks holding the truth in order to bring people to God. The problem with that is that though it may open people, it may not fill them and give them what they need to mature.
Regarding the resurrection, you might study beyond what you want to hear. The gospels do not contradict each other. One thing to consider is that all of Jesus disciples were tortured to death for claiming to have seen him risen from the dead and living among them for 40 days. If they were insane or lying, one of them might have changed his story while being sawed in half lengthwise. Many people die for their faith but these men died for what they saw with their own eyes and could not deny. Exception that Judas committed suicide after betraying Jesus and John survived boiling in oil and later wrote Revelations from an island prison.
Exactly my point: which tradition that God made — the one with one man and the woman he was paid to take; the one with one man and several women; the one with one man and the wife of his dead brother; the one where one man throws away an infertile woman for a fertile one — which tradition God made?
And, yes, the Synoptic Gospels show the Crucifixion on one day of the week and John on another. They just don’t match. It’s an error and one of many.
Well, marriage as we know it is largely a 20th century tradition. It was not even a religious ceremony for a very long time in the Christian denominations. The idea of matrimony as a sacred matter in no way precludes marriage as a civil matter anyhow.
A very large number of marriages in this country are civil ceremonies.
Come on. It is time to come to grips with how things are today, not how they were yesterday.
Albee may be familiar with the Bible, but he knows little about history.
Stephen, like I said, if you want the truth, dig deeper. But if you want to believe whatever you like settle with what you think you know. This so-called contradiction is really easy. John wrote in the Roman system of time while Mark wrote in the Jewish system. It’s evident in the context of the text. You’re welcome to research it further but you wont find what you want to hear.
Anyway, regarding marriage, what verses of the bible are you referring to?
Third hour Jewish time is 6-9am while 6th hour Roman time is 6am. So a fundamentalist would assume it happened between 6 and 7am.
Ironic that you brought this up because you wouldn’t understand this unless you were a fundie, one who seeks to know the bible, not just dismiss it for his own interests. The truth is out there. Be open minded and keep searching.
Thanks for enlightening us, albee. So you never mix cotton and linen? Or is the Old Testament no longer applicable?
@anon, I don’t wear much linen. The old covenant no longer applies, but it helps us understand the new covenant. Check out Jeremiah 31:31
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,[a] says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
So, the “old covenant” no longer applies, because we don’t like to eat kosher, but we don’t like gays, so we carried some rules forward into the “new covenant.”
no, there are no rules in the new covenant, only freedom. You are forgiven. Whether you receive that forgiveness is up to you and it does effect the decisions you make with your life. The choice to receive forgiveness is a pure expression of humility. Living in forgiveness is living in humility and actions follow from that heart. Lust is prideful, it says “I love you for what you do for me”. People get hurt by sin. Joel, have you ever been hurt by a girl who used you and rejected you? Have you ever hurt a girl by using her and rejecting her? Or he if you are gay. Sin hurts people. God gave his people a physical understanding of that inner hurt. But when we walk in humility, we seek to honor God with our lives and we let go of the pleasures of the flesh for an eternal hope.
So apparently you’re celibate. Why not become a monk, or a priest?