“Bob,
“1. When you get on religion, you start acting like a liberal in that you set up a strawman and then knock him down. That is easy to do, but beneath someone of your intelligence.
The points you try to make about these things don’t require a dismissal of the O.T. Christ condemned the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day whose job who made the laws of God “of none effect” by their doubletalk and blind “traditions”. He didn’t just quote the O.T. because that was what was around him, but showed how he fulfilled the prophecies contained in it. The pharisees knew who he was, which was why they killed him.
“Most of our preachers today have twisted the O.T. and NT to fit in with the zeitgeist of equality and other leftist poison, many probably unaware of how far off they have gotten. Zionism and Bush worship are cases in point.
Race-mixing is clearly condemned in the O.T., in no uncertain terms, yet most of the churches preach the opposite. Dueteronomy Ch. 28 outlines the judgement to befall those who turn from God’s laws, and describes our situation in America to a T.
“The NT and O.T. are seminal to our entire civilization, and deeply shaped the Southern heart and mind.
As CS Lewis once wrote about people who dismissed the Bible as silly nonsense, people who don’t understand books written for adults shouldn’t talk about them in public.
“Your readers expect a higher level from you, Bob, consistent with many of your other insights.
Comment by Jimbo — 11/23/2004 @ 1:54 am ”

Jimbo,

These are excellent points. I know I am a bumbling amateur when it comes to religion. I was not called to preach.

I would be very happy if people would stop preaching at me so I could get off it.

But no one gets the least bit upset when Sean Hannity blandly announced that Jesus died on the cross for interracial dating.

If CS Lewis said that only adults should deal in religion, he is contradicting some else who said that “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” So I doubt seriously that is what Lewis meant.

To me the Old Testament is NOT religion. My ancestors who were burned alive for being Odinists had a theology which CS Lewis described as far more beautiful than the Old Testament. He said the Greek mythology came in second the O.T. third.

The Avesta of the Magi who accepted Christ was at least equal theologically to the Old Testament. And they accepted Christ without a word of the Old Testament.

All of these are fine mythologies to know about. We have the one that wasn’t burned, the Old Testament. The fact that it was not burned does not make it especially holy.

I have the same fondness for the Old Testament that any country Bible Belter has. But there is nothing about it that is religion to me.

As CS Lewis said, Christianity is based on two things: the salvation through Christ and the Resurrection.

Then CS Lewis gave all the other religions a role in salvation, which strikes me as absurd. He said that somehow they all meet the criterion of salvation through Christ, though he didn’t know exactly how.

Huh?

Then Richard says that is true of Jews only. Only they get a special pass when they accept Christ after death.
Right, Richard?

Huh?

I’ll give Jerry Falwell this: he says Jews are damned.

But he says the modern state of Israel is holy.

Huh?

And all these people preach at ME.

Let me repeat: I revere the Old Testament, the incomplete Old Testament in the King James Version, as part of my Tradition. Its JHWH or Jehovah has little relation to the Father of whom Jesus spoke. The latter part of the Old Testament that Jesus was familiar with was written in Greek, but Luther was ignorant of that, so he only accepted the older version that was written in Hebrew.

To Luther, Holy = in Hebrew.

That is not religion.

I am not a theologian, but I do know a LOT about history. And, unlike a professional theologian, my livelihood does not depend on rewriting history.

Unlike the theologian, there is nothing holy about my history. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and I won’t go to pieces if everything I say is absurd.

I have faith the size of mustard seed. That faith is in 1) the Resurrection and 2) Salvation through, and ONLY through, Christ.

Your Old Testament may be the Avesta or Odinism or any other. You should REVERE it. But it is not religion.

Please look at the “Huh?” comments above. There are no self-contradictory statements in my simplistic, childish Christianity.

There are only two theological points in my entire religion, a child could understand them, and I state those as MY beliefs. I am not dictating YOUR beliefs.

But when Sean Hannity tells me that if I am a Christian I have no right to object to interracial dating, my reaction is not friendly. When Jerry Falwell tells me I must be willing to die for the state of Israel, my reaction is not friendly.

These are NOT theological points. These are POLITICAL points. And my business IS politics.

It will not do to keep insisting that Communism hasn’t worked because all twenty or thirty Communist states “misinterpreted” True Communism.

It will not do to keep saying that the only reason Lewis and Hannity and Falwell get absurd is because they “misinterpret” the Old Testament.

Every time someone takes Karl Marx for truth, he ends up committing crimes in Marx’s name. When people equate the Old Testament with religion, they start burning people alive or worshiping Israel or demanding interracial dating or making other nutcase statements that are, to me, pure blasphemy.

Worship as you choose. But do not quote the Old Testament to me AS RELIGION.

That is ALL I ask.