When liberals and their media allies have an agenda to push, they\u2019ll use any tool at hand. The left often rails against the presence of religion in civic life, mocking conservative Christians as \u201cTaliban\u201d agitating for theocracy. But other times, they find faith to be a handy weapon to bludgeon conservatives. And they\u2019ll go so far as to reinterpret and rewrite the Bible to justify any liberal cause, no matter how outrageous.<\/p>\n
In 2010, MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry summed up this strategy in her call for \u201cre-imagining the Bible as a tool of progressive social change.\u201d Huffington Post contributor Mike Lux embraced Harris-Perry\u2019s advice, writing that the Bible embodies \u201call kinds\u201d of \u201cliberal, lefty, progressive values.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Media Research Center\u2019s Culture and Media Institute analyzed the various ways liberals and the media have used and abused the Bible to mock religion, attack conservatives and justify left-wing policy.<\/p>\n
Harris-Perry\u2019s \u201cre-imagining\u201d of the Bible has become a favorite liberal tactic, as journalists and politicians have cited it to promote socialism, gay marriage, abortion and a host of other progressive policies. Washington Post \u201cOn Faith\u201d contributor Anthony Stevens-Arroyo argued that the Bible was the inspiration for Karl Marx\u2019s dictum \u201cFrom each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.\u201d Huffington Post contributor Kittredge Cherry claimed Jesus Christ was a homosexual: \u201cChrist lives in every individual of every different shade of sexual orientation and gender identity.\u201d Writer Nynia Chance proclaimed that the Bible supported abortion on RH Reality Check: \u201cthere\u2019s times where the Bible states God commands that one [abortion] take place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Academics and journalists have even actively changed the words and content of the Bible to further their ideology. Anonymous editors created a \u201cQueen James Bible\u201d that \u201cresolves any homophobic interpretations of the Bible.\u201d The media hyped a small papyrus fragment indiscreetly titled the \u201cGospel of Jesus\u2019 Wife\u201d which claimed Jesus had married and hid evidence that the fragment was a hoax. On \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d ABC\u2019s Elizabeth Vargas even touted the fragment as a \u201creal-life Da Vinci Code.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entertainment industry also delights in skewering the Christian holy book in order to mock it. The now-canceled show \u201cGCB\u201d carved its own set of 10 Commandments, inverting one Commandment to read: \u201cThou shalt not covet thy neighbor\u2019s husband … Unless he\u2019s really hot.\u201d Rapper Lil\u2019 Kim\u2019s \u201c10 Commandments\u201d invented new commandments for women \u201cto keep your man whipped.\u201d The twisted cable series \u201cTrue Blood\u201d created its own Vampire bible with the phrase: \u201cAs their flesh shall nourish yours, their blood shall flow within you, for as the beetle nourishes the lark so shall human nourish vampire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writers, politicians and entertainers have made concerted effort to alter the content and message of the Bible, substituting the gospel of liberalism for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Thou Shalt Adopt Radical Economics<\/p>\n
The Bible of liberalism condemns conservatives as uncaring, unfeeling oppressors of the poor, and exalts progressives as liberators of the downtrodden.<\/p>\n
Democratic politicians have repeatedly used the Bible to condemn conservative economic principles and policies. President Barack Obama has been the most prominent practitioner of this tactic; he invoked the Biblical passage \u201cI am my brother\u2019s keeper\u201d to justify government policies requiring redistribution of wealth in a March 30, 2012, campaign speech. Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky quoted 1 John 3:17-18 to condemn the GOP budget, saying, \u201cBut if anyone has the world\u2019s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God\u2019s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.\u201d She then asked her Republican opponents, \u201cWhy does your budget resolution take away food from the poor?\u201d<\/p>\n
Progressive writers have joined Democratic politicians in citing the Bible to attack straw man arguments supposedly constituting conservative economics. Huffington Post contributor Mike Lux, in a Feb. 21, 2012, article titled \u201cWhat Bible is Santorum Reading?\u201d wrote that \u201cModern conservatives are far more faithful to Ayn Rand, who openly rejected Christianity because of its values of helping the poor and caring for others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lux said the Bible is clearly a progressive tome: \u201cthere is simply no way to read the Bible I read and not come to the conclusion that it is overwhelmingly supportive of helping the poor, showing mercy to the weak, refraining from judging, treating others as you would treat yourself, calling on the wealthy to give their money to the poor, and all kinds of other liberal, lefty, progressive values.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Bible is not a policy paper. It is mostly silent on the role of government, and those who see it as a blueprint for a state that addresses every inequality and sin are lacking in moral imagination. Jesus\u2019 admonition to \u201cgive unto Caesar\u201d doesn\u2019t set marginal tax rates, but \u201cgive unto God\u201d does suggest that there is a range of human activity and morality properly outside the state.<\/p>\n
Conservatives acknowledge a duty to help the poor, but they disagree that compulsory taxation for the welfare state is the best or only mechanism to fulfill it. A 2006 study by American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, then a Syracuse University professor, found that conservatives give more of their personal income to charity than liberals.<\/p>\n
Even the parables of Jesus have been twisted into liberal agitprop by progressives. In a Dec. 6, 2011, article, Washington Post \u201cOn Faith\u201d contributor Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite implausibly mangled Jesus\u2019 parable of the talents into a class warfare lesson. The parable of the talents (Luke 19:12-27) concerns a nobleman who entrusted his money to his servants to invest while he went on a long journey. Two servants obeyed their master and increased his wealth, while the third hid the money. When the master returned, he rewarded the two hardworking servants and punished the third for his laziness.<\/p>\n
Thistlethwaite turned the message of the parable on its head: \u201cWhen the nobleman chastises the third servant, it is the nobleman and not the servant who is in violation of the laws of the Hebrew Bible,\u201d because \u201cThe third servant is the one who refuses to participate in the game of increasing his lord\u2019s financial wealth at the costs of the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Michael Youssef, founder of the Christian outreach ministry Leading the Way, challenged Thistlethwaite\u2019s interpretation in an interview with CMI: \u201cThis interpretation contradicts the clear teaching of 2 Thessalonians 3:10: \u2018he who does not work should not eat.\u2019 The master condemns the lazy servant for his inaction, and praised the faithful servants for their investment of his money. God rewards man for his intelligence and his efforts throughout the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Thistlethwaite\u2019s misinterpretation dovetailed nicely with the media\u2019s progressive attitude towards the Bible, which MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry succinctly expressed in a February 2010, blog post for The Nation magazine as \u201cre-imagining the Bible as a tool of progressive social change.\u201d Politically-motivated liberals \u201cre-imagine\u201d a Bible that justifies radical economic policies, such as the Occupy movement and redistribution of wealth.<\/p>\n
By contrast, a Christian vision of the Bible emphasizes God and His message of salvation, as Dr. Youssef explained to CMI: \u201cThe Bible should be read primarily as God\u2019s self-revelation, as His breath. If people read it as a justification for their own desires and own political positions, they are absolutely committing unpardonable sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
But a spiritual understanding of the Bible contradicts the political gospel of the religious left. Rev. Jesse Jackson and Thistlethwaite claimed that \u201cJesus was an Occupier,\u201d implausibly citing Jesus\u2019 expulsion of the moneychangers from the Temple as proof that Jesus would support violent mass occupations of public places. \u201cOn Faith\u201d contributor Lisa Miller concurred with Jackson and Thistlethwaite, asserting that the \u201cJesus of history\u201d would embrace the Occupy movement.<\/p>\n
In December 2011, another \u201cOn Faith\u201d contributor, Anthony Stevens-Arroyo, praised liberation theology (which emphasizes empowerment of the downtrodden at the expense of the powerful), and attempted to link the Bible to Marxism: \u201cBut the ideal \u2018from each according to his ability; to each according to his need,\u2019 doesn\u2019t originate with Marx. It comes from the Acts of the Apostles (4:34-35; 1:44-45).\u201d<\/p>\n
Again, Christian conservatives do not ignore the Biblical mandate to serve the poor. Christ commanded that his followers practice voluntary charity; he even exhorted a rich young man to \u201cgo your way, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven.\u201d (Mark 10:21) But the Bible is not a critique of capitalism or a call for economic equality, no matter how hard the left tries to make it so.<\/p>\n
Thou Shalt Support Social Liberalism<\/p>\n
In the liberal worldview, the Bible justifies more than enforced economic equality; it mandates the adoption of progressive social values. Homosexual activists argue that the Bible supports gay marriage, and claim that Jesus Christ had homosexual inclinations. Other writers hold that the Bible actively promotes abortion.<\/p>\n
Some of these arguments for Biblically sanctioned social progressivism rely on heavy use of incoherent academic jargon. Wil Gafney, professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, argued in a Sept. 16, 2012, Huffington Post article: \u201cRuPaul, the reigning Queen of Queens, is famous for saying that \u2018wearing drag in a male dominated society is an act of treason.\u2019 Ru knows that choosing any kind of female gender performance by intentionally surrendering and\/or sabotaging male privilege is an act of treason \u2013 or resistance \u2013 against the androcentrism is this planet\u2019s original sin, pervading the scriptures and on display in the Gospel, on the lips of Jesus, no less.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gafney\u2019s display of convoluted theology was unsurprising, considering the fact that she cited drag queens as her \u201cfavorite\u201d theologians: \u201cDrag queens like RuPaul, Sharon Needles and Latrice Royale are some of my favorite critical gender theorists and theologians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other progressive writers posited similar bizarre claims about the Bible\u2019s treatment of sexuality. Kittredge Cherry concocted an April 3, 2012, Huffington Post article \u201cQueer Christ Arises to Liberate and Heal,\u201d in which she claimed: \u201cChrist lives in every individual of every different shade of sexual orientation and gender identity.\u201d (The Huffington Post has also featured an image of Jesus on the cross with the word \u201cfaggot\u201d replacing \u201cINRI\u201d (\u201cKing of the Jews\u201d in Latin), so it\u2019s a favorite theme there.)<\/p>\n
In an April 23, 2012, article posted on the far-left site Alternet, Paul Osterreicher echoed Cherry\u2019s assertion: \u201cHeterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of these. The homosexual option simply seems the most likely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other activists read homosexual themes into artistic renderings of Biblical stories. Christopher Harrity, writing for the LGBT site Advocate.com, called artistic depictions of Biblical scenes \u201cgay Bible porn\u201d and claimed that there were \u201cso many visual representations of Christ that are exquisitely sensual and detailed in a corporeal, sexual way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other writers asserted that a \u201ccorrectly\u201d interpreted Bible favors homosexual activity \u2013 or at very least has nothing to say on the topic. Daniel Helminiak wrote on CNN\u2019s Belief Blog on May 15, 2012, that \u201cNowhere does the Bible actually oppose homosexuality.\u201d Huffington Post contributor Matthew Vines declared on March 26, 2012: \u201cThe Bible does not condemn loving gay relationships. It is not opposed to justice and equality for gay people, and in fact it supports their equal right to marry. Scripture can prove to be one of our greatest allies, if only we\u2019re reading it correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conflation of love with erotic attraction is the root of this false assumption. Biblical expressions of love between two men or women are automatically and falsely equated with sexual relationships by homosexual activists.<\/p>\n
It is certainly true that the Bible commands Christians to love \u201cgay\u201d and \u201cstraight\u201d people alike. As St. Paul writes: \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.\u201d (Galatians 3:28) All men and women are children of God, and must therefore be treated with respect and dignity by Christians.<\/p>\n
But it is not \u201clove\u201d to practice or condone a lifestyle specifically forbidden by the Bible. Love is not affirmation of a harmful lifestyle; loving Christians do not condone their friends\u2019 destructive behavior.<\/p>\n
Both the Old and New Testaments do condemn homosexual behavior on numerous occasions, despite the logical contortions of those that argue otherwise. Homosexual activists like anti-bullying bully and gay sex columnist Dan Savage, who rails against \u201cbullshit in the Bible about gay people\u201d display more intellectual honesty than their counterparts about the Bible\u2019s negative stance on homosexuality (although Savage falsely equates disapproval of homosexual activity with hatred of gay people).<\/p>\n
Celebrating homosexual acts is not the only concern of the gospel of social liberalism; progressive writers also have used the Bible to justify abortion.<\/p>\n
Erin Gloria Ryan of the liberal site Jezebel likes abortion so much she recently wrote an article advising women of the ideal age to have one (her answer: 25). So it isn\u2019t surprising that she enlisted the Bible to (tacitly) support her enthusiasm. In November 2012, Ryan wrote, \u201cthere are a lot more passages in the Bible that imply (or insist) that the big man upstairs doesn\u2019t consider a zygote to be the same sort of being with the same value as, say, a mailman or a trapeze artist than there are passages that mention abortion.\u201d And because \u201cthere are zero Bible passages that mention abortion, as in \u2018don\u2019t do it,\u2019\u201d the Bible must be pro-abortion.<\/p>\n
Nynia Chance, a self-proclaimed \u201cdevout reader of the Bible,\u201d argued in a June 3, 2012, post on pro-abortion site RH Reality Check that the Bible was actually a pro-abortion tract, declaring: \u201cThe Bible never once specifically forbids abortions; it\u2019s actually quite the opposite! Not only were methods of abortion well-known at the time, there\u2019s times when the Bible states God commands that one take place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chance\u2019s first \u201cexample,\u201d taken from the Biblical narrative of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38), illustrates the failure of her argument. The story of Judah and Tamar is a graphic tale of the failure of a Biblical patriarch to live a moral life. Tamar, the widow of Judah\u2019s oldest son Er, was given to Judah\u2019s second son Onan in marriage, but Onan was killed by God for his sin. Judah indefinitely postponed the marriage of Tamar to his third son, Shelah. So Tamar dressed as a prostitute, and Judah saw her and asked to sleep with her (not knowing who she was), even giving her identifying marks as a pledge. When Judah found Tamar was pregnant, he sought to have her burned \u2013 until she showed him his identifying marks, proving that he was the father of her children.<\/p>\n
After recounting this story, Chance implausibly argued: \u201cSo in this story, I see the Bible saying that killing an unborn child is necessary when it\u2019s not a child conceived in a way the mother\u2019s society wants. Also, that a mother should die along with it, because of engaging in an act the sentencer had done.\u201d Chance\u2019s Biblical interpretation assumes that 1) pre-Mosaic law (the event took place in Genesis, before the establishment of the Law of Moses) was sanctioned by God, 2) that the Bible recounted Judah\u2019s immoral behavior, and 3) that the Bible condones abortions because it related the story of a hypocritical man who threatened to kill a pregnant woman. All of these assumptions are nonsensical; Chance ignored the inconvenient facts that Tamar shamed Judah by exposing his complicity in her pregnancy and that the \u201cabortion\u201d Judah sought never happened.<\/p>\n
Conservative commentator Cal Thomas strongly rebuked ideologues who twist the Bible to advance liberal social causes: \u201cPeople are free to accept or reject what Scripture says. What they are not free to do is to claim it says something it does not. In modern times that\u2019s called \u2018spin.\u2019 In an earlier time it was called heresy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Call it spin, heresy, or lunacy \u2013 the practice of twisting Scripture to justify social progressivism is rampant among the religious left.<\/p>\n
The Gospel According to Hollywood<\/p>\n
The Bible continues to be a rich source of inspiration and material for the entertainment industry. It\u2019s just that now \u2013 as often as not \u2013 writers twist it, mock it and use it to further the ideological goals of the left and the irreligious.<\/p>\n
The music industry has singled the Bible out for special mockery. Rapper Lil\u2019 Kim created her own set of 10 commandments for girls \u201cto keep your man whipped,\u201d advising women to \u201cnever move in unless he tell you.\u201d Rapper Pusha T appropriated Biblical themes, releasing an expletive-laden song titled \u201cExodus 23:1\u201d in 2012 that took aim at a fellow rapper.<\/p>\n
In her music video \u201cJudas,\u201d pop artist Lady Gaga used Biblical imagery to celebrate the betrayer of Jesus. The lyrics of \u201cJudas\u201d include these lines:
\n When he calls to me, I am ready
\nI\u2019ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs
\nForgive him when his tongue lies through his brain
\nEven after three times, he betrays me
\nHer song inverted two Biblical incidents: Peter\u2019s betrayal of Jesus (Mark 14:66-72) and a woman pouring ointment over Jesus\u2019 feet and washing His feet with her hair. (Luke 7:36-50) Lady Gaga substituted Jesus\u2019 betrayer for Jesus as an object of veneration.<\/p>\n
But intentional Biblical confusion in the entertainment industry is not confined to the music world. Dan Brown, author of the best-selling novel \u201cThe Da Vinci Code,\u201d cherry-picked segments of the Bible to help construct a tale about the Catholic Church covering up a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene for centuries. It served the twin purposes of making the Church a villain and suggesting that the true, modern feminist messages of the Bible were expunged in the interest of a male power structure. Brown then claimed in an interview on CNN that \u201c99 percent of it is true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ignoring Brown\u2019s numerous Biblical distortions, Thistlethwaite actually celebrated \u201cThe Da Vinci Code\u201d as instrumental in rehabilitating the reputation of Mary Magdalene, writing that the \u201cfictional account by Dan Brown does add some non-Biblical innovations, as readers and film-goers know, but the counter-narrative on Mary Magdalene has been effective.\u201d (Thistlethwaite ignored the fact that Catholics have venerated Mary Magdalene as a saint for centuries.)<\/p>\n
Television shows and films also carelessly mangle the Bible. During the musical \u201cGlee,\u201d one of the characters of the show\u2019s self-proclaimed \u201cGod Squad\u201d speculated that one of Jesus\u2019 apostles was gay: \u201cThey say one out of every 10 people are gay. And if that\u2019s true, that means one of the 12 apostles might have been gay. My guess is Simon, because that name\u2019s the gayest.\u201d<\/p>\n
HBO\u2019s gory, overtly anti-conservative vampire series, \u201cTrue Blood,\u201d created its own Vampire Bible that supposedly predated the Christian Bible. This Vampire Bible declared that a vampire called Lilith was made in the image of God, and specifically stated that human beings were created to nourish vampires: \u201cAs their flesh shall nourish yours, their blood shall flow within you, for as the beetle nourishes the lark so shall human nourish vampire.\u201d The show features an unsavory group of vampires who interpret their Bible literally, mocks Christian sacraments and Catholic institutions, and includes a \u201cderanged theocrat\u201d that producer Allan Ball said was inspired by former Pennsylvania Senator and GOP presidential primary candidate Rick Santorum.<\/p>\n
The now-canceled show \u201cGCB,\u201d formerly titled \u201cGood Christian Bitches,\u201d existed to portray Christians as materialistic hypocrites who lie, cheat, betray friendships and confidences \u2013 essentially, they live like their Hollywood creators. A sampling of \u201cGCB\u2019s\u201d mocking version of the 10 Commandments includes: \u201cThou shalt not covet thy neighbor\u2019s husband … Unless he\u2019s really hot.\u201d \u201cThou shalt love a \u201cC\u201d cup, unless you fit into a \u201cD\u201d cup.\u201d \u201cThou shalt know it\u2019s wrong to expose your thong.\u201d \u201cThou shalt add bling to everything.\u201d \u201cThou shall not wear it if it\u2019s under a carat.\u201d and \u201cThou shalt match the volume of thy hair to the size of thy handbag.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thou Shalt Remake the Bible in Thine Own Image<\/p>\n
Liberals see the U.S. Constitution is a \u201cliving document,\u201d they can \u201cchange with the times.\u201d The Bible, it seems, is no safer from their whims.<\/p>\n
Daily Beast and Post contributor Lisa Miller, a religious liberal, specifically called it \u201ca living document,\u201d by which she meant that the Bible and its teachings (especially the unpleasant ones) are changeable. CNN\u2019s Piers Morgan expressed this attitude when he rhetorically asked Jeff Foxworthy on his Aug. 22, 2012, show: \u201cHow literally should people take the Bible? And should the Bible be an evolutionary thing, rather like the Constitution was amended a few times?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ideological leftists are attracted to the idea of a mutable Bible. And some even go ahead and rewrite it according to their desires and politics. A group of anonymous editors created the \u201cQueen James Bible\u201d to challenge traditional Scripture\u2019s teaching on homosexuality. Their stated purpose was quite clear: \u201cThe Queen James Bible resolves any homophobic interpretations of the Bible.\u201d The authors boasted in their editor\u2019s note: \u201cWe wanted to make a book filled with the word of God that nobody could use to incorrectly condemn God\u2019s LGBT children, and we succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The quality of their scholarship leaves something to be desired. The editors of the \u201cQueen James Bible\u201d made only eight edits to the Bible (predictably, eight verses dealing with homosexuality) and expressly stated that they \u201cdidn\u2019t change anything else to create this edition of the Queen James Bible.\u201d The editors also asserted in their editor\u2019s note: \u201cYes, things like Leviticus are horribly outdated,\u201d and claimed that \u201cthe Bible is still filled with inequality and even contradiction that we have not addressed. This leaves the question of why they bothered \u201cediting\u201d a work which they have little respect for in the first place; after all, they claim that \u201cNo Bible is perfect, including this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The most extensive media attempt to promote a mutable Bible involved a fragment of papyrus rashly dubbed the \u201cGospel of Jesus\u2019 Wife.\u201d The fragment, \u201cabout the size of a small cell phone,\u201d referenced Jesus using the words \u201cmy wife.\u201d In September 2012, print and television media wildly speculated about the fragment\u2019s potential impact on Christianity.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 19, ABC\u2019s Elizabeth Vargas breathlessly touted the fragment: \u201cReal-life \u2018Da Vinci Code.\u2019 Christianity\u2019s biggest mysteries about to be solved. The tiny scrap of paper that could prove Jesus had a wife. Why this faded fragment might solve an age old question.\u201d Her colleague Diane Sawyer cooed that it was an \u201cancient clue … right out of the \u2018Da Vinci Code.\u2019\u201d All three broadcast networks hyped the fragment relentlessly on both their morning and evening news programs.<\/p>\n
What they didn\u2019t say was that many academics were skeptical of the authenticity of the fragment and that it was first translated and popularized by a self-proclaimed expert in \u201cfeminist theology\u201d with an interest in promoting extra-Biblical texts. When sources like The Washington Post, The New York Times and even NBC News online reported that the Vatican and a Coptic scholar declared the fragment \u201cfake,\u201d no broadcast network covered it. The same fragment of papyrus that was hyped with such excitement when it may have subverted traditional readings of the New Testament disappeared entirely from the networks when it didn\u2019t turn out like they\u2019d hoped.<\/p>\n
The \u201cGospel of Jesus\u2019 Wife\u201d wasn\u2019t the only instance of journalists placing questionable texts on par with the Bible. Thistlethwaite promoted one of the Gnostic gospels \u2013 writings about Jesus rejected by the early Church, which include stories of Jesus killing people. She touted the Gnostic Gospel of Mary as a \u201clong lost Gospel\u201d in a March 5, 2012, rant against Rush Limbaugh, grandiosely titled: \u201cMary Magdalene to Rush Limbaugh: Your apology is too little, too late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Journalists are also notorious for citing academics seeking to stretch the boundaries of the Bible. On March 31, 2012, CNN Belief Blogger John Blake quoted Princeton professor and expert in Gnosticism Elaine Pagels, saying \u201cThe author of Revelation hated Rome, but he also scorned another group \u2013 a group of people we would call Christians today.\u201d Dwight Garner of The New York Times praised Pagels\u2019 efforts to mangle the book of Revelation, gushing that her work \u201cdrifts above the issues like an intellectual satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n
University of North Carolina professor Bart Ehrman, a self-professed non-Church going agnostic, claimed on the Huffington Post in March 2011: \u201cMany of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle \u2013 Peter, Paul or James \u2013 knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.\u201d Other scholars dispute Ehrman\u2019s claims; one noted that his work \u201ccomes across as more autobiographical than academic; more polemical than historical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ehrman has not been shy about slamming the historical accuracy of the Bible. In the Dec. 17, 2012, print edition of Newsweek, Ehrman took aim at the Bible\u2019s accuracy, claiming that \u201cthe accounts of Jesus\u2019 life in the New Testament have never been called histories\u201d; instead, they have always been known as \u201cGospels\u201d \u2013 that is, \u201cproclamations of the good news.\u201d These are books that meant to declare religious truths, not historical facts.\u201d As Baptist scholar Alfred Mohler, Jr. noted in a takedown of Ehrman\u2019s piece: \u201cSo, in the waning days of Newsweek as a print magazine, the editors decided to take on the New Testament. Readers should note carefully that it is Newsweek, and not the New Testament, that is going out of print.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n
Modern liberals regularly dismiss the Bible as repressive and irrelevant to modernity, and excoriate Christian conservatives for believing, in Dan Savage\u2019s words, \u201cbullshit in the Bible.\u201d But the left is nothing if not opportunistic. Just as liberals become federalists when it\u2019s constitutionally convenient, they become Bible scholars when they believe it can be used as a \u201ctool of progressive social change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t believe the Bible in the same way Christians do,\u201d Youssef explained to CMI. \u201cThey don\u2019t read the Bible sacredly. They read it as something you can use, something you can abuse. So they quote it out of context.\u201d<\/p>\n
That utilitarian reading of the Bible, along with the left\u2019s inability to long disguise its contempt for traditional Christianity, is why liberal arguments based on scripture are rarely, if ever, convincing.<\/p>\n
Recommendations:<\/p>\n
Treat the Bible as a Holy Book, Not a Punching Bag: Journalists should stop treating the Bible as an archaic book of outdated customs. Entertainers should stop using Christianity\u2019s holy book as a set-up for sex jokes.<\/p>\n
Treat Christianity, Other Religions the Same: Journalists would never target the Koran, the holy book of Islam for mockery \u2013 and would immediately be censored if they did. They should strive to treat the Bible with the same respect that they treat the texts of other faiths.<\/p>\n
Context, Context, Context: Journalists should examine the context of each Bible passage before cherry-picking quotes to support their ideological position.<\/p>\n
Stop Citing Bible-bashers: Journalists should cease citing scholars as authoritative who have a vested interest in altering or discrediting the Bible \u2013 or at least make clear their leanings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When liberals and their media allies have an agenda to push, they\u2019ll use any tool at hand. The left often rails against the presence of religion in civic life, mocking conservative Christians as \u201cTaliban\u201d agitating for theocracy. But other times, they find faith to be a handy weapon to bludgeon conservatives. And they\u2019ll go so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2463,706,1200,231,597,2656,2654,2655,766,2653],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}