FGD Bible: I will send another comforter
Rowan Williams is in the news again. In preparation for his departure from Lambeth Palace, he’s been interviewed by the Torygraph, leading to lots of comment about what he said, including his admission that he got things wrong, his regrets that he failed to communicate well, and the reported plans for a “President of the Anglican Communion”. I can’t resist an invitation like that.
In Jesus’ alternative words from John 16:
Truly I say to you, it is for your good that I am going. Unless I go, the comforter will not come to you. But if I go, he will be sent to you. And when he comes, he will show the world to be wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. His main strength will be getting his message across clearly, because sometimes people just don’t seem to get the point of my parables, and they don’t really fit into the sort of soundbites that a 24-hour news culture expects.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But it’s important to communicate such an unpopular policy effectively.
And he will have a president to attend to the big picture. Actually, it would have been really helpful to have someone with overall responsibility for the whole world, because quite frankly, I’ve got enough on my plate just dealing with Galilee. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get from Nazareth to Capernaum by donkey? It’s no wonder that I can’t travel to Jerusalem as often as I’d like.
On that subject, maybe the president could also talk to disaffected factions and do all the dirty political wrangling. He could start by meeting with the Roman authorities, so that they understand our position and there’s no danger of misunderstandings. And it would be important to speak to the Pharisees on a regular basis, to listen to their concerns and take them on board. I think I’ve failed to really connect with those groups in particular – they just seem to see me as a hairy lefty.
I’m sure we’ll be able to talk it over and make up once I’ve retired.
Photo by clarita, used under morgueFile License
Becoming the greatest – Matthew 20:25-27
Take your pick
The church is a strange institution. It seems to be caught between viewing its clergy as having a special calling, and just people pursuing a career much the same as anyone else. There’s a structure with a hierarchy, and a sort of natural path of progression (dare I say career path), but it’s not the done thing to aspire to promotion, let alone campaign for it. This is never clearer than when there’s a vacancy in Canterbury – virtually every Diocesan in the country will be hoping he (of course, they’re all men) gets the job, often working hard to subtly improve his chances, but will be trying equally hard to avoid admitting that fact.
So what would their religion’s founder suggest they should do?
Jesus called them together, and said “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their superiors exercise their authority over them. But not with you. Instead, any of you that wishes to be great must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.
“And he should make sure his name’s in the frame by supplying regular quotes and articles for the Jerusalem Gazette, and getting some friends to talk him up as a leading candidate. A few judicious whispers in the right ear about the sort of person who should be greatest wouldn’t go amiss, either. Ideally, if you knew anyone who was prepared to hint at failings in some of the other candidates, that would be perfect.
“Obviously, that all sounds a bit manipulative, but let he who is without spin cast the first stone.”
Photo by Sarah Jane, used under Attribution License
Fundie God Dictation Bible: Matthew 18:3
Cleanliness is next to godliness
Christians of certain traditions love to talk about the importance of being childlike, obliquely referring to this passage, but this is used worryingly often to mean that you should trust the church leadership, and not ask too many difficult questions. I’d have said that the context indicates pretty clearly that the important feature is humility, which I suggest is a message pertinent to anyone who expects unconditional trust, but this is glossed over or ignored, and if you disagree with the conclusion you’re providing clear evidence that you’re not trusting like a child.
But if these church leaders are right, and we can’t take Matt 18:4 as evidence that this verse refers to humility, what else could it mean? What does it mean to be childlike? Well, I’ve had a few thoughts about that:
And he said, “Truly I say to you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
And the disciples said, “Why?”
Jesus said, “Because it’s important to be trusting, and to have a pure heart.”
And the disciples said, “Why?”
“Because that makes you a nice person.”
And the disciples said, “Why?”
“Because I said so. Now stop asking why.”
Simon Peter paused in the middle of picking his nose and said, “But we’re being like little children, like you told us.”
“Oh, I see,” said Jesus. “That wasn’t quite what I meant – stop that, Philip – but never mind. Let’s just forget about that for now – I said stop that – and I’ll explain later. Okay?”
The disciples shuffled their feet and mumbled “Yes.”
“Good,” said Jesus. “Now come on, we’d better get a move on if we want to get back to Nazareth this evening.”
“Teacher,” said James, “John took my sandals.”
Jesus wept.
Photo by Howdy, I’m H. Michael Karshis, used under Attribution License
Fundie God Dictation Bible: John 8:1-11
This one’s for the liberals. I’m straying a little from the initial concept of the FGD Bible, which assumes selective Biblical literalism, but I’ve got good reasons for taking this on. Liberals love to quote this passage, and it’s become a standard response to criticism of anyone’s actions, but they carefully miss off the end of the story (“go and sin no more”), which as selective as it gets.
And because they approve of the message (or at least the message they take from it, which isn’t necessarily the same thing), they show little interest in the fact that authorship of this passage is heavily disputed. If the story had an overwhelmingly conservative message, I have no doubt that the disputed authorship would be used to discredit this passage, marking it out as a probable later insertion and therefore unimportant.
So this is what some people appear to read in the story of the woman taken in adultery:
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he went to the temple, where the people gathered around and he sat to teach them. The Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery and asked “This woman was caught in adultery. Moses commanded us to stone her. What do you say?” They asked this question as a trap.
But Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground. When they asked again, he stood up and said “Whoever is without sin can throw the first stone.” And he continued to write on the ground. At this, they went away until only the woman was left. Jesus asked her “Has no one condemned you?”
“No one,” she said
“Then neither do I condemn you,” said Jesus. “Now go back to your adultery.”
“Forgive me, sir,” the woman said, “But don’t you mean ‘go and sin no more’?”
“Oh, don’t be such a square!” laughed Jesus. “When they said you were caught in adultery, I thought you were cool.”
“But I have betrayed my husband,” she said.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” said Jesus. “Anyway, it’s all free, and you look like you’ve got plenty of love to go round. Just take care, use protection, and have fun. You don’t want people to think you’re boring, do you? I’d hate to spend eternity with boring people.”
Photo by chefranden, used under Attribution License
Fundie God Dictation Bible: Revelation 3:20
I often hear people preach an obscurantist God – one who avoids detection and acts so as to deny any possibility of demonstrating His existence, but still expects you to somehow conclude that He does indeed exist and follow Him on the basis of this deliberately insufficient evidence.
This new version of Revelation 3:20 is dedicated to them.
Behold! I stand at the door and knock. And then I run away and hide. It’s freakin’ hilarious, man – you should see their faces! And sometimes I leave them a flaming bag of dog poo, because they’ve got free will, right, so whatever they do isn’t really my fault. And you know what I think about over-reliance on material possessions, so it’s actually good for their souls to ruin a nice new pair of suede loafers once in a while. Seriously.
Fundie God Dictation Bible
It occurs to me that if the Bible was really dictated by an angry, dictatorial God as fundies believe (or appear to believe, or claim to believe), we’d expect to see a lot of things that don’t seem to appear in the text. A truly infallible, comprehensive manifesto for human living, direct from God’s own mouth would surely reflect God’s priorities, but there are some pretty big discrepancies between the contents of this manifesto and what fundies take from it, which they have to fill in with a substantial amount of interpretation, even while denying that they’re doing it. At the very least, you’d think He’d have made sure to be absolutely explicit about what He wanted you to do.
So what would the Bible look like if it had really been dictated word for word by a micromanaging God who shared the strange obsessions of various kinds of fundamentalist? Some passages would have to be struck out, some new bits would have to be inserted, and various other bits would need to be rewritten. So for anyone who pays attention to apocalyptic prophecies and suchlike, the Fundie God Dictation (FGD) version of the Bible would look a bit like this from Matthew 24:
For no one knows the day or the hour – not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. But to be honest, He’s really bad at keeping secrets, and He’ll probably blab to any half-arsed self-proclaimed prophet he happens to bump into. I’ve told Him that the whole idea’s to keep people guessing, so they can’t exploit that last-minute repentance loophole He put in, but He just won’t shut up. Between you and me, I think He might be getting a bit soft in His old age. It’s just as well His memory’s going as well, so He keeps giving out the wrong date – there’s only so much space in heaven, and we need to keep the riffraff out.
Of course, it’s very easy to have a go at the way fundamentalists say that the Bible’s a complete, infallible set of direct, divinely dictated instructions, even while holding beliefs which require some serious interpretation and downplaying of inconvenient passages, and even outright invention. But what really interests me is the way all shades of belief adhere to what they think the text means, rather than what it actually says, and the often massive difference between the two.
