Cut, copy, and paste; fantastic computer feature. Remember the old days when you made a mistake while typing? You either retype the whole document again, break out the corrector tape and surgically amend your work, or dab your flaw with the infamous white out bottle. If nothing else, toxic fumes eased your frustration with the hassle.
But now, should you decide to redact your prose, simply highlight and poof! Gone! Oh, the convenience! You can make it say anything you want, and never have to hear what you don’t. If only the Bible could be similarly put on the chopping block. God would stop cramping our style. No more pious prohibitions from pompous preachers. Guilt be gone!
CNN television personality Piers Morgan agrees completely. A little copy/paste provides a snapshot of his recent comments.
- “Both the Bible and the Constitution were well-intentioned, but they are basically, inherently flawed – hence the need to amend it.”
- “But you and I know the Bible is, in many places a flawed document,”
- “My point to you about gay rights for example – it’s time for an amendment to the Bible,”
- “You should compile a new Bible.”
His views are far from unique. Enlightened individuals have proposed the same for centuries. Marcion of Sinope started the ball rolling. About a hundred years after the time of Christ, he advocated a trimmed bible. In response, the early church concerned for orthodoxy, developed the canon. (Meaning “measuring rod” “standard”.) Nazi leaders found the Old Testament and its Jewish roots troublesome, and thus advocated sanitizing the Scriptures to better suit their weltanschauung, world view. In recent times, cult leader Jim Jones employed the familiar tactic of Scriptural denegration in his booklet, “The Letter Killeth”. ...Just prior to orchestrating mass suicide.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could re-write medical textbooks and thereby eradicate disease? How about ridding ourselves of restrictive speed limit laws? Just think; if we amend the rule book, my football team will never lose again!
True: the bible does have troublesome passages. Thus, sound interpretation (and application) calls for stringent hermeneutic. ...Oh wait, I’m getting technical. Right now we’re utilitarian. (Which sounds eerily similar to Unitarian, huh? Speaking of heresies.)
Follow the popular trend. Throw out the yardstick, and anything goes. Pure bliss!
And, if I said anything in this article you don’t fancy, just hit “delete”.