Miss Prejean's faith would pretty much force her to be silent yet...

[Johonny]

She offered her version of the tense hours following the April 19 Miss USA pageant while appearing at the San Diego megachurch that has helped shape her views. The Rock Church, founded by former San Diego Chargers defensive back Miles McPherson, was active in the campaign to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriages in California last year. If anything, Prejean has solidified her stance in the last week. McPherson, who preaches against homosexuality, has been acting as her adviser and encouraging her to use her newfound fame to persuade other evangelical Christians to share their views, even if they are unpopular. "I learned that God has a bigger crown than any man can give you," she said.


Let’s ignore photo’s for a second. Let’s get back to the fundamental point here. Do I have to accept what someone wrote in the bible ~3000-1800 years before tradition western modern sexual roles were defined as the end all of the whole gay marriage debate? OK. Fine the Bible says gay men are bad. I guess a very narrow reading of the bible gives you that conclusion. For whatever reason I am forced to hear this very narrow view of sexuality from the bible over and over again. Just wonder why no one ever asks any of the conservative Christians why they so often use women to teach me these lessons from the Bible. I mean the bible (the new parts even, you don’t even have to dig out an odd quote from the old parts) is pretty clear on this:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (1 Timothy 2:11-12)


So basically (pretending to buy into the whole everything in the bible is true, non-contradictory and unerring) the bible tells me that in no way should Christian conservatives use women to teach the bible. Heck it leads me into sin just like it lead Adam. Hey what could be more clear than that? So what’s the deal here? How come McPherson here is allowed to have a grand plan like using Miss California to promote his churches evangelical Christian view, when the bible makes it perfectly clear Miss California’s views will lead me into being deceived and lead to a transgression with God? I'm pretty sure I'm suppose to want to avoid that. I mean shouldn’t in the I don’t know one million interviews on this topic, someone at least bring that up. If not to McPherson and Miss California, how about Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper who I’ve also heard on countless talk shows and always backs her opinion up with nothing but bible passages. I guess reporters don't want to argue "faith", but then why are these people on my TV when faith is all they got to offer? So here’s the deal from now on if I have to accept all the bibles anti-gay and supposed anti-gay passages, they have to be silent and not preach the bible to me. As long as they are going to violate the clear literal message in the bible, I'm just safely going to assume the anti-gay marriage bible stuff can safely be ignored by me.

(In a side note I feel bad for Paul who almost certainly never wrote either passage and ironically who’s churches eventually were so full of women in leadership positions that Pagan’s made fun of them because of that fact)

[MichaelHarris]

1. I'll go a step further

God didn't write any of it. He/She may have had a rap session with the cats who did but whose to say they remembered everything God said. Unless Peter and all those guys had digital recorders they could not possibly get it word for word. Here's the question. If men wrote the Bible and they are fallible then there's probably mistakes. Ask a fundie where the commandment against gay sex is, is that the one Moses dropped on the way down the mountain?

Now if God is infallible and the men who wrote the Bible are also infallible then we have a whole book of Gods. The Bible cannot possibly be the word of God unless he wrote it, he didn't. Men who make mistakes (or men with an agenda) wrote it. Fallible men.

[mtf80123]

2. Inhaling vaporous fumes while living in a cave on a

volcanic Island and isolated from society does and can bring on a state of delusion.

[The Traveler]

3. A step further

I haven't read the Bible or the Gospels. Most likely, neither have you. That is because fluency in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek are not among my skill sets. And I bet they aren't among Rev. <pick yer preacher>, either.

Yep. We have read translations of these texts, and translation is at best a difficult art. Translation of mystical or philosophical ideas is especially difficult. Translation of poetry (like Psalms, the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes) is supremely difficult.

Imagine trying to translate idiom and metaphorical expression written in a dead or near dead language and from a cultural and contextual viewpoint no one has experienced in 2000 plus years ... even if the translator has no ax to grind, producing an accurate and faithful translation that conveys the meaning is a virtually impossible chore.

One student of antiquities my acquaintance was convinced, for example, that Leviticus has gotten a bad rap as a result of these difficulties. The Mediterranean world of his times were marked by wars and skirmishes, and it was common practice to take captives and enslave them. In particular, captured soldiers were raped as a means of breaking their will. According to this student, Leviticus objected to that sort of thing and hence the admonition not to lay with men. But over time the advocacy of relatively humane treatment of prisoners becomes perceived and translated as an injunction against same sex love ... that was this guy's theory, any way.

Now, I don't know that he has it right, but it does sort of make sense and fits in with the context provided by what we know of those violent times.

But, let's face it ... from the context of us denizens of 21st Century high energy technology civilization, it is really tough to make sense of/take seriously an injunction against the "abomination of male homosexuality" when it is placed by the author on par with the "abomination of eating shell fish". This weird co-equivalence of sins makes one suspect that something sure as hell got lost in translation, or that Leviticus was in sore need of lithium.

Trav

[izzie]

4. It is a book like the super market.

People pick out what they like even if it is not good for them. Even 2000 years ago they did the same.

[bulloney]

6. The Gospels attributed to Luke, Mark and John were not written by those men.

I think they weren't even written, at least in part, while they were alive. They were the writers' interpretations of what they said and did.

During Biblical times, some men had multiple wives. Is that now OK? I believe the book of Numbers has some paragraphs that indicate that a woman suspected of commiting adultery take some type of solution that can be interpreted as inducing an abortion.

I also am intrigued/amused that virtually every period of time mentioned in the Bible is in units of three days or 40 days. Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days. Christ rose from the dead in three days. Jesus will tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, etc. Jesus walked across the desert 40 days. The Great Flood was from 40 days of rain, etc. I interpret the three-day periods as a catch-all for short-term events and 40 day periods as a catch-all for long-terms. The Bible is not to be taken literally.

Our priest gave a sermon recently in which he boasted that he actually turns bread and wine into Christ's body and blood. I'm sorry, but the "body" tastes like bread and the "blood" tastes like wine, even after it's blessed. I'm willing to bet if you did a chemical composition examination before and after they are blessed, you'd see no change. It's all symbolism and there's nothing wrong with that. Much of religion is symbolism. But don't use your athority as a pastor, stand at the pulpit and bullshit me by arguing that we're eating someone's flesh and drinking someone's blood when the evidence overwhelmingly indicates otherwise.

[Goblinmonger]

7. The reason for the common number of days

is the use of a common set of symbols.

[bulloney]

8. Explain, please. I don't understand what you mean by "common set of symbols."

[Goblinmonger]

10. Here are a couple sites

These kind of approach it from the spiritual side; I am more interested, at this point in my life, on the literature side, but same symbolism.

http://www.christcenteredmall.com/teachings/symbolism/numbers.htm

This one is especially good:
http://vic.australis.com.au/hazz/Numbers.html

I cover a lot of this with the Juniors I teach when we do Old Man and the Sea (lots of Christ symbolism and number symbolism).

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Her faith commands that she be silent, but since she got those implants ...

... well, she's tainted now, isn't she?

[tanyev]

9. And don't forget 1 Timothy 2:9-10

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.