Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Bible as a weapon?

I was recently watching a Sunday morning news show, and there was a story about a man who had taken pictures of all the people in this town, I can't remember where. But he went back some twenty years later and took pictures of most of the same people again. One man stuck out to me for what he had to say about his then and now pictures. He is a preacher now, he didn't say what denomination. In his old picture he is standing dressed in civil war reenactment garb and holding a gun. In his today picture. He is in a suit and tie and he is holding a Bible. But what struck me is what he said about the the pictures. He said something like. The same person except now I just have a new weapon, referring to the Bible he caries in his new picture.

I thought about that and thought, WOW that's exactly how some people use the Bible. Some people use it to exclude certain people. Some people use it to justify war. Some people use it as a reason to take land away from others. All of these things are using the Bible as a weapon. Just like a gun or club. They beat people into submission. They force them into their way of thinking. They rape people of their free will, and right to choose. They steal their true religions and ways of thinking from them and call it aid.

I do not believe that this is what Jesus wanted. I believe Jesus wanted us to share our land, to share our beliefs to share our abundance of wealth and knowledge. To give of ourselves and not take what is not ours unless it is given. We have the capacity as a people to be so much more. We have the capacity to give and live together and reason and talk about our differences. I have to believe we have and will evolve into that.
And won't continue to use the Bible as a weapon.

1 comment:

Margaret said...

When I worked with perpetrators of domestic violence, the men would also try to defend their behavior by quoting the bible. "It was OK for me to beat my wife and threaten her with a gun because the bible says that I am the king of my castle and she wsan't obeying me!" What bullshit. You can defend anything using that amalgamation of thoughts and stories. You are right, that is not what Christianity is really about.