Modern Christianity And Bigotry

In the modern incarnation of christianity far too many people seem to cherry-pick the verses they want to follow -- all to often resulting in a religion that confirms their own bigoted beliefs. My fellow blogger vorjack, over at his excellent blog unreasonable faith, has written a post about this. I thought it was very good, so I am presenting part of it here for your enjoyment:

 Here’s my problem:

The Bible contains perhaps a dozen “clobber verses” against homosexuality. That number could shrink or grow depending on how you define words and whether or not you bring adultery into the conversation.

The Bible contains perhaps 200 verses on the topic of the poor and economic justice. Again, that number could shrink or grow. I’ve heard estimates as high as 300.

As I look at modern American Christianity, it seems to me that those numbers could have been reversed.

To evade the charge of bigotry, you need to do more than say that you sincerely believe that the Bible is against gay marriage. You need to explain why you take the clobber verses as something important and relevant to today, while the statements like “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none,” aren’t.

There are arguments against taking the missional verses and the poverty verses and trying them to apply them today. Of course, many of those arguments could be turned against the clobber verses as well. Can it be shown that there is a consistent means of interpretation that would lead to the clobber verses being taken literally while the charity verses should be basically ignored?

Or think of it this way: would the hypothetical “man from Mars” who was innocent of Christianity and the culture wars really look at the Bible and come away saying, “Wow, we’ve really got to do something to stop gay marriage”?

Think about how this looks from the outside. The parts of the Bible that you believe apply today are the ones that require other people to make sacrifices. The parts of the Bible that would require YOU to make big sacrifices are not considered relevant. Look at it this way, and you’ll see why “bigot” is one of the nicer things you could be called.

NOTE -- The above picture is of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. According to Wikipedia:

Saints Sergius and Bacchus. 7th Century icon. Officers of the Roman Army in Syria who were tortured to death for their refusal to worship Roman gods.

Bacchus is thought to have died from severe torture while Sergius survived the initial torture to be beheaded. They are the protectors of the Byzantine Army with a feast day of October 7th.

Yale historian John Boswell considers the saints to be an example of an early Christian same-sex union reflective of tolerant early Christians attitudes toward homosexuality based on this icon depecting what some claim is a religious wedding with Jesus as best man.