Misusing the Bible


Christians from across the US are disgusted with Jeff Sessions and Sarah Sanders' interpretation of Scripture to justify separating children and parents who are seeking asylum.  I am disgusted too.  My facebook feed is filled with people offering a Christ-like, loving alternatives to this twisted interpretation of Scripture.  I can’t offer anything different or new, but if your facebook feed doesn’t look like mine, and you don’t know why Sessions and Sanders are wrong, let me offer you the highlights.

1.       Sanders and Sessions are proof texting.  Don’t know what that is?  Go here. Biblical scholars often point out the dangers of proof texting.  (Side note:  If you do it in seminary, you get a bad grade.  Trust me—I tried it once.)  Why is it bad?  It undermines the authority of the Bible when people cherry pick passages to make points that aren’t necessarily consistent with the overarching message/themes/story of the Biblical text.  When people prooftext to justify unloving behaviors, they are making the Bible into a weapon.  If you’re using the Bible to oppress and harm others, you’re using it wrong. 

2.       The bigger, loving, overarching message of the Bible actually speaks to how Christ-followers are to treat immigrants, strangers, and those who are vulnerable. I could point you to story after story, but here’s my favorite.  Matthew25:31-46.  

3.       I can’t find one legitimate Christian leader who stands by Sessions and Sanders' comments.  Can you?  In fact, their comments seem to be uniting Christians who can’t agree on other political issues.  When Christians of different stripes (e.g. Franklin Graham and William Barber) come to the same conclusion that this policy is unjust and disgraceful, this probably isn’t a gray-area issue.

4.       What can you do?  Contact your representative and senator with a very short email.  It’s not hard.  I pick three times a year to do it when I really care about issues.  This will be one of those times.  Get contact info on your representative and senators.  

5.   If you are United Methodist, here's something more you can do... Contact your fellow United Methodist Jeff Sessions asking him to read up on his church's stance.  Here is an article that tells you how to do that.  His contact info as at the bottom.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kids in spring!

Image
Faith missed her piano recital because her Girl Scout troop went to Mary Poppins in Minneapolis, but we recorded her song.  This is just a sample.  Samuel had a great spring concert.  He alone played the bass line for kids who "improv'd" on a song.  Can't seem to get a video up, but here's a pic of him hiding behind a music stand, blowing away.  Emilee turned 8!  A pic from her party. 
Read more

Was Jesus Polarizing?

Was Jesus a polarizing figure? My church will do a worship series on polarization during Lent.   Wish us luck!   People are already asking me, “Are you really going to ask me to interact with others whose views are so off course that they would become violent?”   That response is incredibly telling of the dynamics at play within our society—that people automatically go to the extreme without seeing the rest.   The goal of this series is to investigate whether the life of Jesus teaches us anything about polarization. I’ve been doing some scriptural research.   And I got to tell you: it’s been a tough day.   You know when you are reading a novel and you prescribe a personality, tone of voice, and temperament to a character?   It’s almost like you can hear their voice in your head as you are reading dialogue.   The author of the story, of course, plants all the seeds through their character development, but ultimately the reader’s own lens gives the character life.   (This is why p
Read more

PRIDE week communion

Image
It's PRIDE month.  For the last three years, June has been a really strange time in ministry for me.  People often refer friends, relatives, and colleagues to talk through issues around identity and gender diversity.  I get calls from people dissatisfied with their own church's stance who are trying to figure out steps to allyship.  I get calls from parents trying to do the right things.  But the most holy calls I get are from people from the LGBTQIA community, folks looking for hope after church rejection, spiritual trauma, and family rejection.   These folks are brave:  brave to recount the pain, brave to dare to accept themselves, brave to let themselves sense a glimmer of healing grace.  Their stories are sacred, and I feel nothing but gratitude that I'm let into this sacredness.   Recently I was asked by a group to provide a two-minute speech about the power of story-telling during a time of holy conferencing (the nice version of debate) at the gathering of Minnesota U
Read more