Re: Salad-Bar Christians
- From: "Greg G." <ggwizz@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:59:57 -0800 (PST)
On Dec 12, 6:17 am, mcv <mcv...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Earle Jones <earle.jo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In my opinion, most Christians are what I would call salad-bar
Christians. That is, they look over all of the stuff the Bible offers
and pick and choose what they will buy and what they will not.
A salad bar is a bad analogy. There, you pick what you personally like,
and there's no context that matters. In the bible there is. Jesus in
particular had some interesting things to say about that context.
I first heard this analogy in 1975 from a Fundamentalist preacher who
used it the same way Earle does. Appealing to context as an excuse to
skip an item was one of the points the reverend used.
Some poor slob, out gathering firewood to feed his family, was caught
"working" on a Sunday:
KJV, Numbers 15:32-36
32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found
a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.
Sabbath is saturday, not sunday.
True. Christians must have ordered Sunday from the menu because it
wasn't a salad bar item.
KJV, Deuteronomy 13: 6-10
KJV, Deuteronomy 22: 22-25
See? You're cherry-picking from one very specific (and very old) part
of the bible, written in a particular context. Try reading the gospels
for a more enlightened view. One of the things that Jesus fought
*against* was rigid interpretations of these very old texts. "Let he
who is without sin cast the first stone."
But you are browsing the salad bar by rejecting the "old" parts.
Most Christians don't obey or ignore certains parts of the bible
based just on their personal preference, but (also) on what Jesus
himself said about it.
They base those decisions on what their church teaches but their
choice of church is a product of their personal preferences.
No doubt personal preference, tradition and conformity play some
role in this too, and to some extend, I don't think that's bad
(although it shouldn't overrule Jesus' teachings, ofcourse). Jesus
left a lot open to common sense and personal interpretation.
That makes the analogy apt.
One
of the apostles (I think Peter) said that personal belief of what's
right and wrong does matter. He said it in the context of obeying
Jewish food laws, but I don't see why this shouldn't hold for other
areas as well.
Jewish food laws don't forbid a salad bar, either. The punishments for
a salad bar philosophy of Jewish laws were severe in many cases,
however.
Christianity, unlike Islam and Judaism, is not a religion of rigid
rules and regulations, but one of very loose guidelines, common
sense, and personal interpretation.
IOW, a "salad bar" religion.
It's a shame a lot of Christians
have rather weird (and IMO unbiblical) sense and interpretation.
The Spanish Inquistion would coat your feet with oil to keep the nerve
endings alive as long as possible when they burned your feet off.
Would you try to defend that in 15th century Europe?
mcv.
--
Science is not the be-all and end-all of human existence. It's a tool.
A very powerful tool, but not the only tool. And if only that which
could be verified scientifically was considered real, then nearly all
of human experience would be not-real. -- Zachriel
--
Greg G.
The fanatics may like to pee in the pool, but religion built the damn
pool in the first place.
--Mark Morford
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/12/05/notes120507.DTL
.
- References:
- Salad-Bar Christians
- From: Earle Jones
- Re: Salad-Bar Christians
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