Apparently the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law has a policy that if you are to be an officially recognized student group, you have to follow their non-discrimination policy. If you do that then you can use their logo, you get a small stipend, and you get access to some facilities and a school email address. If you don’t then you can still meet, you just don’t get those perks.

This wasn’t an issue for the Christian organization until they joined the national chapter. Once they did, they were required to accept the group’s ban on homosexuals or non-Christians in leadership positions. CLS claims in its brief (which isn’t):

For Hastings College of the Law to force the Christian Legal Society chapter to admit nonadherents into its leadership and voting ranks—on pain of exclusion from an otherwise open speech forum—violates Petitioner’s rights of speech, expressive association, and free exercise of religion.

In order to vote or be an officer in this group:

“… must exemplify the highest standards of morality as set forth in Scripture” in order “that their profession of Christian faith is credible.” Id. at 102a-103a. Officers also must “abstain[] from ‘acts of the sinful nature,’ including those in Galatians 5:19-21; Exodus 20; Matthew 15:19; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.”

So, basically you have to abstain from breaking the ten commandments, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. The lawyer jokes practically write themselves…

So basically, I don’t think anyone could be a part of their little group. This doesn’t sound like a Christian group to me. Heck they don’t even hold Deacons/Elders in my church to these sorts of standards! Anyone else see a problem here?

This takes me back to my own halcyon days at college. I applied to be a part of a Christian fraternity (another oxymoron?) and they rejected my application because I wasn’t Christian enough.

Look people, if you want to form a group and slap the label Christian on it, then make sure you’re adhering to Christ’s own admonitions. What are those? “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” There are more, but these are a good place to start.

And if you do get busted for acting like you didn’t remember these verses from your Bible study, then don’t claim that if you did, that it would endanger everyone else’s freedom. Cause that’s just cheap.

Help, Help, We’re Being Repressed! is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed, either by reader or by e-mail. While you’re at it, connect with me on Twitter, too.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said this:

The real question Americans are asking is, “What has President Obama actually accomplished?” It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.

So speaking of premature, Steele can now see into the future?  Not to be outdone in his foot in mouth-ness (what?  it’s a word.)  Brad Woodhouse the DNC Communications Director said this:

“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize”

It goes on (mostly downhill) from there.  Now strictly speaking, Woodhouse is right.  The RNC and Hamas are in agreement when it comes to shouting down Obama’s award and I’d say any time you find yourself agreeing with Hamas you might want to think twice at least.  But (and this is a big but) I want to call a halt to all comparisons of your political opponent to a dictator or terrorist group.  It’s stupid, intellectually bankrupt, and blatantly manipulative (I am so not gonna say anything about Glenn Beck).  Also I’m sure it’s something Goebbels would have been proud of.

He’s won it, accepted it humbly, and wants to move on and actually try to get some stuff done.  Any shouting about how he didn’t deserve it or did deserve it or how weak the Nobel Committee is or how weak the right wing radio air bags are is really adding nothing to the conversation or to our country getting itself out of the messes it is mired in. Can we focus on that, please?

Obama and the Nobel is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed, either by reader or by e-mail. While you’re at it, connect with me on Twitter, too.

There are so many problems here that it might be easier to just start with what they have right. I will agree that there are certainly issues with the most popular translation, the NIV.  The primary issue, as I understand it, comes from the effort on the part of the translators to make it easier to understand and in trying to communicate what they believe that the original authors intended they did what is commonly called a “thought for thought” translation.  Other translations including the English Standard Version use a “word for word” approach.

A thought for thought approach, while commendable, has resulted in what many people consider to be a weaker translation theologiclaly speaking.  That by no means indicates that it is insufficient or unusable, but if what you’re looking for is something closer to the oldest manuscripts we have then you want to look elsewhere.  So if their goal is to make a more accurate translation (which doesn’t seem to be the case) then that’s commendable.  It’s already been done, but hey what’s one more translation, right?  Wrong.

If I were to take what they wrote at face value then it seems that they don’t want to do a translation at all.  If they are indeed “retranslating the KJV into modern English” then it’s really more of a paraphrase since translation implies moving from the original language into a different language.  Besides, if they just want that then there’s always the New King James Version which is essentially the KJV updated to modern English.  It uses the same manuscripts as the KJV but notes where other manuscripts differ.

But no, what they want to do here is take their political agenda and use “translation” to hammer God’s word into a shape that they find acceptable.  I’m really not okay with that.  Now I recognize that everyone on God’s green Earth has an agenda and that anyone who enters the field of translation is going to carry with them some sort of baggage.  We’re all human beings here.  The problem I have with this particular agenda is that it’s got nothing to do with trying to mine the word of God and divine what he is trying to say to us and everything to do with shaping the word of God to make something politically acceptable.

Let’s look at this point by point:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias - No what they want is a paraphrase of a translation acceptable to their constituents that’s corrupted by conservative bias.  That’s better somehow?  Oh and they admit that newer translations use more accurate manuscripts.
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity - I’d need some clarification here.  I’m aware of some translations that use more gender neutral terms to refer to God.  If that’s what they’re referring to then I might be okay with sticking strictly to the original language.  However, that’s got nothing to do with thinking that God is some big dude in the sky.  God is a spirit and possesses no gender, but chose to reveal himself in the masculine for specific reasons and hey why not stick with that?
   
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV^[3] is written at only the 7th grade level - So tempted to make a comment here about their target audience, but it’s not nice and not entirely true.  Instead I’ll just say that the NIV isn’t “written” at a certain grade level it’s translated and tool might place it at a certain grade level.  So what?  The KJV uses fewer English words and is only more challenging to read due to archaic language.
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;^[4] defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”. – Language certainly evolves over  time.  Both the left and the right have “co-opted” language for their own arguments.  Still I’d like to know what the old meaning of peace is and what new “conservative” word they would use in its place.  This has got 1984 written all over it.
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”;^[5] using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census- In the OT casting lots wasn’t gambling, it was used as a divining tool by prophets.  Non-believers may still believe that it works out to be the same, but these guys don’t know what they’re talking about.
   
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil. - It’s nice of them to admit that conservatives are more interested in using guilt to push our buttons and get us in line.  The focus of the Bible is and always has been more about communion with God and what that means that about what being cast out is like.  The NT mentions Heaven ten times more often than Hell.  Hell should not be our focus.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning- Honestly, I don’t know what to even say here except that these people, the ones who were living during biblical times didn’t have a free market as we understand it.  Jesus wasn’t teaching an economic model and if he were?  Our current model wouldn’t be it.
   
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story- This is wrong on a number of levels.  I mean okay let’s assume that Jesus didn’t say “Let He who is without sin cast the first stone”, the idea of forgiveness and grace and that we are ALL sinners is pretty…. clear given the rest of God’s word.  They’re annoyed that “liberals” are using this as an anti-death penalty screed.  Guess what?  They’re wrong too.  Not the point of this passage.
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels - No idea what to say here that wouldn’t be ad hominem.
   
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.” – Okay so first they say that the liberal version is dumbed down.  Then this.  Make up your friggin’ mind people.

The rest of that page frankly just pisses me off. The whole idea is ridiculous on its face and does NOTHING, accomplishes NOTHING more than adding fuel to the notion that Christians are just a bunch of morons that want to use the Bible to accomplish some right-wing agenda. Are their Christians like that? Sure. Not all, or I hope and pray even most.

Okay that’s enough for now. I need to take my blood pressure meds.

Conservative Bible Project is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed, either by reader or by e-mail. While you’re at it, connect with me on Twitter, too.

For instance, if a political figure has a policy that you don’t like it’s not enough to disagree with the policy. You have to engage in scare tactics and name calling to get your point across. Assigning them an unpopular political ideology or juxtaposing their name or image with that of a well known dictator is a hot trend (though again nothing new). Coming up with not so clever nick names for these groups is also de rigueur.

It’s not just about politics though. I mean that’s too easy. The term originated with religion. If someone is a member of a religion that we don’t understand or agree with then it’s so easy to call them names or ascribe attributes to them that simply do not apply to the religion as a whole or to most adherents. It’s not even just about other religions though. The flame wars between conservative evangelicals and those in the emergent movement can get messy. Then of course there are those non-religious who believe that all religions are a destructive force.

Social issues are also common fodder for painting in an evil light. We’ve got those evil secular humanists that want to brainwash our children into the cult of Darwin. Homosexuals have an “agenda” that wants to… what, make us all gay? Illegal immigrants want to destroy our way of life and take our jobs. Granted most of these instances exist thanks to either the political and/or religious demagogues.

It’s even stretched to inanimate objects. High Fructose Corn Syrup? Evil. We’re blaming a thing for making our kids fat and now we’re going to tax the heck out of soda (more than likely).

I’m sure I’m leaving out some great examples, but I think my point has been made. So why do we do this? I think a lot of it comes down to desiring a scapegoat. “Why does my life suck? It can’t be anything I’m doing. Who can I blame then?” It’s also easy shorthand in debates. Rather than talk about the issues and heaven forbid find a compromise we just take out our favorite charged phrases, dust them off and apply (heh) liberally.

I think that there are certainly things and people in this world that are evil/wrong. I’m also fully willing to admit that I’ve fallen prey to this unfortunate tendency, so that the people I’m certain are “evil” are perhaps no more than my own personal whipping boys. the questions I have are two fold. Is there a place for this demonization? How can it be avoided where it is unnecessary (assuming that the answer to question one tells us it’s ever necessary)?

And just for a little self reflection, what have you demonized?

Demonize-Nation is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed, either by reader or by e-mail. While you’re at it, connect with me on Twitter, too.