Book of Revelation, what is it???
Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:40 pm
Pasted below is a paragraph from John Selby Spong's latest news letter. The article expresses his concern for "world happenings" as they are influenced by USA politics and Christian theology. This paragraph deals mostly with "The Book of Revelation" and those who plan the future by it. I think it most deserving of thoughtful consideration:
Important as it is to see "homosexuality" with new understanding, i forgot to mention it at the beginning. So now we have an expanded topic... Your thoughts please... Warm regards, Roger
As this drama was unfolding prior to Christmas, Anderson Cooper of CNN was hosting a series of telecasts on the subject, "What is a Christian?" Evangelical clergy were interviewed who believed that the Book of Revelation both predicted and justified the war in the Middle East. They read this late 1st century book as their guide to contemporary history. They also stated that the Bible was quite clear in its condemnation of homosexuality. These were men, well dressed, apparently well educated, not confined to a mental hospital, being interviewed on national television by a mainstream network. Viewers were presumably accepting these comments as rational, even worthy of serious attention. There was something about these two scenes: President Bush talking about the war and these preachers talking about the Bible that seemed to be eerily reminiscent of each other. Both cited their authority in such a way as to imply that it was not capable of being challenged. The President followed his own intuition, informed by his interpretation of God's will. These clergy followed their own intuitions, informed by their interpretation of the Bible as an expression of God's will. Perhaps 500 years ago these attitudes would not have seemed strange, but in a post-Freudian world, people do not dismiss the inability to make different decisions on the basis of new data as "stubbornness," they recognize it as delusional. In a world where critical biblical scholarship is more than 200 years old, no rational person would treat a book written between 1000 BCE and 135 CE by a wide variety of individuals as if it contained the secrets of the end of the world, a blueprint for the human disaster that is called the Iraq War and no one, except a mad man, would accept the idea that this ancient book, devoid of the medical and scientific data developed in the past hundred years, actually prescribed divine rejection of homosexuality.
Important as it is to see "homosexuality" with new understanding, i forgot to mention it at the beginning. So now we have an expanded topic... Your thoughts please... Warm regards, Roger