Wednesday,September 17, 2003

Bible has been used and misused through millennia

Bravo to Mr. Keith Turner ["In rights debate, definitions have changed," The Citizen, Sept. 3] for his fascinating journey to a land of slanted impressions posing as definition. It must be nice to live in a place where you get to set the reality, pose the premise, and pre-load the conclusion. As minister for propaganda at his own little bastion of prejudice, I don't suppose he gets many opposing viewpoints. Well, here's one for you, Herr Turner!

None of your definitions are definitions, which automatically must call the rest of your dogmatic drivel into question. I did notice your multiple use of "lifestyle choices," in veiled reference to people who are homosexuals. I believe the jury is still out on the source of people's sexual preference, although, from a nonscientific point of view, all the true homosexuals I have ever known insist they knew their leanings from adolescence. I'm not sure otherwise why men would ignore the fine curvature around them, and opt for a "lifestyle" that puts them at odds with most of society.

I did notice you are keen to judge. I'm sure you know the Bible back to front, so how did you miss the part that exhorts you to judge not, lest you be judged? Which brings me back to what I stated in my last letter: the Bible propounds and prohibits many things. Your professed faith in a Christian past as some kind of righteous era is grossly and historically inaccurate.

Biblical expostulation has been used to justify the most horrific exigencies throughout the history of Christianity. Kings used passages to justify their own lust for blood and power. The Roman church used the Bible to justify the Inquisition. Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Knox, Zwingli and Cromwell (to name a few) committed not a few atrocities in the name of God and The Word.

The Portuguese, Spanish, English and Dutch were safe behind their Biblical interpretations as they carried out the West African Diaspora. Our own ancestors looked to the same passages to continue the enslavement of fellow human beings. Even after they were "freed," these people have often been denied their humanity, always with a handy biblical reading nearby.

You talk of "perverted behavior," but have no trouble perverting the argument. Because you are doing the selection, you assert this is what God wants, and therefore the discussion is at an end. You fear a vacuum of social absolutes in the absence of enforced biblical proscription. The idea that these ethical absolutes cannot exist outside of biblical philosophy is simply specious, evidenced by functioning moral societies that have no Judeo-Christian past or present.

In the West we believe in personal privacy, and a natural outgrowth of that belief has been a gradual relaxation of prejudices against private, adult, consenting sexual behavior. The leap to incest, bestiality, and paedophilia is an unwarranted fear, and not supported by our historic interest in protecting personal adult privacy.

If you are going to rule society with Old Testament biblical passages, stop being so picky. I expect to see you out dragging people into church, hunting down blasphemers, destroying whole races on the basis of their perceived acceptability to God, sacrificing goats, and doing all the things a nomadic band of desert dwellers is supposed to do.

I don't know if your book is infallible, Mr. Turner, but in the presence of human fallibility it is often the source of real harm. If you want present-day proof, the state of Florida just executed Mr. Eye for an Eye.

And if you don't remember your Christian history, the religion of Christ's followers made its greatest gains while still a persecuted, illegal minority.

The Romans were astounded not only by the way Christians died (not very sporting really; had to kill them in the Forum because they simply refused to fight) but the way they lived. "Look at these Christians, how they care for each other; how they care for the least among them, and among us."

Those Christians didn't feel the need to condemn others. They did inspire others by their Christ-ness and eventually have helped to make the world a better place. Personally, if I were a better Christian, I would resist the impulse to write these nasty letters.

Timothy J. Parker

Peachtree City, Ga.