Modern Examples of Religion Messed Up | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Let's take a giant leap into the present of 2015 and see what we have on religious society:

    The writer opens his analysis with this:

    Rev. Franklin Graham is spreading a divisive message of intolerance in response to last week's deadly attack on military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In a Facebook post, Graham writes: "We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S. until this threat with Islam has been settled. Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized."

    Islamophobia is never the answer. Even worse would be a discriminatory change in policy that undermines our religious freedoms. Millions of Muslims live peacefully in America as citizens, visitors, and legal residents. They are our neighbors, friends, colleagues, family. Graham is simply wrong to blame all Muslims for the horrific violent attack of one person, even if that crime was perpetrated under a distorted view of Islam.

    Sadly, we have seen this kind of reaction all too often in recent years, not just from folks like Rev. Graham but also indiscriminate law enforcement practices and misguided legislation. In 2013, following the Boston Marathon bombing, Baptist Joint Committee Executive Director Brent Walker wrote a column discussing this problem.

    I am having a real problem with humanity and ego invading the greatest movement this world has ever known. During the 60 years following Christ's Ascension, things began to become unglued in the fellowship of the Believers. Here is an outline of major issues threatening their fellowship:

        •  Greek and Hebrew widows ready to have a lady fight over alms given them

        •  Paul addressed the "I am of Paul / I am of Apollos" / etc. division --- it was based on leader worship over Christ worship

        •  Next can the death of the Apostles and Paul and those who chose them in deference to other Apostles

        •  Satan loves a mess and critics see it far more clearly than the fighting followers

        •  The Christians were a minority for the time up to Constantine --- being such breeds cohesion and a witness threatened with being tortured and eaten by lions in the Arena

SatanWhen Constantine, the Roman Emperor, declared the Christian religion the religion of the Empire, things really began to fall apart --- now the cults and pagans brought their stuff, but were fighting the Disciples over "who are the real followers"

    Next phase of trouble     Scripture

    The preferred method of passing on the story of Christ was word of mouth initially. Any Apostle was listened to with rapt attention. Each one had leaders of their group who carried on the oral tradition. After a bit, the stories were getting more divergent and some scribes began to write them down.

    It was not long until you had Original Manuscripts---none of which is identical with their copies hand made by candlelight. We also had fantastical stories like youthful Jesus raising a friend who fell from an upper floor window. Another was of the boy Jesus, picking up a clay bird and it took animation and life then flew away. There were other Gospels named for various Apostles which are not in our Bible. These Lost Gospels are being found and translated for study today. The Smithsonian Channel ran a fine documentary yesterday and it is still on. People wishing to do more study can Google: Gnostic Gospels / Nag Hamadi manuscripts / or keep an eye on the Discovery / Learning channel presentations on Sundays and at holidays.

    When the Bible says, "All scripture is inspired of God and worthy of doctrine and reproof," average folks assume it refers to the King James Bible and its 66 books --- NOT SO. Scripture--grafe (graphe)-in Greek means "writing." What this biblical admonition from II Timothy is citing is ANY OF THE WRITINGS IN CIRCULATION AT THE TIME. There were some 10 times or more writings going around than we use for today's Bible.

    There is a big move among Conservatives to make people sign off on the INERRANT nature of the Bible. It means NO errors in writing or interpreting. The Conservatives who took over the Southern Baptist Convention put it into their faith statement --- but even they add "in the original manuscripts." Folks, THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS YET FOUND! In other words, they have created a magical thing to defend and prove they are right --- and any of us not signing up are bound to hell for "not believing the Bible." Most far from the truth!

    That is where I part ways with ignorance about the nature of the Bible and its amazing story of text transmission. Again, you can Google the subject and spend hours I won't spend in details of the story. I use a Nestle Greek Text for study. It contains all the variant words used on any passage in various Original Manuscripts. On some pages you have 2-3 lines of Greek text with 2 surrounding pages of variant readings of more or less reliability. The goal of good scripture translation is accuracy to the original --- as best you can find it.

    Here are the Questions:

    1. Why do people of like persuasion seem to always find a way to fuss and fight?

    2. Even in religion, why is more blood shed than almost any other thing of disagreement?

    3.Is it ever possible to understand one another to the point you don't have to fight --- just "

    4. We can "agree to disagree" if certain things do not make sense to the thinker????

    5. If you want to avoid all intellectual debate, then avoid Religion / Politics / The Great Pumpkin---as Peanuts advises!