Crucifiction bending

I would like to know the message here:


Is it: "Christmas is about Jesus not Santa, so Santa must die"?

Or (and I know this is a bit of Da Vinci Code bending here): "Jesus so loved the world that he gave us his love-child with Mary Madelene and that child grew up to become Santa Clause and now he too must die"?

Or maybe: "Boy those Romans were sick bastards; they crucified some nice fellas."

Or maybe I am missing the point completely and the white beams were just the necessary buttresses behind creating "Flying in for a Hug" Santa Clause.

As it turns out, none of thee above.

Apparently Art Conrad, the creator of this lawn ornament, is making a statement about Christmas and consumerism. For those who wouldn't have picked up on that right away, Mr. Conrad has placed the words "Santa died for your MasterCard" under dying Santa. Still, I find the whole theology behind it a bit muddled. Is Mr. Conrad recommending crucifying Santa Clause as part of our road to recovering from our seasonal shopoholism? Or is Santa sacrificing himself for our consumerism sins? Is Santa a martyr or an unwanted rebel-rouser? Maybe the reason the theology behind the death of Santa Clause is so fuzzy is that the similar death of Jesus is fuzzy too.

Bible bending satellite images

How many times have you read about Moses parting the Red Sea and thought to yourself, "I wish I could see an aerial photograph of that?" Or thought about Adam and Eve and wished you could get a birds eye view of the two of them relaxing in Eden? And what about the crucification? Wouldn't that make a pretty picture?

Wonder no more. Thanks to the all-seeing Google Earth and the all-willing-to-cut-and-paste Glue Society, we now have satellite photos of biblical scenes:

such as Adam and Eve relaxing in Eden:


Noah's ark surrounded by flood waters:

Moses parting the Red Sea:

And Jesus on the crucifix:


Before you get too excited, you won't be able to buy these pictures for your loved ones this Christmas. The set was sold for $36,000 last week.

The Presidential Bible bending Christmas Card

The White House Christmas card features a verse from Nehemiah 9.6.
You alone are the LORD.
You made the heavens, even the highest heavens,
and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it,
the seas and all that is in them.
You give life to everything,
and the multitudes of heaven worship you.

Barbara Walters commented on "The View" that it was the most religious White House Christmas card that she has ever received.

UPDATE: Not to be out done, the Huckabee campaign has released this new commercial in which Huckabee tells his potential voters:
"Are you about worn out with all those TV commercials you've been seeing--mostly about politics? I don't blame you. At this time of year sometimes it's nice to pull aside all of that and remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and being with our family and our friends. I hope that you and your family will have a magnificent Christmas season. And behalf of all of us, God Bless, and Merry Christmas."

Sherri Shephard: Christians predated everything!

I know Bible bending is different than just pure ignorance and I don't have enough time to host a stupidity blog but I couldn't let Sherri Shephard's comment on The View yesterday go without comment.

After a meandering discussion on the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 B.C. - 270 B.C.) and happiness, Whoppi Goldberg comments that there was no "Jesus Christ stuff around" at the time. To which Shephard responds, "no, there were still Christians." When Whoppi tentatively suggests that Epicurus predates Christians Shephard declares, "I don't think anything predated Christians."



The Huffington Post points out that the argument could have easily resolved itself if someone told Shephard what B.C. means (BEFORE Christ). But my favorite part of the show was when Whoppi calmed Shephard's insistence that Jesus predated Greeks and Romans with a mere "not on paper" as if the only flaw in Shephard's understanding of history was that it was not written down. What are we going to do with the view of history that is "on paper"?

CNN Debate: Huckabee Explains the Bible

Former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister, Mike Huckabee, flexed his theologian muscle tonight during the GOP presidential debate.

Responding to a pointed question by Joseph Dearing who held up the Bible and asked the candidates, "Do you believe in this book?" Huckabee flashed his minister credentials:

"I believe the Bible is exactly what it is: it's the word of revelation to us from God himself. And the fact is that when people ask, 'do you believe all of it?' you either believe it or you don't believe it but in the greater sense, I think that what the question tried to make us feel like is that 'well, if you believe the part that says 'go and pluck out your eye,' ...well none of us believe we ought to pluck out our eye. That obviously is allegorical. But the Bible has some messages that nobody really can confuse and really not left to interpretation. 'Love your neighbor as your self.' 'In as much as you've done to the least of these brethren, you've done unto me.' Until we get those simple, real easy things right I am not so sure that we should be fighting over those other parts that are a little bit complicated. And as the only person here probably on this stage with a theology degree, there are parts of it I don't fully comprehend and understand but I am not supposed to. Because the Bible is a revelation of an infinite god and no finite person is ever going to fully understand it; if they do, their god is too small."

To recap, Huckabee knows 1.) the difference between allegorical passages and passages "not left to interpretation" and 2.) that things he doesn't understand about the Bible he is not supposed to understand. Fine. Frankly, it was a nonsense question. But since Huckabee writes on his official website: "My faith is my life - it defines me. I don't separate my faith from my personal and professional lives." here is what the American public should be asking Huckabee:
1.) how do these non-negotiable passages like "love your neighbor..." apply to your foreign and domestic policy, Huckabee? Specifically on issues such as immigration and the war on terror. 2.) If we agree that there are passages of the Bible that "are a little bit complicated," can we have your word that you will keep them out of the primary and (if applicable) the presidency?

UPDATE: Answering my last question is Dick Morris, Huckabee's potential adviser as the Republican nominee who told the LA Times on Sunday:
"[Huckabee] puts all of the Bible into play. It's not just 'thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not,' but it's the positive aspects of his religion, too -- which is 'love thy neighbor,' and 'when I was naked you clothed me,' and a sense of helping poor people." All the Bible into play? Oh Xenu, help us.

Bending the Bible towards justice

After one year in publication, theologians are at odds (or disturbed, depending on whose report you read) over The Bible in a More Just Language, more commonly dubbed the "PC Bible."

This version, compiled in German by 50 theologians, is the product of an effort to do "justice to women, Jews, and those who are disregarded," says Pastor Hanne Koehler, who led the team of translators. The result is a Bible that uses inclusive language: instead of "Son" there is "Child," instead of "Our Father" there is "Our Father and Mother," and instead of just male rabbis, there are female rabbis as well (interestingly, Satan is still only male).

Despite the obvious problems with historicity (there were no female rabbis until the 1970s, for instance) and theology (a Mother and a Father God?), I question the efficacy and motives of these efforts.

The Bibel in gerechter Sprache, as it is known in German, is not unique. There are "hip hop" versions (Psalm 23: "The Lord is all that"), the People's Bible (where Jesus multiplies hamburgers instead of loaves and fishes), and the Street Bible ("[Jesus'] supernatural sessions and radical views have made him No. 1 celeb from Judaea in the south to Syria in the north") and the same issues of historicity and theology could be raised. This is Bible bending at its most extreme: actually getting in there and modifying the offensive or arcane bits.

Earlier I wondered if Bible bending may be a step in the right direction; maybe changing the language to be more accepting of women, homosexuals, and other cultures was just a means to a better ends. But when looking at these Bibles, it strikes me as incredibly condescending. Are people so mindlessly dependent on the written words of the Bible that if someone does not spell it out for them differently that they will indulge in bigotry and sexism? Yes, yes, I am pro- challenging every one to think differently but through critical thinking not publishing another version of the Bible. I am not ready to accept that the bending the Bible is the only way to bring about a more just world.

UPDATE: According to a New York Times article published today, Muslims in the US struggle to do the same thing with the Quran as Christians do with the Bible--find space to reinterpret scripture in a more just way.

The Morally Repugnant Bible

As any one of intellectual integrity would tell you, it is better to be accused of being wrong than vague.

A wrong philosophy will collapse and its place will emerge a stronger one. A vague philosophy will collapse and redefine itself, collapse and redefine itself... for as long as those who have adopted it are willing to suffer for it. Over the last fifty years biblical scholars have slowly reached the conclusion that the Bible, as a philosophy, is vague. This satisfies the secularists and leaves ample room for the religious.

But according to Bart D. Ehrman, the Bible is not merely vague, it is wrong.

"Wrong" not in the sense of its failure to reconcile what we know about the world with what we don't, but wrong in the ethical sense. Ehrman finds the Bible morally repugnant.

In his book God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer (due out February 2008) Ehrman reveals that after years of devotion to the Bible as both a scholar and a minister, the Bible's varied attempts to reconcile a benevolent, omnipotent God with our random suffering is inadequate and repulsive. Stanley Fish summarized Ehrman's summary of the Bible's various explanations eloquently:

God is angry at a sinful, disobedient people; suffering is redemptive, as Christ demonstrated on the cross; evil and suffering exist so that God can make good out of them; suffering induces humility and is an antidote to pride; suffering is a test of faith – but he finds them unpersuasive and as horrible in their way as the events they fail to explain: “If God tortures, maims and murders people just to see how they will react – to see if they will not blame him, when in fact he is to blame – then this does not seem to me to be a God worthy of worship.”

I have not read Ehrman's new book but if the description of it is accurate then it presents a challenge to the many theologians and biblical scholars who either try to fix the problem or do not see it at all. In the former category are scholars like Marilyn McCord Adams who attempts to resolve "the problem of evil" with her many books including Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology. In the later category are scholars like Robert Alter, the famous literary critic, who wrote in The Art of Biblical Narrative, "the paradoxical truth of the matter may well be that by learning to enjoy biblical stories more fully as stories, we shall also come to see more clearly what they mean to tell us about God, man and the perilously momentous realm of history." The paradoxical truth might actually be that when we look at the stories we rely on to make sense of a chaotic world we find only more chaos.

Ehrman's book will likely get brief nods from those who have already concluded the Bible does not answer the problem of evil and receive a "you missed a spot" reaction from those clinging to the Bible's vagueness. But in a perfect world what would come out of Ehrman's book is a lasting acknowledgment that not only does the Bible fail to justify suffering, but our attempts to do so (even by merely describing suffering as "biblical") reveal a startling ignorance of the world around us.