Benjamin Corey over at Formerly Fundie offers 10 reasons why reading the Bible makes us (or at least him) more progressive. And Jesus Creed had a lively discussion on this post. In this post I wanted to share my perspective on some of his list and provide 5 things the progressive movement misses when they read their Bible.
Five parts of the Bible the Progressive movement misses
On June 26, 2013 the SCOTUS decided US v. Windsor (No. 12307) in a 5-4 decision that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It held that DOMA violated the equal protection provision of the Fifth Amendment. DOMA had defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman for the purpose of all federal laws.
Rachel Held Evans, writing for the CNN Belief Blog, not only celebrates the SCOTUS decision to rule DOMA unconstitutional but also argues that the Church should join the Court in overturning the traditional definition of marriage. Continue reading
I, Dr. Watson, having recently called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes, found him relaxing on his sofa in the confines of his Baker Street apartment. He was smoking his pipe holding a cup of fresh hot coffee and it was apparent he had spent the night working on some puzzling challenge as deduced by the empty cans of Red Bull that surrounded him. Open before him lay many large books and a copy of the Washington Post lay strewn about.
“So good of you to join me” he called out as the aforementioned newspaper came flying in my general direction. “What do you make of that article?” he asked.
Grabbing the paper I dropped into one of the high back chairs next to the fire place and found the article that Holmes had circled in the Guest Voices section.
The article was titled “Occupy the Bible:Why Jesus is not a ‘free-marketer’”. The writer was Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite a former President at the Chicago Theological Seminary and currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
She had written earlier articles about the OWS – citing the protests as a “witness against corporate greed and economic injustice” and that the movement was all about the “inequality stupid”. Being a teacher at a seminary she was also known to draw on Scriptures to support her views. Continue reading
