... The Bible tells me so

Not surprisingly, a family member of mine shared the above photo on Facebook today. She's young, so... translate that as you will. So far, it's been up for like, 5 hours and has 12 likes (weak-sauce).  Most headlines had Joe (who I wish could be my grandpa) winning overall. Bust out the Bible verses, armageddon is near. Sore losers much? Anyways, among the other ridiculous things popping up on my newsfeed since the Veep debates last night, this one kind of bothered me. There's something about invoking the Bible that grinds my gears, especially when it involves politics... 

Before any outsiders to my blog say I'm a godless harlot, I went to Church with my family on Sunday. Boo yah. My parents brought me up Methodist, and I grew up in a very liberal church. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, honestly. My Facebook profile lists Agnostic. I'm more of an appreciator of knowledge and ideas, no matter where they come from...

It just so happens that the pastor's sermon on Sunday was about the Bible. Divine intervention much? He opened his sermon by saying that the reason we come to church is to share, evolve, and grow together. Key word being evolve. He described the Bible as a "challenge document" that contains 66 different books, or canons, that were written, edited, and redacted by more than one hundred people over a period of 1500 years all over the old world. Despite it being one of the most important texts ever written in his opinion, he acknowledges that it is not an end-all and be-all. You can watch and listen to the sermon here: 

http://camvideo.sermonpodcasts.com/

Challenge document he says. He explains that when he reads the stories, which were the best form of science, faith, and knowledge at the time it was written (and rewritten) three thousand years ago, the world could have in fact been created in 7 days-- but it's not that is not the case today. We must use the Bible as a challenge document that gives birth to NEW and APPROPRIATE understandings. For example, Exodus. God parts the Red Sea to free the Jews from the Egyptians. The commodity of liberation is handed to you: Jews saved. Egyptians bad. It is a story of oppression and understanding the oppressor(s). Today though, he says, we can't look for a god to part the Pacific Ocean or bring down plague. Today, he says it is our challenge to look for liberation of gays and lesbians, of women, of Syria, of Libya.... The challenge is not to accept the status quo or the past, and instead to examine and change the future. We need to evolve.

So, lets. There are Bible verses specifically about debates? Jackpot. How enlightened you must be to repost this! You sure showed me how serious and holy memes can be sometimes. But I challenge your verse with all the other ones about lying. I probably won't find one that specifically talks about stimulus money, or defense budgets, or math... All that aside, I'm glad you didn't come up with any Bible-memes about abortion.