We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
For the Bible Tells Me So?
Oh, those pesky fundamentalists are at it again. Should it be legal for parents to execute their rebellious children based upon Deut 21:18-21? This guy thinks so. And he’s a Bible-believing Christian who is a candidate for his state’s legislature, so it must be true, right? Of course, under this proposed legislation, parents would need to submit their requests for their children’s execution to the government, so we can only assume that curfew violations wouldn’t cut it. He argues that while it would be rare for a parent to call for the death penalty, “Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.”
Um, things just got weird.
Image by le vent le cri. Sourced via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Fundamentalism
Related Reading
A Coming Storm
There is a storm beginning to brew on the horizon. It is a debate among Evangelicals about the violent depictions of God, stirred up largely by Eric Seibert’s Disturbing Divine Behavior. Here is a post that sounds “the clarion call.” The debate is presently around two options. Option #1: Traditionalists argue we must simply embrace…
The Key to Understanding the Bible
In yesterday’s post we discussed how Jesus is the starting point for interpreting Scripture. If this is the case and Jesus is the subject matter of all Scripture, then the ultimate challenge is to disclose how each aspect of Scripture bears witness to his subject. To state it otherwise, if the intended function of all Scripture is to mediate…
New Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Warfare in Jesus’ Ministry The theme of God striving to establish his sovereign will (his Kingdom) on earth over and against forces that oppose him is prevalent in the New Testament. In keeping with the apocalyptic climate of the time, there are many references to angels at war with God, demons that torment people, and…
When Did Jesus Bind the Strongman?
Question: In Luke 11:21-22 Jesus said: “When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.” My question is, when…
Isn’t the Gospel of John unreliable compared to the Synoptic Gospels?
Question: The Jesus Legend persuaded me that the Gospels are generally reliable. But I remain very skeptical of the reliability of the Gospel of John. It was written long after the Synoptics, and its view of Jesus barely resembles that of the Synoptics. The main reason this skepticism of John’s Gospel is significant is that…
Reading the Bible “by Faith”
The cruciform approach to reading the Bible—and specifically the culturally-conditioned and sin-stained portraits of God—requires faith on the part of the reader, which I argue in Crucifixion of the Warrior God. On one level we can discern by faith that often times God broke through the limitations and sin of the ancient authors, for we…