Beck's Hole-y Bible

Let me begin this post with a disclaimer of sorts - despite the individual's name in the title, this has nothing to do with politics.  It's true.  I want to say this up front because I know a lot of people (including some reading this blog) watch Glenn Beck's show and agree with what he says about our country, the federal government, health care and our president.  And that's fine - we are all certainly entitled to our opinions.

But this has nothing to do with that.  Instead it has everything to do with something he and I share in common, along with two billion other people around the world - the Christian faith.  And recently Beck made some pretty audacious statements about Christianity on one of his television shows:

I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

To make sure he left no room for misunderstandings, Beck proceeded to hold up two cards: one with the hammer and sickle of Cold-war Communist Russia, and the other with a Nazi swastika.  The inference was clear: churches that use the code words "social justice" and "economic justice" are, in fact, communist and perpetrators of Nazism.

One would presume his advice wasn't intended to be limited to what can be found on the church website, either.  Certainly he would suggest that it be extrapolated to include the minister's sermon, prayers or liturgy used in worship, and any programs or ministries that dare to align themselves with such suspect elements.  And certainly it must include the very foundation of Christianity, the Bible itself.

And that's where we run into a little problem.

See, the thing is, there are just under 8000 verses in the entire Bible, Old and New Testament.  And multiple individuals well-versed (pun intended) in the field have noted that close to 2000 of them deal specifically with issues of - you guessed it - social justice and economic justice.  That's one-fourth of the Bible, for those of us who don't do fractions well (it was always my weak point in math). They're all over the place - here's just a quick sampling:

If there is a poor man among you....you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand...but you shall freely open your hand to them, and generously lend them sufficient for their needs in whatever they lack (Deuteronomy 15:7)

I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor (Psalm 140:12)

Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor.  Also, do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, to the orphan or the widwo, and do not shed innocent blood in this place (Jeremiah 22:3)

Jesus said, Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:42)

There's a lot more - some 1,996, I guess, but I'll spare you.  You get the idea.

All of which makes me wonder: what does Beck's Bible look like?  One must assume it doesn't contain these 2000 subversive and dangerous verses, of course.  Which is precisely the kind of Bible noted evangelist Jim Wallis remembers from his seminary days; a fellow student who took an old Bible and, to prove a point, cut out every verse that had anything to do with the poor and with social and economic justice.  And when he was done, as Wallis recalls, "that Bible was literally in shreds. It was falling apart in my hands. It was a Bible full of holes." (from God's Politics).  Which makes sense, since it was missing a full one-fourth of it.

This poses another conundrum: what exactly does Christianity look like with Beck's hole-y Bible?  Obviously there's no need to be concerned for the poor or the marginalized and oppressed.  Missions becomes purely evangelical in nature, concerned only for matters of the soul and not for individual well-being and welfare.  Caring for God's creation becomes an unnecessary distraction, too.  In fact, there's really not much that needs to be done at all with this life on earth, other than prepare ourselves for the life hereafter.  We're just wandering the planet, biding our time until the real show starts.

To be fair, this isn't the first time someone has sliced and diced the scriptures, either literally or figuratively.  Probably the most famous instance was the Jefferson Bible, an attempt by founding father Thomas Jefferson to remove all references to Jesus' divinity as well as supernatural occurrences, like miracles.  That was a pretty hole-y Bible, too.  Then there's the Conservative Bible, where the editors simply removed any verses deemed "too liberal" and softened some of the more challenging language (the "rich man" becomes "the one who enjoys riches." Subtle, yes; but quite literally, the devil is in the details).

The difference, of course, is that those folks knew exactly what they were doing when they did it.  They were perfectly clear about the fact that they were imposing their own agendas on the scriptures, fashioning them into something to their own liking the way a business person gets a suit adjusted by their tailor.  On the other hand, Beck's comments the other day were nothing more than standard rhetoric from a strong television personality rallying the masses to the cause.

Or at least that's what we hope.  If he truly meant what he said, then I'm not sure what to think.  Maybe by some freak accident Beck got a hold of that Bible Wallis was talking about.  If so, could someone let him know that it was only meant to prove a point, not actually be followed?  That is, what's left of it.

 

UPDATE: Just today I received in the mail a copy of The Poverty and Justice Bible, ordered from the fine folks at Sojourners.  Like the Green Bible, which I talked about in this previous post, this Bible highlights all verses in the Old and New Testaments that have to deal with poverty and justice issues (in orange highlighter, nonetheless - my favorite).  It's important to know a bit of the history and context to understand why the marked verses are poverty/justice related.  The bible is in the Contemporary English Version (not my personal favorite), but it still looks to be a solid resource.  I'm thinking about buying another one and sending Glenn Beck a copy.  You can order yours here.

Comments

[The Commander]

Glenn Beck never ceases to amaze me with his rhetoric. Quite honestly, the only reason he gets air time is for his provocative style. What is really scary about this is that there are people who will buy into what he says. I believe ultimately Glenn Beck will be a one-hit wonder of the past and it won't be due to the liberals and progressives who already think he is an idiot. It will be due to the religious conservatives he insults with his own hypocrisy that will be his downfall.

[Croskeys Royall]

Like I said earlier today, amigo. Beck's main book of faith is going to be the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon

He became a member of the LDS back in 1999.

[Croskeys Royall]

Whoops...hit enter too early! At any rate, here's what Wikipedia says that the Book of Mormon says about social justice, for what it's worth:

"The book supports notions of economic justice, achieved through voluntary donation of "substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor" In one case, all the citizens held their property in common. Concern for the poor is portrayed as leading to collective wealth. However, when individuals within a society began to disdain and ignore the poor, to "wear costly apparel," and otherwise engage in wickedness for personal gain, such societies are repeatedly portrayed in the book as being ripe for destruction."

[Amy]

Excellet post. There is a great tradition, on both sides of the isle, of using a hole-y Bible for political purposes.

Amy Worley (Ben Worley's wife).

[BelovedSpear]

It's utterly flabbergasting. What Beck was asking folks to do was to just bail on Christianity, period.

You'd think most of his listeners...at least the one's who've bothered to read their Bibles...would have a problem with that.

[Steve Lindsley]

Hey folks - read a great post from a pastor friend of mine (who kindly referenced this blog post) who went in a wonderfully different direction on this topic, looking at how we interact with scripture. In his blog he makes this wonderful statement:

"Beck is simply doing what many of us do on a regular basis. Our Bibles, at least the ones we refer to in our minds, seem conveniently to be missing all the passages that might challenge our beliefs and certainties, our biases and prejudices, our political or economic leanings. Conservatives join conservative churches and liberals join liberal churches and we both selectively read the Scriptures to claim that we are the ones who got it right.

"But once the Bible becomes a resource to be used in confirming what we already believe, it ceases to reveal God to us. Instead it becomes an instrument employed in proclaiming a God created in our own image.

"I can't find much hope in a God who is patterned on me or anyone else I know. I don't think the world is going to be saved by getting everyone to agree with me or with Glenn Beck. I think it much more hopeful to encounter a God who is not at all like us, who in Jesus returns love to those who kill him, who keeps sticking with humanity despite how hopeless we seem to be, and who promises to someday turn all human hearts so that we long to trust and follow God's ways rather than our own."

Read James' entire blog at http://blvdchurchpastor.blogspot.com/2010/03/thoughts-on-faith-glenn-beck-and-social.html

[Scott]

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4120815/the-one-thing-323

Beck addressed this topic on his show yesterday, thought you would be interested in seeing his response & getting the full story.

Scott

[Steve Lindsley]

Scott - crap, utter crap. His definition of social justice is nothing like the biblical definition of social justice. Social justice is the tradition of the Old Testament prophets that called out the rich preying on the poor, or flat-out ignoring them. Jesus practiced social justice. He is perverting a church doctrine for his own benefit, trying to weasel out of something he said without fully thinking through it. In addition, his attack on Jim Wallis is truly unfounded. It saddens me that people actually watch this pseudo-theology and believe it.

[Scott]

How is it honoring to Christ to have the government seize your money & property & give it to someone else it (the gov’t, not God) deems more worthy? It seems to me that Jesus would have us give out of our own desires to please Him & help others, not because the gov’t is forcing us to.

[Steve Lindsley]

The whole notion that any government program/law is somehow usurping the Christian's calling by God to tend to "the least of these" is silly. As Christians we should be supportive of government initiatives that help people in need. It is simply immoral to live in a country as rich as ours and have millions of people going to bed hungry every night or without adequate health care.

It should probably also be noted that when the faithful are left to give "out of our own desires," as you put it, the giving is in general pretty lousy. Sure, when a tsunami or massive earthquake happens we step up to the plate. But there is so much more we can and should do, nationally and internationally, every single day. Too often we let the vices of capitalism and commercialism convince us that "it's not what you give but that you give something." We also can let our emotions/sentimentality affect when and how we give - which is great, until we're not in that emotional moment anymore.

I also think you're being a tad over-dramatic when you say the government "seizes our money and property." Unless you're talking about taxes, in which case I quote the man himself: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and render to God the things that are God's." Since all we have comes from God, it certainly challenges us to rethink things a bit.