Speaker Mike Johnson tonight: “Someone asked me today in the media, ‘People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”The part about caring for the widow and the orphan? The part about letting justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream? The part about the kings who took care of the poor, and then all was well with Israel and Judah? The part about how those who are poor and hungry are blessed? And about how you are your brother’s keeper, and whatever you do for the least of people, you do for God? The part about how justice comes from the bottom up, not the top down? The part about how it’s people that matter, not ideas or things? The part about giving Caesar what is Caesar’s, and God, God’s?
That worldview? The worldview that has nothing to do with whether or not Genesis is literal history (it isn’t, and until the early 20th century, nobody really thought it was)? That has nothing to do with Noah either actually existing or building an ark? (Funny how nobody builds theme parks about Abraham and how many times he passed Sarah off as his sister to save himself; or maybe a ride replaying the events in Moriah. Or a theme park about Moses and the exodus from Egypt (try finding the “Red Sea” in Egypt. Go on, I’ll wait. If the scripture is “literal,” where did it go?) The nativities of Matthew and Luke are literally irreconcilable. Matthew has the Holy Family flee to Egypt for years; Luke returns them to Nazareth, having satisfied the census that left no trace in the historical record.
That worldview, that the scriptures written by innumerable hands over centuries of time and collected between covers from a variety of manuscripts and texts; assembled, in the case of the “New Testament” certainly (the Hebrew Scriptures are primarily the Masoretic text and the Septuagint, and Protestants and Catholics don’t even agree on what books should be in there), literally cobbled together from a wide variety of copies.
Your worldview, in other words, is brought to the scriptures, and you imagine it’s God’s, too. Micah tells us the Lord God requires three simple things of us: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
What part of thinking your worldview is also God’s, sounds like humility to you?
If that were true he'd be trying to save the souls of rich people by leveling them out of being rich to save their souls. I will never believe it if an "evangelical" unless that's part of their political goals and the few that is part of are never called "evangelicals."
ReplyDelete"White evangelical" is a euphemism for segregationist. As far as I can see.