Let us suppose.

Let us suppose that Christianity as we see it is true.

Christianity is supporting the state at any cost.

Christianity is aligning oneself with a favorite political party and treating those who disagree with ill tempered remarks.

Christianity is not reading legislation and making things up about it.

Christianity is giving rich people more stuff.

Christianity is pooled ignorance. 

Christianity is about vague life changes.

Christianity is a personality cult surrounding favorite public speakers.

Christianity is bigoted towards particular kinds of moral offenders, but simultaneously silent on most aspects of western culture that Jesus calls sin.

Christianity is for people who can drive out of town to go to church.

Christianity is relevant and hip.

The Bible says these things:

Jesus was killed by religious and state leaders.

Jesus will judge people based on their adherence to his commands, not a party line.

Jesus dislikes idle words.

Jesus pronounces woes upon the rich...the writer of this blog owns a computer and a car, so me too.

Jesus says to love God with your mind, and Paul says that being stupid is bad.

Jesus says to follow him by obeying all of his commands, so love enemies and neighbors and criminals.

Paul says that the gospel is Jesus Christ and him crucified, regardless of the preacher.

Jesus hung out with all kinds of sinners.

Peter and Paul started churches in houses and intellectual centers in cities and towns, not outside of neighborhoods.

Christianity's earliest adherents were roundly insulted for their lack of culture, even though some of its earliest public figures were geniuses by intellectual qualification.

If Christianity is true, then by logical consequence the Bible is FALSE! I hope we understand the implications of our adherence to Christianity.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Evidently James McGrath has been reviewed by Joel Watts here.  I too would like to review James McGrath.


You see, I personally encountered Mr. McGrath(MacGuyver, living under a pseudonym?), from here JM, at the biblioblogger dinner in New Orleans.  Dr. Jim West, from here DW, introduced me to him as the infamous Geoff Hudson, who I am not.  Anyhow, we then had a friendly conversation about something I do not recall as well as a good talk on having a dry sense of humor.  We immediately began talking past each other about something really strange on purpose and both realized it has happening as a joke by the other party on purpose.  It was good to meet a real bible scholar who has a similar sense of humor to myself...as most real bible scholars I know do not, except for Dr. Jackson and DW, but they only sometimes. 

Later on JM helped me to sneak into the Oxford reception as well as the Sheffield reception.  His skills from having been a spy in the early 1990s were a great help in both of these endeavors, as there were armed guards, trying no doubt to prevent new students from applying for doctoral work.  He even gave me a high five for what he thought was me getting the phone number from a Cambridge student writing her dissertation on Jewish apocalyptic literature.  Really, a journal article she had written would have been helpful to me, so I was having her write down the title, but nevertheless, an encouraging fellow. 

I rate JM: 5 thumbs up out of 5 stars for being a genuinely helpful, daring, and dangerous chap, if he really be a spy. 

Also: Talking to him about learning the languages as well as being honest with ancient texts was helpful.  And his books are nice.