Bible-centered lives
January 25, 2009 by Bill
Theodore Hesburgh was one of the great Presidents of the University of Notre Dame. Upon his retirement he issued a most remarkable statement. He said “you know there is really no such thing as Roman Catholic University.” He went on to explain that a true university represents an open ended search for truth regardless of where it leads, combined with the best scholarship known to institutions of higher learning. Whereas the very words “Roman Catholic” represent dogma, doctrine and indoctrination, the very antithesis of an open ended search for truth.
I know what he meant. When I was teaching at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA I was often with faculty members from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. They were owned by the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran church. One of their faculty members, with tears in his eyes, said this to me one day: “You have no idea how much we envy you. You are free to teach and explore all of the latest scholarship in every area of religion. We are not free like that under Missouri Synod control If we were to teach or expose our students to anything that would threaten Missouri Synod doctrine…we could be fired.” You see…there is no such thing as a Missouri Synod Lutheran university.
All over this country are churches and “colleges” promoting themselves as “Bible” centered and “Christ” centered. For a church that label is valid. But there is no such thing as a “Bible and Christ” centered college. “Christ and Bible” are dogma, doctrine and indoctrination. A college, according to my Unabridged Editorials, quote: “an institution of higher learning…one providing a liberal arts education.” Do you think for one gullible and naive moment that anyone could expose those students, in a bible college, to any of the most distinguished scholars in the world who could demolish their narrow and restricted ‘bible’ indoctrination?
The 10 Commandments psychosis
January 18, 2009 by Bill
I have a new mental illness for psychiatry. I call it “The Ten Commandments Psychosis”. We all know that there are a lot of wacko’s in the world. It is safe to say that the religious wacko’s are the wackiest of all.
They want the Ten Commandments in all schools…court houses…parks…ice cream parlors…hot dog stands…stadiums…tennis clubs…golf clubs…street corners…and on and on into the dark ages of superstition. They never seem to understand that this nation guarantees freedom FROM religion as well as freedom of religion. They keep violating the Constitution by putting up Ten Commandments monuments or signs on Federal or State property. They keep getting sued and having to go to all the trouble to take the Commandments down. Which would indicate being a little shallow above the neck. The City of Milwaukee recently had to move the Ten Commandments monument off the lawn of the Municipal building after being ordered to do so by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. You can safely say that the religious wacko’s are slow learners…very slow.
The Ten Commandments are factually, and simply, a primitive cultic code of taboos written for the Hebrew cult.
No one has put the Commandments in perspective better than the famous actress Ruth Gordon. She said to an audience “There is one commandment I have never broken…I can assure you…I have never coveted my neighbor’s wife…”
To break the silence
January 11, 2009 by Bill
May we resolve that in this New Year, with courage and integrity, we will speak out clearly and firmly against ignorance, against bigotry, against superstition, against falsehoods and apathy.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once used a phrase in a sermon that said it all:
“A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth…the human spirit moves with great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought. But we must speak…we must break the silence of the night…we must speak.”
Due to fear and apathy and vested interests the sin of silence is everywhere today. It is in the clergy. It is in the state and national chambers of politicians. It is with the ordinary citizen talking over the back yard fence. It is in the office of editors making decisions on what to say and what to print..whether to bite the bullet and say it like it really is.
With colleagues of the clergy I find it contemptible. The sin of promoting falsehoods in order to hold their job. The sin of not sharing with a congregation what they know to be true and factual about the bible and Christianism. Those members of the clergy who have graduated in religious studies from major universities and every major theological seminary that is independent of Christian financial pressure know certain facts to be well accepted.
