Religion: February 2009 Archives

I took part in a discussion about divorce, abusive relationships, and how female submission plays a misogynous role in evangelical, and more widely Christian, circles. The book Paul's Letter to the Ephesians in the Bible naturally surfaces, specifically the passage in Chapter 5 dealing with wives and husbands. It occurred to me how different the discussion might be if we stepped back and really took a look at Ephesians itself and the context it provides for its contents.

Virtually all scholars judge that it was not written by Paul himself but rather a disciple of his writing under Paul's name. Such forgery was a common and accepted practice in the ancient world with the rationale that the student was merely building on the master's ideas. It's why the book is considered one of the Deutero-Pauline books.

I wonder if it were common knowledge that Paul didn't write that epistle, would the drumbeat be so fierce on female submission? What would the justifications be?

Saw a documentary today on Ted Haggard, the disgraced pastor. I thought I'd see Christian hypocrisy at its height, and I did. I just didn't expect from whom. There's a great quote from Haggard:

If they were playing chess instead of checkers they'd know the church's business was me, the sinner.

Word. As self-serving as that statement might be, it's spot on. These evangelical types really demonstrate the reality that our faith is almost defined by hypocrisy in our modern culture from their position on homosexuality to its treatment of the sinner. As a Christian, I was very angered by what I saw. It demonstrated, yet again, how we Christians fail God on the basics:

Jesus taught us to pray this way

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13

He goes on to say, "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." That's just basic to our faith: forgive the sinner. And yet so quickly forgotten.