Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Huffington Post]
The American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum (Tilly), the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal:

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” (Exodus 21:28)
However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior, because, according to Scripture,

But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:29)
SeaWorld has no plans to execute Tilly.

Read here.

[From me]

I was afraid I was being set up again like the Pat Robertson hoax from this weekend so I made sure this was for real. On the AFA blog, Bryan Fischer says the Bible was being ignored. Don’t we live under a New Covenant? Why aren’t they going after the Bulls that kill people? Why not Pit-bull dogs? If we went by the OT law we would stone most of the world for adultery because Jesus said if we lust we have committed adultery. I don’t see Christians cutting off their hands as Jesus suggested to keep us from sin.

I have been to Sea World and enjoyed the shows. But I think it is crazy for anyone to get near a “Killer Whale” in the first place. I figure they gave that name for a reason. But you should expect a “Killer Whale” to be dangerous right? Unfortunately, the one who put themselves in danger is responsible. Also, Sea World is not known to be a Biblical company. We shouldn’t expect non-believers to live by the Bible.

We use the AFA internet filter and I’m grateful for most of their ministry. But I don’t see how this kind of thinking is helpful to the Christian cause.

[Telegraph]

Amnesty International has appealed to the state to commute the sentence on Khristian Oliver, 32, who is due to die on November 5.
He was sentenced to death in 1999 for murdering a man whose home Oliver was burgling. The victim was shot in the face and beaten with his own rifle.
It later emerged that while deciding whether he should be given the death penalty, jurors consulted the Bible. Four jury members admitted that several copies had been in the jury room and that highlighted passages were passed around.

At one point, a juror reportedly read aloud from a copy, including the passage: “And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death.” Defence lawyers argued in appeals that jurors had been improperly influenced by the Bibles but the trial judge rejected the claim, a decision upheld by a Texas appeals court.

The US constitution calls for the separation of state and religion. In 2005, the state supreme court in Colorado overturned a death penalty on a convicted murderer because jurors had consulted the Bible while deliberating over his sentence. Commuting Robert Harlan’s sentence to life imprisonment without parole, the court ruled that the Bible constituted an “improper outside influence” and a reliance on what it called a “higher authority”.However, a federal appeals court ruled last year that while the Bible should not have been allowed into the deliberation room at Oliver’s trial, there was no clear evidence to indicate they had influenced the jurors’ decision. In April this year, the US Supreme Court refused to hear Oliver’s appeal.

Kate Allen, Amnesty International’s UK director, said Oliver’s trial was a “travesty”.

Read more here.

[From me]

Travesty? The only travesty was that a man was murdered. Now I’m not a supporter of the “death penalty” but my reasons are religious. I don’t support the “death penalty” because I don’t want to see anyone to die without having an opportunity to know Jesus.

What do you think?

[Daily Global]

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis “in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth” is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world — and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb “bara”, which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean “to create” but to “spatially separate”.

The first sentence should now read “in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth”

Read more here.

[From me]

I’m glad she set us straight. If God didn’t create the Universe then he isn’t omnipotent.

What do you think?

[Examiner.com]

Newtown Square mom brings church to kindergarten class in an activity called “All About Me Week.” One of the options for the lesson was for the child’s parent to come in and read from the child’s favorite book. Little Wesley’s mom, Donna Kay Busch, chose to read from the Bible. The school principle asked her not to read from the Bible on grounds of the risk to separation of Church and State.

Donna Kay Busch has sued and has lost her case twice. Now it may be heading to the Supreme Court. This case it not as black and white as one might normally think. On the one hand, this was not a teacher reading to the class which would be akin to endorsement, but it is a kindergarten class and clearly little Wesley could not find the Bible to be his favorite book. He would be a super genius if at kindergarten age he had actually read the entire Bible, understood it, and believed it to be his favorite book.

Read more here.

[From me]

This is a hard one. The Bible is what her life is about so is it wrong for her to read from it? But what would Christians have said had it been the Koran?

What do you think?

[World Net Daily]

Has the Bible verse John 3:16 become too controversial to be displayed at sporting events?

Some might be asking that question after a basketball fan at the NCAA Tournament had his sign featuring the famous New Testament quote snatched away from him by a security guard.

The incident took place last week during Round One of the annual contest, as Siena College, a Catholic school, was taking on Ohio State.

CBS Sports coverage posted on YouTube shows the sign being confiscated by a security guard, who then folds it up several times so it can’t be seen.

Read more here.

[From me]

Maybe the NCAA had a rule against all signs.  I don’t know.  But if you watch the video the guard snatched it up in a hurry.

What do you think?