Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[USA Today]

Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., is seeking $60 million from Zondervan, based in Cascade Township, and $10 million from Nashville-based Thomas Nelson Publishing.

Fowler filed the suit in federal court against Zondervan on July 7, the same day U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. refused to appoint an attorney to represent him in his case against Thomas Nelson.

Fowler filed a suit against Thomas Nelson in June. He is representing himself in both claims. 

“The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims,” the judge wrote.

Fowler, 39, alleges Zondervan’s Bibles referring to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of “demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Why don’t overweight people sue for the references on gluttony?  How about the National Enquire suing for the verses on gossip?  Why not have Budweiser sue about the verse on being drunk?  Why not Mothers Against Drunk Driving sue for the verses where Paul tells Timothy to drink a little wine?  

I get convicted daily when I read the Bible.  I’m not going to sue–I’m going to change my life to become more like Jesus.   I hope the ACLU backs the publishers!

What do you think?

[HT] Bill Grandi & Ruth Turner

[WBAL & WND]

Public schools in Somerset County, MD will no longer allow the Gideons on school grounds to distribute Bibles.

For years, The Gideons, an international Christian organization, has been passing out Bibles to interested fifth-graders. But Stephanie Kayhan says when she moved to the county three years ago, she was shocked by the Bible distribution.

Kayhan says she is a practicing Christian, but she is against Bibles being passed out on school grounds because it blurs the line between church and state. She contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU then wrote a letter to the school board, stating that the distribution was unconstitutional.

About the Bibles, she said: “I don’t have a problem with them, I have a problem with them being in the schools.

Supporters of the Bible giveaways say no child was ever forced to take one.

Read more here and here.

[From me]

I remember getting my Gideon Bible when I was in 5th grade.  No one forced me to take it.  I don’t get why a Christian woman would go to this extreme.  

What do you think?

[USA Today]

Examine Bible stories top to bottom — particularly the “bottoms” — and you will find a blue vein of sexual and scatological humor not-so-hidden in the verses, say two scholars of Hebrew Scriptures and an evangelical satire writer. Their new book, The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book, in stores Monday, raises such questions as “Which ‘bone’ was Eve made from?”

Or whether, in the Book of Judges, a king’s assassin escapes through a latrine in a tale laden with euphemisms for feces.

Because the Bible addresses humanity body and soul, there’s nothing sacrilegious about examining every aspect of human nature under heaven, say scholars Steven McKenzie, professor of Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College, a liberal arts college in Memphis affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA, and John Kaltner, an associate professor of religious studies at Rhodes.

Joel Kilpatrick, founder of LarkNews.com, a Christian satire site that reads like a cross between The Onion and an evangelical church bulletin, took their manuscript and did a humorous write-through. His earlier book for Uncensored’s publisher, HarperOne, was the gently mocking A Field Guide to Evangelicals and their Habitat.

Read more here.

[From me]

Man, if they needed wacky ideas all they had to do is write a book about the posts on here with Bill the Mormon!

What do you think?

[World Net Daily]

A controversial new documentary, following in the footsteps of the popular, if heretical, “The Da Vinci Code,” asks the brazen question: “What if the greatest story ever told was a lie?” Coming to theaters later this month, “Bloodline” seeks to prove the conspiracy tale that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child whose bloodline continues today. Ben Hammott, an English adventurer, claims to have discovered in southwest France a remote tomb and relics from Jerusalem, dated back to the first century. The discovery provides the subject matter for this new film about what producers say is “the Church’s best kept secret.”

The findings include a pottery cup and an ointment vase that were reportedly used at the alleged marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.The British Museum and Gabriel Barkay of Bar Ilan University in Jerusalem have analyzed the items.

“It is possible that artifacts excavated by the Templars on Temple Mount would find a way to Europe,” said Barkay. “The finds in this chest are really intriguing and it is really something that inflames the imagination.”

The tomb contained a mummified corpse lying beneath a shroud with a red cross, the symbol of the Knights Templar, a medieval Christian military order. The documentary shows that a DNA test revealed that the corpse is of Middle Eastern origin.

According to the documentary, the tomb was discovered because of information found in a bundle of papers, hidden by a French priest at the end of the 19th century. The papers explained that he discovered the tomb and it led to him to break from his Catholic faith.

“The resurrection of Jesus was a trick, it was Mary Magdalene who took his body from his tomb,” the priest said. “Later, the body of Jesus was discovered by the Templars and then hidden three times. Not in Jerusalem. The Tomb is here. Parts of the body are safe.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Knights Templar?  This sounds more like a Disney movie with Nicolas Cage.  Where do they get this stuff?  

[Tampa Bay Online]

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments - notably job creation - would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families.

There have been previous attempts to calculate the cost of divorce in America. But the sponsors of the new study, being released Tuesday, said theirs is the first to gauge the broader cost of “family fragmentation” - both divorce and unwed childbearing.

The study was conducted by Georgia State University economist Ben Scafidi. His work was sponsored by four groups who consider themselves part of a nationwide “marriage movement” - the New York-based Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest of Redmond, Wash., and the Georgia Family Council, an ally of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family.

“The study documents for the first time that divorce and unwed childbearing - besides being bad for children - are costing taxpayers a ton of money,” said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values.

“We keep hearing this from state legislators, ‘Explain to me why this is any of my business? Aren’t these private matters?’” Blankenhorn said. “Take a look at these numbers and tell us if you still have any doubt.”

Read about it here.

[From me]

Isn’t interesting to find if people just lived by the instructions in the Bible we wouldn’t have as much pain and suffering?   Obviously there are valid reasons for divorce.  But if people would commit their marriages to God and would only have sexual relations with those who they are married to it would actually save the government and yes, us billions of dollars!  Why should people pay for the sins others?

What do you think?