In 1982: The Bible clearly teaches, starting in the tenth chapter of Genesis and going all the way through, that God has put differences among people on the earth to keep the earth divided. - Bob Jones III, defending Bob Jones University’s policy banning interracial dating/marriage. The policy was changed in 2000. In 1823: The right of holding slaves is clearly established by the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example. - Rev. Richard Furman, first president of the South Carolina State Baptist Convention.In the 16th Century: People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. This fool…wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth. - Martin Luther in Table Talk on a heliocentric solar system. In 1637: Sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents…We have sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings. - Captain John Underhill, defending the Puritan decimation of the Pequot tribe. In 1846: The evidence that there were both slaves and masters of slaves in churches founded and directed by the apostles, cannot be got rid of without resorting to methods of interpretation that will get rid of everything - Rev. Leonard Bacon, in defense of American slavery. (Christian ministers wrote nearly half of all defenses of slavery, often citing Scripture to make their case.) In 1869: The Bible is the revealed will of God, and it declares the God-given sphere of woman. The Bible is, then, our authority for saying woman must content herself with this sphere…Who demand the ballot for woman? They are not the lovers of God, nor are they believers in Christ, as a class. There may be exceptions, but the majority prefer an infidel’s cheer to the favor of God and the love of the Christian community. - Rev. Justin Dewey Fulton in his treatise against women’s suffrage. In 1960: Wherever we have the races mixed up in large numbers, we have trouble….These religious liberals are the worst infidels in many ways in the country; and some of them are filling pulpits down South. They do not believe the Bible any longer; so it does not do any good to quote it to them. They have gone over to modernism, and they are leading the white people astray at the same time; and they are leading colored Christians astray. But every good, substantial, Bible-believing, intelligent orthodox Christian can read what the Word of God and know that what is happening in the South now is not of God. - Bob Jones Sr., in his treatise against integration entitled, Is Segregation Scriptural? Of course, for every Christian who appealed to Scripture to oppose abolition, integration, women’s suffrage, and the acceptance of a heliocentric solar system, there were Christians who appealed to Scripture to support those things too. But these quotes should serve as a humbling reminder that rhetorical claims to the Bible’s clarity on a subject do not automatically make it so. One need not discount the inspiration and authority of Scripture to hold one’s interpretations of Scripture with an open hand. - Excerpted from Rachel Held Evans rachelheldevans/blog/bible-clear
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 04:44:35 +0000
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