All week long, I’ve seen scores of American youth in their Sunday best walking all over campus. They gather at the Dome each evening for some kind of festivity. Each parking lot on the south side of campus is littered with church buses of all shapes and sizes. Boys: shirt and tie; women: long dresses and impractical shoes.

Yesterday, I was downtown and a very nice lady came up to me with what looked like a wad of bills. She handed me one, smiled, and said, “check it out.” I looked down and realized it was a million dollar bill. I shoved it in my pocket and told her she made my day. It wasn’t until today that I really looked at it. Along the edges it reads:

“The million-dollar question: Will you go to heaven? Here’s a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God’s name in vain? Jesus said, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgment Day? If you have done those things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer-at-heart. The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell. That’s not God’s will. He sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. Jesus took your punishment upon Himself: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it.

Just after pausing to say, “what the crap?” I notice the website and thought I’d check it out. It’s run, apparently, by an evangelist school. They had a quiz I could take that determines whether or not I’m a good person. Because I have spent oh so many nights awake with this question, I decided to take it.

Basically it goes through the 10 Commandments, explaining—with quotes from the Bible—exactly what each commandment means. Then the test taker is supposed to click one of two boxes, Guilty or Innocent. At the bottom is a disclaimer that reassures test takers that answers are not being recorded. Phew. I can see it now: the Patriot Act becomes particularly useful in determining who has been breaking which commandments. This should make everything run a little more smoothly as they begin rounding up dissidents.

Many of the questions are troubling, but particularly problematic upon close rhetorical analysis (which says a lot more about my social life than I want it to…). Here is an example.

#6. You shall not murder.
Jesus warned “Whoever is angry with his brother without cause, is in danger of judgment,” (Matthew 5:22) and the Bible says, He who hates his brother is a murderer,” (1 John 3:15). God sees hatred in the heart to be as wicked as murder. We can violate His law by attitude and intent.

Evangelists are propagandists, and many are very good at what they do. With a few tricks, they can promote hatred and call it love, make people ashamed of their own thoughts and feelings, and justify nearly anything and call it holy. This a good example to tear apart. There are two quotes from the Bible used to justify the claim that God sees hatred and murder as one in the same (though, towards the end, I’ll rant about how messed up I think that is).

For some people, it might be worthwhile to simply point out that they quotes were taken from two separate books of the Bible and, therefore, were written by two different people. That might make the claim immediately bogus to some, but not to those who believe the Bible is the word of God. That argument functions only evade the rhetoric used to make the claim in the first place. If you look closely, (1) the quotes aren’t even saying the same thing, though the evangelist claims they are and (2) as they are used, actually mean the opposite of what is claimed.

The first quote, with the phrase, “without cause,” makes it seem like it would be okay to hate someone as long as you’ve got a cause…and everyone who hates anyone has a cause for it whether it is rational or not….and whether or not one’s experience of the world renders an understanding of rationality the same way that the Christian God does. But I digress. Conflating this quote, therefore, with the quote, “He who hates his brother is a murderer,” is just plain dangerous. If hatred is presumably acceptable “with cause,” and hate is “just as wicked as murder,” than one can easily move to believe that murder is acceptable as long as there is a cause.

Of course I don’t think murder and hatred are the same thing. I think hatred is as natural an emotion as love or happiness or depression or aggression. I think people cope much better if hatred is confronted and accepted, and scary weird things happen when you pretend everything’s super when it’s not. The point is, nearly any world-view can be justified by selectively choosing quotes from the Bible and it’s manipulative to push one interpretation on another, especially the young kids I’ve seen walking on campus. I could continue writing pages upon pages examining each question. See for yourself.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 1:44 am and is filed under language. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.