Book Review: Unclobber by Colby Martin

 

Coming out.

            Colby Martin presents insightful ways to deal with what are commonly called the “clobber” passages in the bible. He does this in the even numbered chapters of the book. In the odd numbered chapters he tells of his personal struggles in life because of his changing alignment in getting his real life to reflect his spiritual journey. He shares the personal costs and trials that his coming out of the closet theologically brought to his family and friends. It’s thought provoking and challenging but one doesn’t need to be an academic to understand what he’s saying.

             If you’re a hard core member of the Evangelical Party or your mind is already made up about LGBTQIA+ people and you aren’t about to be dissuaded this book isn’t for you. It’ll just make you mad. I made it a point to read critiques from a number of conservative reviews and they were what I expected. One day I hope that they will surprise me and deal with the world from a position of Love rather than punishment and hate.

I won’t hold my breath.

Short list.

            And what are those clobber passages? Here’s a list of those verses for folks that like lists and bullet points. (I know I do!)

• Genesis 19:1-38
• Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13
• Romans 1:26-27
• 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
• 1 Timothy 1:9-10

            It seems like if homosexuality is such a big deal, there should be more verses than that on the subject out of the over 31,000 verses that are in the bible but there you are. If you throw in marriage there would be more, but Colby Martin deals just with the issue of homosexuality in the bible.

            I have read other papers dealing with the clobber passages and they weren’t nearly as easy to read as the analyses presented in this book. Not only were they easy to read but they made sense. If your mind is open on the subject this is an excellent book to read. If nothing else seeds will be planted that things aren’t quite as cut and dried as some would have us believe. After all we’re dealing with interpretations of text from an ancient language.

It’s all Greek to me.

Book Review of I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year

Happy yet sad

            My position is that I’m happy yet sad that I read their wonderful book. It’s a well-written journalistic collaboration by a couple of well-credentialed authors from the Washington Post.

            I would like to say that I enjoyed reading this book but the subject matter makes that impossible. Since the history of President Trump’s last year is known this book isn’t a page turner. We know how it came out. The book covers what was taking place in the real world of his administration.

            At 592 pages the book also isn’t a quick read especially if you read at my retired person pace. Not to worry though, footnotes start at page 529 so you only have to read 528 pages unless you’re really into footnotes.

            The authors do a fantastic job of taking the everyday chaos of the Trump Administration at any given point in time of his last year in office and provide an accurate and clear narrative of the conversations and related events that were taking place behind the scenes of the headlines at the time. That’s a mouthful of sentence to say that they did a good job of making sense of it all. Not an easy task. There were a lot of moving parts around any given event.

            There really aren’t any heroes in this book. General Milley probably comes the closest but he was just doing his job. One point that really stands out is how much of a character television is in the book, mainly due to how often conversations with Trump were either gatherings around a TV or responding to something on TV. That may be another sign of the times.

            That’s probably enough for a book review.

I’m glad I read it.

 “I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me.” (Selma Diamond)

            We came real close to losing our democracy. Reading this book just made me sad about how people at the highest level of our government conducted themselves on a daily basis.

            My additional takeaways will be what I learned or had reinforced after reading the book. The bar for looking good in dealing with Trump was very low. The man likes to be applauded when he enters a room. No kidding. I’ve read this in other places as well.

            The bar for being known for doing the right thing for the country in regards to stopping him from committing some disreputable or heinous act was also incredible low. As in there was a guy who would play soothing background music when they knew that Trump was getting too worked up. Unfortunately he wasn’t around all of the time. The years the sycophants around him spent enabling him really can’t be undone by an act or two of conscience and/or fear.

            General Milley stands out as being a man of honorable intentions around a host of duplicitous dishonorable men and women whose personal integrity was nonexistent that spent their time telling their Emperor what he wanted to hear. Abandoning ship when it’s sinking is prudent NOT heroic.

Sad.

The round flat earth evolves

 And your point

            The earth could be round and still be flat so round earth doesn’t quite get us there.

            Up until about 500 years ago the church taught that the earth was flat.  Galileo (from 1564 to 1642) was condemned for deviating from that concept during the inquisition. There are quite a few scriptures that were used to support the flat earth position. Just for fun I’ll list a few, then we’ll move on to the firmament.

• After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Revelation 7:1 (ESV)
• He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. Psalm 104:5 (NIV)
• The tree grew and became strong; Its height reached to the heavens, And it could be seen to the ends of all the earth. Daniel 4:11 (NKJV)
  

            The firmament is where it really gets interesting. Firmament scriptures are also used by Flat Earthers as supporting their ideas.

• And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Gen 1:6
• And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. Gen 1:7
• And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Gen 1:8
• And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Gen 1:20

            That’s not anywhere near all the scripture related to the flat earth or the firmament but you get the idea.

            Primitive people believed the earth was flat. Science changed the minds of the powers that be in the church at that time. Super conservative religious leaders responding to science. Hard to believe I know but there you are. This novel concept should be tried out by the Evangelical Party of today since they’re still struggling with science.

            The point is that strongly held beliefs changed as knowledge was gained. The bible was believed to have said one thing and then it was decided that the bible meant something else entirely.

            What’s the point of this? The point is:

Interpretation of the bible evolved.

Back to inerrancy

            Another major point of all of the above is that for hundreds of years people believed that the bible was inerrant and taught that everything in it was true. They were taught the world was flat. There are those today that believe that the errant bible for those before they were enlightened by science is once again inerrant. (That’s a complicated sentence but I think that it works.)

            In other words people that believed in the inerrancy of the bible were told that they were wrong to believe what they had been taught and that in fact the earth was not flat and the bible remained inerrant.

            THE EARTH IS FLAT! GOD SAID SO!

            Um, science says the earth is round and not the center of the universe.

            THE EARTH IS FLAT! KILL THE HERETIC! GOD SAYS SO!

            Saying its flat doesn’t stop the earth from being spheroid. Science says so.

            THE EARTH IS NOT FLAT! GOD SAYS SO!

            Once again the bible is considered inerrant by hardcore religious believers until the church decides otherwise. How about the rest of us don’t decide to wait for the Evangelical Party to let the bible evolve some more. That could take a couple more centuries. OR we could decide now that it’s wrong to use an ancient text to justify hate and dangerous activity they support and espouse.

Science was here before Jesus.

The world was never flat.

            Five hundred years before Jesus, Pythagoras figured out the world was round (Spherical). Regardless of what anyone thought or thinks the world is as it always was. That’s the truth of the world.

            The wealthy highly political Pharisees of the Evangelical Party that claim to be the arbiter of the bible’s meaning and have told us to support their idol of the material world and the power that they seek. Theirs is a static flat world of a bygone era that they would bring back along with pestilence and the rule of oppressive Kings.

            Getting back to my point concerning the bible. It is a book of which at least 50 different versions in English alone exist. Still, it’s a book. It’s a book about an idea. No more. No less. It isn’t anti-science; it’s a book made possible by the progress of science through the ages. It doesn’t say that the world is a few thousand years old. It says nothing about intelligent design. It isn’t anti-evolution. It isn’t a book that is against vaccines or LGBTQIA+ people. It isn’t a book against progress. It’s a book that says there is more than this and that love is the primary consideration. It’s a book about humanity. It’s a book about salvation through loving people. It’s a book that has the overriding commandment that above all else to Love God. Love people.

That’s the bible.