Feb 02 2009
CCCA – 4: Worshipping Cherries
[This is the fourth post in a series, "Campus Crusade for Christian Assumptions." Original post here.]
I enjoy the Super Bowl as much as the next guy. Or gal. But yes, it does strike me as both annoying and ludicrous when some athletes insist on pointing to the sky in thanks to their deity for allowing them to make the cherry-delicious play they just made. What’s worse is when they later bring their deity to the microphone. During an interview, the MVP of yesterday’s Super Bowl said this about his performance:
“I definitely asked the Lord to help me today,” Holmes said after the game. “I asked Him, ‘Can I be the guy to win this game?’ . . . The Lord was willing to look out for me today and gave me the opportunity.”
Didn’t Santonio Holmes, and can’t legion of believers, connect the dots in their logic? Where there is a winner there are losers. By thanking your god for helping you win you tell all others that your god favored you more than he did the losers. And, of course, a god is given a nod only when the outcome is triple cherries. When a single banana peel is the outcome, funny, we never hear that “God obstructed me today.”
Just as athletes cherry-pick their experiences to give a nod to their god, Christians of all stripes will cherry-pick Bible verses to make their case. And by failing to present the full range of relevant biblical material they present a myopic picture.
And speaking of myopic, today we examine the third paragraph of the ATS tract, “Where will you spend eternity?” offered to me by the Campus Crusade for Christ organizer at my school, via a door slot. And here it is -
Many claim to believe in heaven and in hell, yet, unfortunately, show little concern over their eternal destiny. We are far more concerned about this life than the next, yet we know that eternity is endless. The Word of God describes eternity as being “for ever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
New assumptions (continuing the numbering from the previous post in this series) -
#10) That, it is unfortunate people show little concern over their eternal destiny. Like refraining from using a cell phone while driving, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.
#11) The “eternity,” as used in the Bible, means a “for ever and ever” one can abide in. Yes, there are a number of phrases in the Bible(s) that can be interpreted this way, but might have somewhat different original meanings. A keyword search of the New International Version of the Bible online, at BibleGateway.com, produces just 3 hits for “eternity.” One reads this way -
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:10-12)
A search of the online King James version produces just one hit for “eternity.” None of the 4 verses describes eternity as “for ever and ever.” If eternity is so central to the Christian message, why is it not more obviously present in the actual content of the Bible?
Furthermore, the NIV translation of Revelation 22:5 is worded this way -
There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
The King James Version is nearly identical. In this cherry-picked verse the “for ever and ever” refers to how long a people will reign. For a cherry-picked verse in support of an eternity one might abide in, it’s half-rotten.
And so it is with much of the meaning extruded from a selection of the thousands of verses in the Bible. Change the individual cherries and the meaning will changes.
