Sunday, November 08, 2009

Can we trust the Bible?

I think I've spotted what might be ELCA's problem. Have you looked through (Akaloo) Questions for life: Matthew's View? It's Augsburg Fortress published in cooperation with Presbyterian Church USA (2006) and the cover says it's for grades 9-12. Akaloo means "follow." I don't know if UALC is using the series; checking the internet, I see many churches use this series for Sunday school. I found a "loose" copy of Matthew at church, and assume our young people are using it. In glancing through it I thought the "point counter-point" quotables were beyond strange--using Norman Mailer and Dr. Seuss to make a point about safe sex . . .and quotes from American Pie. (The adults who wrote it might "get it" but do 9th graders?) However, this statement on p. 6 of the introduction really stopped me in my tracks and explains a lot about why ELCA has lost its way not only on sex, but other topics, since the Akaloo series includes many age groups:
    "We can't determine for sure what Jesus actually said, may have said, or wanted to say. The gospels are written three, four, even six decades after the events happened. And the four gospels themselves often differ in the details. So we read the story to discover what is says for me, us, and all people of all time.. ."
That's not much to hang a sexuality statement on, let alone a faith.

1 comment:

David Mohler said...

One thing we can determine that Jesus said for sure: "He said to His disciples, 'It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.'"

You've pointed out a stumbling block. And either what Jesus said is true or it is not.