Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.~ The First Letter of St. Paul to Corinthians 13:1-13

The Bible is one of a number of sacred books based on the legacy of the lives of great spiritual masters. I try to honor all spiritual traditions, but lately some in the United States who wish to politicize evangelical Christianity into a one-party theocracy seem to find a few things in the Bible that I cannot for the life of me find there.

For some reason I always thought Christ based his message on love, faith and mercy and somehow came to update the old Jewish law. Where in the Bible does it say:

Thou shalt discriminate against all who are not like you.

Thou shalt not allow Gays to marry.

Thou shalt honor only Christians who take the words of the Bible literally.

Thou shalt steal from the poor to give to the rich.

Thou shalt not kill--unless of course it is "anyone wearing a towel around their head," (as one conservative Southern senator remarked), or those referred to as the "collateral damage" of war or maybe a doctor who honors a woman's right to choose.

Thou shalt base U.S. foreign policy on hate, fear and divisiveness.

Thou shalt base U.S. domestic policy on hate, fear and divisiveness.

Thou shalt treat with contempt any mainstream Christian who questions your beliefs.

Thou shalt believe that God created the world in seven days. (Even if God did create it in seven days as it states in Genesis, I do not find a passage in the Bible that says you have to believe that concept literally.) This leads to the ancillary commandment following:

Thou shalt assume that thou knowest the mind of God (Hey, just what exactly is a "day" in the mind of God anyway?).

Yea, thou shalt rub mercury and PCBs into the fertile land, destroy the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea--since it matters not a gasping salmon after you are Raptured.

And ye waiting for the Rapture, pay not attention to the following words of Christ recorded in the Gospel of Mark (13:32) about predicting the time of Christ's second coming:

 

"But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." (Mark 13:32)

 

Thou shalt be as self-righteous as is humanly possible. Ye are not the same as other religious fanatics. Ye shall be forgiven and not kept from the Kingdom for promoting wars and killing a few medics with whom you disagree.

Thou shalt support imperialism in all its perfidious circumstances and use it for the conversion of those who do not follow your path.

Thou shalt not support stem cell research no matter what the cost in human suffering.

Good News! I did find the following verses:

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. [Beatitudes]

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Beatitudes]

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you be sons of your Father who is in heaven. . . . [Matthew 5:43]

. . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself. . .[Matthew 22:37]

This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. . .[John 15:13]

 

They are some of my favorites. They are the ones I first learned at the First Baptist Church of Liberty, North Carolina on Sunday mornings, that church of the beautiful stained glass windows, red brick facade and cheerful-sounding bells.

They are the words that truly comforted a small child.

They are the ones that offer a "lantern for my feet and a light upon my path" as I wend my way through this life. They are the words that help me offer love when I feel hate, mercy for vengeance though I am most decidedly human and practice Christ's message so very imperfectly.

The ones that I cannot find in the Bible have not--insofar as I know with my admittedly limited human perspective--really helped anyone. They do not offer bread to the poor or a hand to the suffering. They do not address the social or economic needs of most Americans or help a powerful nation offer compassionate leadership in the world.

In my opinion, those verses that I cannot find mostly feed hypocrisy and self-righteous bloviating. I cannot help but wonder if they are not the beliefs of latterday "scribes and Pharisees."