Bro Gary Hawkins 22: The Church of Random and Unnecessary Capitalization

[thoughtful]

I thought of this, then forgot to post it, after reading this part of The House of Romans:

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A big, glowing sign  hangs in the air above us. It seems to be flashing on and  off, and it reads “Abundant Life” (8:6). Here Paul explains  that “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (8:6). 

I bet Paul really said "I think it tieth the whole room together."

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=198882144321295

 

[Alisamer]

17 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

It feels like it was set up in PowerPoint.

Ugh. 

POWERPOINT IS FOR SCREENS!!! 

It is NOT FOR DESIGNING PRINTED MATERIAL!

Sorry. Can you tell I've had quite a few people send in crap they've done in PowerPoint expecting it to just print perfectly with no art charges applied to fix the mess? I have a kind of instant gut reaction of revulsion to the very thought of PowerPoint. 

Use Word. Use Publisher. Use Canva. Use Pages. And make a high-quality PDF at the end of the whole process. But I'd rather someone send in a scan of a hand-drawn thing than use PowerPoint. 

Ahem.

Anyway, Gary is a dimwitted lout, who seems to follow Paul much more than Jesus himself. I'm not surprised he seems to seek out the religious version of a horror movie to read. I bet he would enjoy those "hell houses" some churches put on to try and scare people into getting saved.

[Xan]

Side note to @thoughtful:  I love the Roy Rogers was really named Leonard Franklyn Slye and he started out singing as part of "Len Slye and the Sons of the Pioneers".

[thoughtful]

Just now, Xan said:

Side note to @thoughtful:  I love the Roy Rogers was really named Leonard Franklyn Slye and he started out singing as part of "Len Slye and the Sons of the Pioneers".

The whole idea that the name some show-biz mogul gave people was better than the one they started with got so weird sometimes. Len Slye seems like a great country western name.

[postscript]

3 hours ago, thoughtful said:

Gary's latest borefest:

  Reveal hidden contents

When I saw how many comments there are, I figured a fight had broken out, but they are all up Gary's alley (per his "likes"). Here are the last few:

  Reveal hidden contents

Is it cheating if I think of her by her married name, and add this person to Gary's collection of dead-musician friends?

  Reveal hidden contents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Evans

 

 

As a teen, was given one of her memoirs, because she wrote from a very Christian perspective. She wrote as “Dale Evans Rogers.” 

[AmazonGrace]

Someone named Johnny Walker commented the other day...  Cheers!

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Someone named Johnny Walker commented the other day...  Cheers!

That's Johnny R Walker, I'll have you know.

I did notice the name, and commented on it - maybe you missed it. He was the guy with the broken ankle and depression who couldn't go to church. I was braced for Gary to go all self-righteous on him, but he seems to be in a forgiving mood this week.

Edited August 8, 2023 by thoughtful
riffle

[Hane]

@Alisamer, louder for those in the back! For the last ten years of my career, I worked for a company that committed PowerPoint abuse on the regular. There was also rampant Excel abuse. For reasons known only to God Almighty and all the saints and angels, the people there were terrified of Word and no Word classes were ever offered. People just used PowerPoint and Excel instead.

Things that needed simple Word tables were made into huge, unwieldy Excel workbooks. I remade one such abomination into a Word master document, containing an interactive table of contents and numbered pages, and the original author said “nobody liked it because it was too different.”

On those occasions where Word expertise was needed, folks came to me for help and were astounded at my mad skillz. They acted as if I were some kind of genius.

I fought tooth and nail to get vital documents stored electronically and to institute digital signature procedures. They finally caved in.

Can you tell that, five years post-retirement, I’m still traumatized?

[thoughtful]

A new comment under Gary's post asking how people know they are going to heaven.

Whoa, Charlie! Them's fightin' words!

[AmazonGrace]

So disappointed it's not Charlie Brown.

[Alisamer]

5 hours ago, thoughtful said:

A new comment under Gary's post asking how people know they are going to heaven.

Whoa, Charlie! Them's fightin' words!

Is Charlie under the impression that the only people on facebook are KJV-only independent Baptists? Or that they are the only people reading what Gary writes?

Also that's a pretty common rhetorical questions I've seen various pastors use to lead into their sermon. Especially if that sermon is about how "works" won't get you there and blah blah blah.

Even though Jesus said: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” and it seems to be Paul who was more on the "faith alone" train. Jesus seemed to think works were just as important as faith.

[thoughtful]

31 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

Is Charlie under the impression that the only people on facebook are KJV-only independent Baptists? Or that they are the only people reading what Gary writes?

Also that's a pretty common rhetorical questions I've seen various pastors use to lead into their sermon.

Maybe Charlie doesn't realize that questions like that are pretty much the cue, online or in church, for IFB folks to get in their humble-brags.

 

[AmazonGrace]

I thought Charlie might have been feeling a bit touchy, taking it as an accusation. You look a bit sketchy, why do you think they'd let YOU into heaven.

[thoughtful]

Gary answered Charlie, in his usual, clear, persuasive way:

Becky and Gary were both in church tonight.

[Black Aliss]

Apparently the KJB is too liberal and in need of a rewrite. (Conservatives are already on it). Who wants to break the news to Bro Gary? 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservative-bible-projec_n_310037

[thoughtful]

11 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

Apparently the KJB is too liberal and in need of a rewrite. (Conservatives are already on it). Who wants to break the news to Bro Gary? 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservative-bible-projec_n_310037

Well, that's  . . . something.

I want to know what the free market parables are, and why the "youngsters" Mark and John were considered "open-minded."

I'm surprised they aren't asking for more stonings and beatings and dashing babies against rocks just for being from a different group. Seems like their kind of thing.

[Alisamer]

19 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

Apparently the KJB is too liberal and in need of a rewrite. (Conservatives are already on it). Who wants to break the news to Bro Gary? 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservative-bible-projec_n_310037

That's... horrifyingly fascinating.

I don't know that it'll get much traction. I think their primary audience is largely people like Gary, who are bought-in to the KJV 1611 as the only "correct" Bible. Any attempt to use sources discovered since then (even if they found something autographed by Jesus himself) is going to meet resistance. The idea of "correcting" anything about the Bible is going to turn off people, too, as will "modernizing" any of the words or concepts. 

Not that I think they will really make any effort to actually research or reference early sources or anything like that. I suspect they'll mostly just go through the King James with a more modern translation at hand for reference, and switch out the most obscure words and any confusing concepts, always choosing to spin everything in the most conservative way they can think of. 

However, that will of course make it somewhat more difficult for any pastors who choose to use that Bible to spin things their own way, if they don't 100% line up with the bias they are writing into this version. 

[AmazonGrace]

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I want to know what the free market parables are

The talent story? I mean, two dudes doubled their money and got praised. The third one was told he oughta have done more capitalism and because he was poor he was made poorer, and utterly miserable.
 

Quote

 

 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

 

 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 25%3A14-30&version=ESV

[Black Aliss]

38 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

I don't know that it'll get much traction. I think their primary audience is largely people like Gary, who are bought-in to the KJV 1611 as the only "correct" Bible. Any attempt to use sources discovered since then (even if they found something autographed by Jesus himself) is going to meet resistance. The idea of "correcting" anything about the Bible is going to turn off people, too, as will "modernizing" any of the words or concepts. 

You may have misunderstood.  Or maybe I did. It reads as though the point of the rewrite is not to correct translation errors but to remove the woke. The number one priority is to create a "Framework against Liberal Bias. . .that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias" In this regard it's not the only Bowdlerization effort out there. I'll update when I can track down the one I read recently.

There was a an interview on NPR last week with Russell Moore, former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. He resigned after speaking out against Trump and the sexual abuse coverup in the church. 

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In his NPR interview, Moore suggested that Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too "weak" and "liberal" for their liking.

"Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching—'turn the other cheek'—[and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?'" Moore said.

"When the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ' ... The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak," he added. "When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis."

 

https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706

Edited August 10, 2023 by Black Aliss

[Alisamer]

17 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

You may have misunderstood.  Or maybe I did. It reads as though the point of the rewrite is not to correct translation errors but to remove the woke. The number one priority is to create a "Framework against Liberal Bias. . .that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias" In this regard it's not the only Bowdlerization effort out there. I'll update when I can track down the one I read recently.

I think I took it that way based on this line:

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 Some of the ideas would only bring the translation closer to the original. But others would fundamentally change the text.

plus this part:

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The group cites a few reasons why the Bible is too progressive: "Lack of precision in the original language ... lack of precision in modern language" and "translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one."

Is what made me think they'll be "correcting" what they see as translation errors (lack of precision), and translations done with a bias toward the liberal. I got the impression they don't necessarily think anything is incorrect, but that the translations of the past were biased toward more liberal thought. So they are going to go look through and find the most conservative possible translation they can of any part they edit. 

Basically Jesus was "too woke", anything that goes against their agenda must have been a later, incorrect addition, and any thought with more than one possible meaning has to mean whatever is closest to their agenda. Like clarifying that "spare the rod" passage to be clear it's not a shepherd's guiding rod, it's a hickory switch for beating children.

That's how I read it anyway. I could totally be wrong!

[thoughtful]

It sounded like a mix, to me, like they are cherry-picking anything, whether it's scholarly thought, linguistics or exegesis, that doesn't agree with them.

For example:

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Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

I've read that there is consensus among many scholars that the story of the woman taken in adultery was added to John later. It illustrates Jesus being forgiving, and as Bro Gary (of all people!) always points out, he shames the men who condemn her but releases the woman with the advice to sin no more.

Too woke, I guess.

It brings up the question of whether they will ignore the books that many scholars now think were attributed to Paul but not written by him, or pick and choose among the many contrasting stories (creation, birth of Jesus, empty tomb, etc.) to go with whatever they consider "conservative."

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

The talent story? I mean, two dudes doubled their money and got praised. The third one was told he oughta have done more capitalism and because he was poor he was made poorer, and utterly miserable.

That does sound very Wall Street, if you ignore the metaphor and think only about actual money.

I googled - here are some more examples, depending on how one interprets things:

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The Scriptures are full of the idea of work and merit, a key point of capitalism. Jesus said, “The laborer deserves his wages” in Luke 18. Paul wrote in 2 Thess. 3:10, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

Conversely then, an individual earns his own food through his labor. Paul also defended the apostles’ right to earn their living, saying that, “The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel,” while he cites the priests eating animals they sacrificed in order to make his case in 1 Cor. 9:13-14. Indeed, Paul mentions a few verses earlier that even oxen have the right to eat from the grain they tread out.

All these examples show the Bible teaches there is a real correlation between work and wages – that the industrious earn their living and the slothful do not. It’s basic ethics.

Also consider the parable in Matt. 20. In this story, a vineyard owner who represents God hired workers for his vineyard early in the morning after they agreed on a denarius for the day. The man hired more workers at several other times during the day, including some one hour before the work was over. Even though they had worked differing amounts of time, all the workers were paid a denarius. When those who had worked all day complained that their pay wasn’t fair, the owner told them that he had the right to do what he wanted with his business. After all, they had agreed on a denarius.

This parable is as capitalistic as you get. While it might appear on the face of it that the workers hired first are being exploited by the grossly unfair boss, the vineyard owner did them no wrong. Both parties agreed on the outset to an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial, and if he wants to pay others at a higher rate, he is free to do so.

https://easttennessean.com/2019/11/19/capitalism-and-the-bible/

[Xan]

One of the things they start out with is saying that the New Testament is a handbook against addiction.  They say that the Greek word "adikia" is frequently used but no translations talk about addiction.  

The reason you don't see addiction in the Bible is that "adikia" in Greek meant "injustice" -- not addiction.  These rightwing fools are on my last nerve.  I didn't even go farther with their examples because that first one told me everything I wanted to know.  

I read an article recently where a minister was surprised that a number of his congregants believed that Jesus was "too weak".  Trump might eventually leave the stage but I'm afraid the damage of Trumpism will linger.

[thoughtful]

It's time to go start! In roll today!

Spoiler

Here are some people who in rolled:

 

It's another important anniversary for Gary, and it's a honor to be God man:

Spoiler

Some comments (I guess Donald doesn't know where the punctuation is on his phone or keyboard):

 

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by thoughtful
getting rid of extra picture

[thoughtful]

No, no, Chris Chris! Don't tell Gary Gary that! He'll want to get back on the road.

This was a comment under the anniversary of being called to preach post, in case that wasn't clear.

[AverageGiraffe]

On 8/10/2023 at 12:45 PM, Black Aliss said:

Apparently the KJB is too liberal and in need of a rewrite. (Conservatives are already on it). Who wants to break the news to Bro Gary? 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservative-bible-projec_n_310037

This is... so wild. Thanks for the new hyper-focus. I've already read through chapter one of Genesis. They helpfully provide the original, their translation, and the reasoning. Some of it is interesting interpretations of the Greek, and what I imagine other newer translations (like the NIV, ESV, etc) were also attempting to do. A lot of it is just... silly. I'm very curious how the conservativism will affect later chapters in Genesis.