MICHAEL BROWN The Queen James Bible (queenjamesbible.com)In case you haven’t heard the news, there is a new edition of the King James Bible that rewrites eight key verses that speak against homosexual practice. It’s called the Queen James Bible (I kid you not), and the editors state that, “We edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible.”
Yes, you can now practice homosexuality and read your Bible without feeling condemned, although you still have to deal with the hundreds of verses affirming only heterosexual marriage and family (including one of the Ten Commandments that says, “Honor your father and mother” rather than, “Honor your father and father”).
Simply put, women are treated as second-class citizens in most Muslim-majority nations. And this is not an anomaly of Islam: it fully follows from authoritative Islamic tradition. The example of Muhammad is paramount in this regard, and full justification for the poor treatment of women is found in all the main texts: the Koran, the hadith, and the sira.
But I have detailed all this elsewhere. See here for example:
“Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.” —Church marquee
“Forbidden fruit creates many jams.” —Church marquee
Hundreds of years ago, one of the great church fathers, Martin Luther, patterned his whole day around ensuring that he didn’t sin. He was terrified that if he sinned, he would lose his salvation. Every evening he’d wrack his brain, trying to remember if he did something, said something, or thought something sinful.
Have you ever done that? It’s pretty miserable just to think about, isn’t it? If you believe that by sinning you can lose your salvation, tons of questions come up. How many sins do you have to commit to get booted out of the family? Or is it qualitative? Is there a “badness scale” of sin on which we can rate ourselves? Where is murder? Rape? Suicide? Adultery? Child abuse? Lust? Stealing? What about laziness or procrastination? How do we know if something is really a sin or not?
