Last Friday, I did an interview with VICE News at our home. Afterward, I participated in a friendly discussion with two friends: a United Church of Christ pastor and a former Lutheran pastor who currently works as a journalist for the Defiance Crescent-News, at a local restaurant. The whole day was a wonderful experience, albeit I was quite tired and in lots of pain afterward.
The interviewer asked each of us if we had one Bible verse we wanted to share with Evangelicals. Both of my friends replied (and I paraphrase)
And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
….
And he [Jesus] answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:25,27)
My friends focused on the second of the two great commandments (which summarize all of the law of God): loving your neighbor as yourself.
I agree with Jim and Tim. To Evangelicals I say: if you don’t love your neighbors, don’t bother to tell me how much you love God. In fact, if you don’t love your neighbor, you don’t love God. (As an atheist, I admire any sect/church/pastor that values people above dogma.)
My verse (s) came from Matthew 25:31-46 (I wrongly said Matthew 24 in the interview, but my “exposition” was from Matthew 25):
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
I became quite animated when talking about this passage of Scripture. I fear I did a bit of preaching. 🙂 That said, the two great commandments and Matthew 25 were central to my preaching towards the end of my time in the ministry. I believed then, and still do, that the essence of Christianity is how we treat others, not right beliefs. Evangelicals have largely divorced behavior from belief. Sure, they talk about “sin,” but eternal life in Heaven is conditioned on believing certain theological propositions. The Evangelical gospel is this: BELIEVE THIS AND THOU SHALT LIVE. This belief is the exact opposite of what Jesus allegedly taught in Luke 10 and Matthew 25.
The interview should be available in a few weeks. I will post it when it does.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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If I had been asked, I would also have given that Luke 10 passage, with Matt. 25 as an alternative way of making the same point.
To me, those are the core of Christianity. Yet they are ignored by most of those who call themselves “Christian”.
If the Church had been living up to those parts of scripture, I might still be a Christian today. I came to doubt the resurrection and the divinity of Jesus. But I could have lived with those doubts, if the churches had been practicing those central teachings. Instead, I came to see the churches as societies of pious hypocrites.
I read Matthew 25 when I was very young (early elementary school – age 6 or 7. “Feed the hungry, clothe the naked…” resonated deeply with me, and to this day it’s the only Bible verse that has ever had that effect on me.
Can’t wait to hear interview. Not a single fundie who comes to your blog ever posts those quotes, or even act in any way like they love their fellow man. I fear they will be sitting on the wrong side in heaven. 😉
Yes, I also choose these verses, because fundamentalists choose to ignore them. The special love of fundamentalists is very clear to me. When communicating with a fundamentalist, I enjoy referring to these scriptures as some story I have heard, without quoting the verse. They either miss the reference entirely, or ignore it.
It seems strange that Jesus refers to these as the greatest commandments but many Christians ignore them.
But I guess you are saved by faith, not works. Just say the right words and you are set for eternity.
Jesus wept.
Ephesians 6:4, I think. It’s not as central as your choices, but an awful lot of them seem to need the reminder in that particular context.
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
Yep 😢😢
For me it is Matthew 23:23, this is message bible but take your pick
‘You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?’
There are rules of course but it is the application of rules without mercy, compassion, breaks the very rule they are all based on which is based love.
After I left my denomination (there was a difficult time, and then pretty much leaving it), I still held the erroneous view that Christians were people who loved who/what they thought was God, and wanted to be good people. The last 5 years since Trump was elected president have completely disabused me of that notion. Oh, sure, I do know some lovely Christians who are trying to do right, and I feel no bitterness about that. But the flight of white evangelicals to support cruelty, and unkindness, and hatred, a complete lack of any empathy towards those who are different, has shown me that this group of people can be written off as arbiters of ANY good morality.
They proclaim they are for family values, which means cishet marriages with children, the dad in control, the woman submissive, the children stamped into a cookie cutter life…and yet, with no room for the variety of love and differences that humans have. No, I spit on their so-called family values. How about they accept that true love embraces the variety of humans living, as opposed to the narrow view espoused by Bronze Age men. I’m sure that won’t happen, because gay and transgender people are EVIL. Never mind that they are people, people who have existed for millennia and will continue to exist. No, only the Christian Sharia laws are the good laws. No wonder some of these people are actually praising the FUCKING TALIBAN.
Thy turd 💩 of a comment hath been flushed and Lysol applied to the smell that remains.
Thus saith Bruce Almighty, the one true God who liveth in thy head rent free.