More anti-conservative, Bible-hating conservatism: Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, is sponsoring a Book burning for Halloween. And what they are burning, like the devil’s own children, are Bibles. Here is a copy of the announcement:
Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.
We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.
We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.
We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.
If you have any books or music to donate, please call us for pick-up. If you like you can drop them off at our church door anytime. Thanks.
Satan’s popular books (by Christians)! Satan’s music (soft and easy) ! Even Satan’s Bibles (defined as those that are not KJV)!
I do think this is a fitting Halloween activity, as these folks are acting like actual devil worshippers honoring his special day: cavorting around their bonfire; sacrificing chickens; blaspheming, desecrating, and destroying God’s Holy Word.
HT: Francis Beckwith at First Things
{ 60 comments… read them below or add one }
Shocking though it may be to our sensibilities, there is an underlying point here. We Lutherans, of all people, should understand the desire for “doctrinally pure” materials, and there is a cogent point about which text is the canonical basis for scripture, the Textus Receptus (TR)or critical editions of more recent scholarship.
I’m not sure a book burning or labelling everything “Satan’s” is the most constuctive point, but it does at least encourage a revival of critical thought.
(I have certainly had the momentary impulse to destroy some of the terrible translations and heretical Christian books that I have encountered!)
I am for the chicken sacrifice, too . . . especially with all the sides.
These poor folks are the victims of an obviously deranged cult leader. Let us pray that some orthodox Christian will come along side them and show them that they are straying beyond the one true faith
Terry
Isn’t the NKJV based on the TR? As I former KJV-Only advocate, I still wonder how they can make the exception for TR based in other languages, but not in English?
It is indeed quite troubling to go to this extent to push an unsupportable point. The most troubling is the view that an unsaved, already critical world will take of this act.
To Terry, I’m not certain many of these folks are open to orthodox reason; here’s why: my father is a Pastor, trained at a solid orthodox seminary, and tried through both the written word and personal contact to reason with one of the KJV only leading proponents. Not only were his efforts futile; the Pastor he was engaging turned the efforts from those of logic and reason to personal attacks.
I will pray for these folks and try to make an opportunity to discuss with them the meaning of Mark 9:38-50.
Boy Dr. V,
Give a man a birthday and he comes back to stir the pot with a vengeance!!!
I would love to know why the works of plato, aristotle and such are not also on the list since they are pagan.
I also would like to know why the wings and all the side would not also be accompanied by the smell of my accounting textbooks being seared, travel guides (especially to those larger blue state cities that are not in the heartland with those real americans…) .
They should check at the door as well for folks who don´t know how to accessorize well and throw them in as well. A failure to accessorize properly is obviously a mark of satan.
But seriously Dan has a point. I take his point as both a call to repentance for Lutheran´s who maybe err in the opposite extreme in pursuit of doctrinal purity, and also a call to reflection on the 3rd purpose of the law.
“We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.”
Whew! A least they are keep Maple Leaf Rag, Chestnut Street in the 90s, and other ragtime music.
I do think this is a fitting Halloween activity
Lutherans usually celebrate book-burning, along with a marshmallow or weiner roast, on December 10, the date in 1520 when Martin Luther burned Roman documents, including the papal bull, Exsurge Domine, which threatened him with excommunication unless he recant. This year many Missouri Synod Lutherans will be tossing copies of the synod’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance Rcommendations onto the bonfire.
Copies of Algore’s book (from the dollar book table) might be tossed in as well, but just to keep warm.
Dan,
How in the world does this revive “critical thought”? The authority tells you to destroy something and so you do it? There is nothing of critical thought in this, either in the minds of the people or in the minds of the leadership.
They’re not burning all the computers they own? That connect them to an internet chock full of Satanic content? Hmmm. I guess their kids must need to study … and computers cost a lot more than books and CDs … and there are, after all, some great KJV-only sites out there for the parents. I see the slippery slope of compromise on that pile of ashes!
Good one, Carl. We Lutherans are the only ones who can truly claim a heritage in burning literature!
Trotk,
What authority? The book (and sundry) burning is voluntary. True, there is a very apparent preponderance of browbeating legalism in this instance, but the people are certainly being challenged to question the broader context: Just because an author says that he is a Christian does not necessarily make it true. A book that sells millions of copies is not necessarily a good book. Putting the best constuction on everything, I would presume that there has been previous instruction–perhaps even debate–on why these books or translations are inadequate. (I leave the discussion of music to those of you more schooled in the arts.)
True, the vilification is obnoxious, but my brand of Lutherans have always demanded doctrinally pure books and music. Seeing this book burning in a Baptist church challenges me to question whether our zeal for the truth has waned in the same way that a Jehovah’s Witness on my doorstep challenges me to wonder why we to not proclaim the truth with the same zeal.
Besides, fire has long been a symbol of repentance and renunciation among Christians. Perhaps I should burn my tv, or anything else that causes me to stumble . . .
Honestly, I find this bold act of renunciation more challenging to me than intellectual discussion. (present company excluded, of course . . .)
This is precisely the kind of event that makes it all so easy for Christians to be regarded as idiots.
I do not that while the Bible burning is underway, the sin of gluttony will be easily available.
“We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.”
The “King James Only” movement and its attendant “Majority Text Only” may give some pious Christians the impression that there is some deep defect or heresy lurking in any translation of the Sacred Scriptures based on the older papyri and other older manuscripts.
This is flatly not the case.
There is not a single doctrine of Christianity that is changed, altered, overthrown or otherwise corrupted as a result of any of the thousands of textual variants that are well known by Bible scholars and all who have studied the original languages.
What? No Dan Brown?
How does one even make the call of what should be burned? How does one even make the call of what “all the sides” for the chicken should be?
This is obviously more symbolic than practical. If books were hard to come by, then the burning thereof would help eradicate the ideas. These days books are plenty, and why burn them when people will just download them to their Kindle tomorrow?
Hey, now there’s a thought–a book burning app on the iphone. Hmmm. . .
Interesting that they did not include Dawkins and Hitchens
books in their list of burnables!
As was remarked in the discussion at First Things, another irony is that this is in support of the King James translation, King James being a bisexual, high church Anglican, who persecuted Baptists–even burning some of them at the stake!–as well as others who rejected the church of England (including those nonconformists who landed at Plymouth Rock).
And, Carl and Dan, it is one thing to burn a Papal Bull and quite another thing to burn translations of the Word of God. Even bad translations typically have something of the Word of God still in them.
A lot of these books they mention I too object to, but I wouldn’t burn them. I think it was Milton who said, as good burn a man as a book. Both are assaults on ideas, thinking, thoughts that should be free.
We orthodox Lutherans do indeed demand doctrinally pure teaching materials for use in our churches. (Well, some of us do.) But we don’t demand that Lutherans never read, enjoy or think about the arts and humanities. Because while we believe the Devil has the power to subvert, we don’t believe he has the power to triumph. So we’re not afraid to engage the things of this world, in which both good and evil are present. We have sound a Biblical (Lutheran) teaching that enables us to be discerning, and thus remain faithful. The Fundamentalist Baptists don’t have this foundation, and so must live in fear of all things.
“And yet on the other hand, unlesse warinesse be us’d, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life. ‘Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great losse; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the losse of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of publick men, how we spill that season’d life of man preserv’d and stor’d up in Books; since we see a kinde of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdome, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kinde of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elementall life, but strikes at that ethereall and fift essence, the breath of reason it selfe, slaies an immortality rather then a life.”
–John Milton
To be honest, I wouldn’t mind having a figurative book burning of all the heretical CGM, etc. books that are found in the narthex of my LCMS church. It is a shame that sound Biblical (Lutheran) teaching sometimes doesn’t exist at all Lutheran churches. I fear for the lack of discernment of my fellow laypeople.
And why isn’t the Book of Mormon included in the list?
Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. – Acts 19:18-20.
Halloween is not the day for book burning, that is a day for door hammering. Dec. 10th that is the day for book burning.
Actually part of me thinks it would be fun to have a book burning on the 10th of Dec. To honor that day, I doubt it would be received well at all in the community. Nor would I think burning Bibles, even really bad translations would be appropriate.
The KJV thing cracks me up, especially when they advertise that and Spanish services.
Dr. Veith,
If memory serves me, the papal bull was thrown on a pile of papal books, but I have not verified that. And what of the “New World” (JW) translation that contains intentional mistranslation in order to deceive? Should that be condoned because it has something of the Word of God in it?
Tickletext #19: ” . . .hee who destroys a good Booke . . .” Good. That qualification is important. (I think Carl’s quote speaks to that quite well.)
And let’s be fair. Milton was speaking of the eradication of ideas. We are speaking of a repudiation. This book burning is a symbolic gesture, not an attempt to destroy the corpus of Rick Warren’s work.
The Amazing Grace Baptist Church’s pastor, Marc Grizzard is interviewed in this YouTube video of an AP news story.
The church’s website announcement has been blocked, but you can check out Google’s cached copy at
http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:19laIdb-ZLUJ:amazinggracebaptistchurchkjv.com/Download99.html+http://amazinggracebaptistchurchkjv.com/Download99.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Dan,
Plenty of papal books went on the bonfire, but if memory serves, Melanchthon began his wavering even then and refused to give Luther his copy of the Canon Law to be burned.
I think the problem here is right or wrong book burning is considered bad taste.
I think it used to be a much more severe thing when books were much more expensive and rare to begin with. Today it is not much more than a protest. A way of lodging complaint with some author etc. Like smashing a Dixie Chicks CD. People thought that was trying to stifle freedom of speech, expression and what not. Actually, it was the people expressing themselves, exercising their freedom of speech.
I don’t think that you can make the case today that burning a book limits the access anyone has to any ideas whatsoever.
Dan -
I again reject the idea that there is any critical thought in this. The authorities are the pastor and their tradition, who instructs people what to do. No person in the church would critically decide that one translation was better than another because none of them have the means (knowledge of the languages and manuscripts) to make that decision.
They might be able to reason that certain authors are bad, but most of the Christian authors being burned are considered evil because their authority isn’t comfortable with them, and the primary reason that the authority isn’t comfortable with them is because they are widely accepted.
What drives a community like this is isolationism. They believe that the church is to be separate and persecuted, and so they do the necessary things to make it happen. That isn’t critical thought, nor is it a search for truth. It is a simple reactionary response designed to prove that they are in the right. Every time they are vilified, the pastor can say that he told them so.
This honestly disgusts me. Paul quoted pagan authors. The criticism in the New Testament is reserved for those who distort the basic core of the gospel (Galatians) and those who refuse to love (Paul to Peter concerning eating with Gentiles). Whether or not thus and such rabbi was closer to the truth or not pales in comparison.
I am not saying that many of the books mentioned aren’t a waste of time to read, or that the merits of the translations shouldn’t be debated (I’m a classicist after all), or that some of the writers don’t distort the gospel, but the tone of the proclamation, the actual combination of books (it is far from exhaustive or cohesive) and the nature of those communities (I know many) prompts me to say that this isn’t critical thought.
Critical thought only occurs when people are looking for the truth, not when they claim to already know it all.
While I am certainly no supporter of this event (far from it)… I think it’s very questionable whether–in modern times–book burning is an assault on ideas, freethinking, etc. When books were rarer, book burning might have been purposed towards depriving the world (or a locale) of the contents of those burned. As many here have already pointed out, however, that is utterly senseless nowadays. Putting the best construction on everything, it could merely be a visible act of protest against the contents rather than an attempt to eliminate them–a statement that the protesters have no interest in the content rather than an attempt to deprive anyone else.
…and on closer examination, I think I merely rephrased what Bror (25) had already written. Sorry!
Melanchthon appears to have been a part of the Dec. 10th festivities, taking time off from working to finish his Loci communes rerum theoloigarum. According to The Life and Letters of Martin Luther, by Preserved Smith (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1914, pp. 100-101):
The notice to the students, drawn up and posted by Melanchthon on the early morning of December 10, reads as follows: -
“Let whosoever adheres to the truth of the gospel be present at nine o’clock at the church of the Holy Cross outside the walls, wherew the impious books of papal decrees and scholastic theology will be burnt according to ancient and apostolic usage, inasmuch as the boldness of the enemies of the gospel has waxed so great that they daily burn the evangelic books of Luther. Come. pious and zealous youth, to this pious and religious spectacle, for perchance now is the time when the Antichrist must be revealed!”
At the set time a large crowd gathered just outside the Elster gate, near the Black Cloister, but beyond the walls; the students built a pyre, a certain “master”, probably Melanchthon, lighted it, and Luther threw on the whole Canon Law with the last bull of Leo X, whom he apostrophized in these solemn words: “Because thou hast brought down the truth of God, he als brings thess sown unto this fire to-day. Amen.” Others threw on works of the schoolmen and some of Eck and Emser. After the professors had gone home, the students sang funeral songs and disported themselves at the Pope’s expense.
Not only did King James burn Baptists at the stake, his translators also mis-translated the word ‘baptizo’.
(couldn’t resist!) :^)
Seriously, good points. Regarding why many KJV only people dislike the NKJV, the NKJV has notes reflecting the fact that certain passages differ, or do not exist, in the eclectic text. So KJV purists don’t like it for that reason. Otherwise, arguments for the NKJV parallel those for the KJV, with the exception that there are places where the use of “you” in the KJV makes it clearer whether it’s singular or plural.
I treasure the KJV, but please…..
Yes, Carl. Notice that what started it was “that they daily burn the evangelic books of Luther.” The works of Luther, including his translation of the Bible as well as other translations other than St. Jerome’s Latin version, were burned in great bonfires all over Europe, including Henry VIII’s England. Lutherans burned the Pope’s decree of excommunication, throwing in the Canon Law under which he was condemned and defenses of indulgences for good measure. But that was nothing to the fires of his writing. And that was nothing to what those folks in North Carolina are doing. Luther and Melanchthon didn’t burn the BIBLE, not even the Latin translation they disagreed with. To do so would be utterly impious and an offense against God’s Word. The other side did burn the Bible, as these folks at Amazing Grace Baptist are planning to do.
I would like to note that these baptists aren’t burning any Lutheran books. They’re not even burning the ESV, which means The Lutheran Study Bible is safe!
Don’t worry, I’m not supporting the Amazing Grace Baptist Church Bible-burning. But I do sympathasize with their burning copies of books by Rick Warren, Tim Lahaye, and the like.
Of course one is left with what to do about translations such as The Inclusive Bible.
When is a false translation of the Bible not the Bible?
Well, at least the ESV is still the word of God…
The ESV is a conservative version of the RSV, so I expect that it and especially the Lutheran Study Bible would be included under the “etc.” as books for burning.
I am just glad to read that the “Left Behind” series won’t be left behind.
Trotk, #26,
Just to clarify, I did not say that the people at AGBC are thinking critically. I said (or meant) that this blog post encourages a revival of critical thought. This ill advised event provides an excellent opportunity to ask some questions and question some assumptions of our own.
Carl, for instance, (#33), asks a very salient question: When is a false translation of the Bible no longer the Bible? Just how far can you push the authoritative text before it is no longer the authoritative text? That is a legitimate and, sadly, a pertinent question.
Is the best way to broach this issue a “bible burning?” That’s a little like fixing a squeaky door with a bulldozer, and I am not defending it.
Still, the underlying point should not be ignored.
As for AGBC, (speaking again to Trotk), you assume a great deal about their motives and reasoning. Perhaps you know more than I do, and they may be everything you suggest. I merely meant to use their radical decision as a foil for my own thought.
Whatever happened to all of Zondervan’s new TNIVs, I wonder? Is that &*#! still a Bible?
This appears to be a publicity stunt, and instead of trying to “burn books” people should be instructed in the truth of Scripture so that they can discern untruths. No matter how many books are burnt there will always be another one hot of the press to take its place.
Carl @ #29: Praise God that they burned Eck’s works! No other papist was so thoroughly thrashed by Luther than Eck.
There’s just something un-American about burning books, no matter how you slice it. The Christian world would be better off without the majority of the books this church is planning to burn, but the symbolic destroying of ideas by burning books conjures up images of communist and fascist torch parades with huge pyres of “forbidden” books being consumed. Better to defeat an incorrect idea with logic and scholastic prowess than by the reactionary, crude act of burning books…as if burning a few copies of these books will truly change anything.
As noted earlier, according to St. Luke, book burning started in the Christian Church nearly 2,000 years ago.
In America the first book burned was William Pynchon’s The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, etc. in 1650. Book burnings continued in America since then, even into the 21st century. Of course it has become more of a symbolic gesture raher than an serious attempt to destroy all copies of the book.
Unless the books are stolen or illegally obtained, the contempt and public destruction of disreputable books falls under the first amendment.
The burning of a book under a citizen’s first amendment right is no more “un-American” than denouncing the book in a review. Whether one is better or more effective than the other has nothing to do with whether that American right can be freely exercised.
Well, that’s true. Americans have the right to do stupid things. A right, however, is given by God, not men. People continually make the mistake of thinking America’s founding fathers invented rights. No. We proclaim and guarantee them in the Constitution, but they aren’t “American” in and of themselves. Moreover, exercising rights is not any more “American” than abusing them. When I say burning books is not “American,” I mean it goes against the American tradition of the free exchange of ideas, in contrast to the totalitarian view of suppressing “dangerous” ideas.
People continually make the mistake of thinking America’s founding fathers invented rights.
E-Raj, no one here is arguing this point; it is a red herring.
When I say burning books is not “American,” I mean it goes against the American tradition of the free exchange of ideas, in contrast to the totalitarian view of suppressing “dangerous” ideas.
In your previous post you suggested burning books was “un-American” because burning books “conjures up images of communist and fascist torch parades.” Now you say you mean that burning books “goes against the American tradition of free exchange of ideas.” As I have noted, the tradition of book-burning has been in America before and throughout the existence of the United States. And symbolic book-burning neither restricts nor mandates any “free exchange of ideas.”
And while you yourself execise your First Amendment right in suggesting that such book-burning is “stupid” and that it is “abusing” such rights, you have not provided any reference or reasonable argument to support such opinions.
In this cultural war we are in against the secular liberal fascists, it is important that conservatives in America within reason uphold freedom of expression including assorted attempts of Bible interpretation.
Personally, I read the King James Version daily, mainly for its essential beauty and excellence of language. If other similarly fallen folk want to read their own favorite version of the Bible, it should be of little matter, however patently absurd some of these versions are.
The Halloween book burning of The Amazing Grace Baptist Church is a disgrace.
Please don’t misconstrue my words. I never said burning books was “abusing” rights. I did say it was stupid, though. I believe book burning is at best a political statement and at worst a petulant attempt at squelching others’ voices. Yes, people have the right to do it. I never argued that point. I never said it was an abuse of rights, though.
Also, how do my two posts claiming book burning “conjures up images of communist and fascist torch parades” and that book burning “goes against the American tradition of free exchange of ideas” conflict with each other? You try to juxtapose them as if they are contradictory. There is an obvious connection between these two points: Freedom vs. Tyranny.
Finally, my subjective argument is at least as reasonable as yours. All you’ve come up with is that this practice has existed for a long time, so that somehow justifies it? That is entirely subjective as well. You’re not convincing me, and I’m obviously not convincing you. I’m not trying to change your mind…I’m just speaking mine. If people want to dance around their book pyres, that’s their business. I just happen to think they look like frightened fools when they do it. They’d do better by writing works refuting the ones they disagree with. That’s too hard, though. It’s easier to just light a match.
If “all the sides” fails to include beer…then I’m out.
Period.
Peter @ 45
Peter has seen the enemy and he is within.
This is a country at war with itself.
“In this cultural war we are in against the secular liberal fascists, it is important that conservatives in America within reason uphold freedom of expression including assorted attempts of Bible interpretation.”
Peter,
Really? I don’t know that I am a part of this cultural war. I certainly don’t bring Christ into it, not insofar as I believe the passing of any law is going to win the culture for Christ.
As an American though I try to uphold freedom of expression in whatever form it comes in, I certainly don’t nominate conservative fascists to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t within the realm of reason, or reasonable. So as far as that goes I support the right of this Baptist group to burn books. Though I might laugh at them for their stupidity.
Bror, I live in the Boston area, a hotbed of radical secularism. I’ve, I’d suggest you read The Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter or One Nation Two Cultures by Gertrude Himmelfarb, should you seriously doubt the reality of the culture war.
I don;t question the right of any group to foolishly burn books, though in history the symbolism of book burning borders is dangerous.
Boy! I go away for a weekend, and look what I missed!
Gary @ 32:
You noticed that they are not burning any Lutheran books. I think this is a reproach to us Lutherans.
There is no way these people would agree with the doctrine taught in the Lutheran confessions. Which means that they’d be burning the Lutheran confessions too, if they knew what was in them.
But, Lutherans must not even be on their radar screen enough to make them want to burn our books. I’m so embarrassed. Time to focus more resources in the southeastern district, folks.
I’d like to see a follow up on Carl’s question (#33): When is a bad translation of the scripture no longer the scripture? How much can you change the authoritative text before it is no longer the authoritative test?
*text*
OK, I have been truly surprised at how serious this discussion has become, and it has some really good points. I would just like to point out the irony of burning books you disagree with. Excercising the right to free speech to decry the excercise of free speech. Because here is the rub – if everyone uses their right to free speech to burn the works of those they disagree with, then the end result is “might makes right”. Whoever has the most guns (and matches and appropriate accelerant) wins, and populates the mental landscape with its ideological clone. In this i think E-Raj has a point; follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion and you end up with <a href = “http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/”Equilibrium.
E-Raj: Please don’t misconstrue my words. I never said burning books was “abusing” rights. I did say it was stupid, though.
You indeed were suggesting that when, to my disagreeing about book-burning being un-American,” you said that “exercising rights is not any more ‘American’ than abusing them”, explaining that book burning “goes against the American tradition of the free exchange of ideas.”
John: “I would just like to point out the irony of burning books you disagree with. Excercising the right to free speech to decry the excercise of free speech.”
AGBC is not burning books as an exercise of their members’ right to free speech in order “to decry the exercise of free speech”, but in order to decry what they and their religous beliefs see as abuses of the exercise of free speech. There is no indication that AGBC (and other similar churches) are doing this as a threat or intimidation or any other reason than their attempt to follow their understanding of Acts 19:18-20 by burning books to demonstrate their opposition to such books.
Carl, you’ve reached a tautological nightmare. But, as a Norwegian, I understand the desire to stubbornly be right (joke! ;P).
“they and their religous beliefs see as abuses of the exercise of free speech.”
At the end of the day they are still exercising free speech to decry free speech, regardless of whether they “accept” that speech or not. Spin it how you want, that’s how it shakes out. One man’s opinion does not an “abuse” make. In short, if the law allows such daring speech as the NIV Bible, then it’s not an “abuse” of free speech–a proper abuse would probably be something such as: butchering puppies to protest puppy mills.
What’s more disgusting for me is this apparent pride in book burning (as some kind of perverse heritage) and the larger issue (albeit more hidden)–the eradication of “ideas that aren’t mine” is asinine and shameful. We live in a world that has seen what happens when people are given free reign to kill ideas and should be wary when it starts up anywhere. We burn the books one day and kill the people the next. It’s our nature and it has just as long a history as anything else.
But, ultimately, and regardless of whether book burning is American, German, Russian, Chinese, etc. The question that hasn’t been asked is this: should a church (any book-burning church) be so threatened by “false religions” that they must busy themselves with the eradication of an idea rather than the rebuttal of it? Or, rather, has their view of their god become so boxed in and so weak that their god–to them–is now useless against the attacks of their enemies? In short, have they nullified their god through their actions?
I too would like to here an answer to Dan’s question? There are certainly “translations” of the Bible that I do not use due to inaccuracy. But at what point does it (if ever) stop being the word of God?
I suspect that it would cease being the Word of God once it stopped officially preaching Christ crucified.
I’m sure there are other factors involved but methinks that’d be the last straw.
At the end of the day they are still exercising free speech to decry free speech, regardless of whether they “accept” that speech or not. Spin it how you want, that’s how it shakes out. One man’s opinion does not an “abuse” make.
Objecting to a book as a perceived abuse of free speech is not equivalent to decrying free speech itself, whether a person burns a book, tosses it in the garbage, or writes “This is a bad book!” in a letter-to-the-editor. I suspect that even James Madison, were he alive today, would favor legislation to prohibit falsely yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater without being accused of decrying free speech.
Furthermore, I didn’t opine that the listed books are an abuse of free speech (well, not all of them, anyway). I stated that members of churches like AGBC, with their religious beliefs (whether right or wrong), see such books as abuses, and show their objections by burning their copies of the books, in addition to explaining (e.g., on websites) why they object to the books.
Until AGBC lobbies government officials to outlaw the publication of any Bible other than the KJV or trashes bookstores, the argument (“burn the books one day and kill the people the next.”) is a slippery slope fallacy… unless one were really suggesting that the AGBC members are borderline Nazis or Stalinists. It might be said that such an extreme conclusion is in our nature and it has just as long a history as anything else.
“Objecting to a book as a perceived abuse of free speech is not equivalent to decrying free speech itself”
Actually, it is. If that book is recognized as “free speech” by the government then in your protest you are both decrying that book and free speech as seen by your government. James Madison has nothing to do with this. Also, he’s dead and we don’t know what he’d do. He may tell us that we should all wear plaid and love each other. We could ask the question “WWJMD?” but that seems equally ludicrous.
Your second paragraph is in contradiction with your first: An objection to a legal book and (presumably in protest) its burning is in fact a statement decrying free speech. I’d like to say more but there is nothing more to be said on the matter. Also, you assume that they are burning “their” copies of the books. If these books were such “abuses” then why would they own the sacrilege? Are they wishing themselves as pious as the early Christians burning their “magic scrolls”?
This also places them in a tricky spot: If they don’t own what they burn they are purchasing for the sole purpose of destruction which both contradicts the Bible (parable of talents) and makes a mockery out of their “we just don’t like it for us” theory.
If we take this into another arena of law: I don’t approve of abortion. I assume most of us on this blog/forum don’t. However, killing abortion providers is neither moral nor legal. If this church were doing so we wouldn’t be having this discussion but ideas, however, are another matter. Ideas are somehow a grey area. But the person and the idea are essentially the same thing. Ideas are powerful, the stuff that revolutions are made of and what you aren’t looking at is this: kill an idea and you do, indeed, kill the person.
“Until AGBC lobbies government officials to outlaw the publication of any Bible other than the KJV or trashes bookstores, the argument (”burn the books one day and kill the people the next.”) is a slippery slope fallacy…”
Sigh. I could have dissected your arguments with the silly debate terms that are commonly thrown about on forums, etc. nowadays but I didn’t. Had I wished, I could have pointed to study after study about such a topic but I live in constant fear of overwindedness. And, had I wished, I could have pursued the scientific method (observe, repeat) on this fact: the killing of ideas results in the suppression of people–if not the flat out killing of them. It’s no more slippery slope than saying “if I grill a cheese sandwich, I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich”. Nothing about suppression is a minor thing. And there is, indeed, a slippery slope between the wonderfully non-harmful protest book burning and the creation of fancy new lampshades…the Germans have proven it.
“It might be said that such an extreme conclusion is in our nature and it has just as long a history as anything else.”
This is true. I did say it, actually, and there can be no denying it. The concept of book burning is nothing new. The concept of killing any idea that doesn’t coincide with yours is nothing new. The concept that everyone should be free to speak their mind, however, is. And the concept that everyone should have the right to speak their mind is something extremely new. Burn books if you must, but don’t say that it isn’t something we shouldn’t raise an eyebrow to and be cautious of.