Surfing around the internets, I find all kinds of fascinating stories. One that has caught the attention of several bloggers is the beginning of the Conservative Bible Project over at Conservapedia. Now, Bibles custom made for pretty much any demographic is a major money maker in Christianity, I'm sorry to say. Most are pretty harmless. The devotional thoughts in them are geared toward whatever group you fit into, highlighting passages that discuss your particular world view or life situation. They might stretch things here or there, but the stretching is done in the commentary, not in the actual wording of the Scripture itself.

This is where I believe eyebrows are being raised Mr. Schlafly's project. Rather than simply having another annotated Bible that shows the biblical support for various conservative ideals, it would seem that he is proposing that the Bible be completely retranslated, specifically for the conservative Christian. And not by looking at the original manuscripts and using people trained in Greek, Hebrew & Aramaic, but rather by simply looking at how a given passage favors conservative ideology or liberal ideology and changing it (or omitting it) accordingly.

Now translating the Bible to make it more conservative causes me to shake my head all by itself. But there is a larger implication that bothers me much more, that being an even greater sense of "us against them" even within the Church. Instead of embracing the idea that we're one in Christ put forth by Paul in Galatians 3, we're adding to the list of things that divide us. Rather than celebrating that which makes us the same, there are some who are desiring to highlight differences by using something that should draw us together as a wedge to separate us.

I recognize that various ideologies quote mine the Scriptures to back up their particular beliefs. Someone who tends toward a more socialist system will point to Acts 2 as proof that the Bible wants us all to live in communes. Someone who has a more free market ideology may point to 1 Timothy 5:8 as a reason to abandon helps programs like welfare. Prooftexting can allow one to label just about any political or economic principle as "biblical." But this is different. This is taking the whole of Scipture and manipulating it in such a way as to make it fit a very specific brand of conservatism.

Most people, even those who have only a passing familiarity with Christianity, have heard the story of the good Samaritan. What I find interesting is that the question asked of Jesus that precipitated the story was, "Who is my neighbor?" When I look at the Strong's definition for neighbor, it comes up as friend. When I see things like the conservative Bible, it frustrates me because it seems to be asking the question, "Who is my enemy?" The parable that Christ told in Luke 10 seems to say to me that we're to be looking for friends rather than enemies. How can we do that when we are deliberately choosing to segregate ourselves by changing the Bible to suit our political ideology?

All that said, I want to do what I can to promote unity. I can get a little divisive myself in some of my postings here and I want to try to scale that back for a season. I want to see what we can do to build community. Sometimes that does indeed mean challenging one another's way of thinking, but for at least a little while I'm going to try to keep things a bit lighter and look for some of that common ground. I hope you'll join me!