Letter to a Legalist.

A few months ago, I came across a website proclaming Christ, and denoucing, well...pretty much everything. Having grown up with this kind of "tolerance" and it pretty much destroying my faith -- after a few days I found myself writing the author. I have never heard back...but then I have never heard back from those most responsible for the misinformation of my youth.

Here is the letter:

Dear _______,
There is so, so, so much that I could say about how sad your site makes me. I really do believe that you could have the best of intentions. I came out of a cultish little Christian school with intentions just like yours. These “good intentions” nearly kept me from ever trusting Christ...from ever coming back to that child-like faith. A few years ago though, I found out that we weren't given a rule book, but a guide book. There are rules to be sure, and those aren’t flexible. But there are those things that aren't spelled out for us, things that we have to weigh and through His grace come to conclusions on. (Many of these things are the things that you and your clan love to go ahead and draw lines in the sand on…)

The Old Testament book of “Music”, Chapter 3 and verse 2 does not say "drums in music are wrong". It doesn't say that steel guitar is wrong, and it doesn't say that violins are right... We are given the tools with which to make judgments. Our famous "man after God's own heart" was one of the biggest failures and screw-ups (by our standards) ever, and in the stern world of KJV thumping Baptistness (not to be confused with Christianity) he, King David, would likely have been banned from the (at least YOUR) church. Can you even imagine the scowls from the bun-headed long-skirt ladies (or the things that you could post on a website) about someone who first lusts, then fornicates, then murders, and then lies about it. MAN AFTER GOD"S OWN HEART, INDEED! Yet he was. God knew his heart. I guess that must have something to do with intent. 'Cause he certainly wasn't following the Fundamentalist rule book.

One of the most amazing things that I see uneducated (or Fundamentalist Programmed Die Hard Baptists (who put Denomination in front of Christianity), arguing is that the KJV is "God's Official Version" of the Bible. It's a VERSION...a translation. The Bible is thousands of years old, the KJV is a few hundred...and translated by quite a doosey of a man for politically motivated reasons. You can post whatever you want about this, but even a Baptist can't change history. This isn’t like someone 3 years ago theorizing that Abraham Lincoln liked men…these historical accounts were written THEN. Many of the undiscerning who are shouting this “KJV is the inspired word” belief are also big "Rapture" believers...an idea that's acceptance is about 150 years old, and was considered heresy by conservative believers originally. (If you want to look it up, it’s called pre-millennialism, and in the timeline of Christianity it’s a pretty new idea.)

So here is a/the question that I would like for you to consider objectively.

First, let's start by acknowledging that the KJV is a translation. It’s an easy thing, because we all know the Bible wasn’t written in English, right? Now. Let’s not even factor in these other translations like the NIV, and the RSV, and that thing they are calling “The Message”. Even if we're going to assume that the KJV flat out IS the “Jesus Christ Autograph Edition” of His word, what about all of the fine folks in the world who don't speak English? Does this mean that only 35.8% of the world has access to "the Official God Endorsed Bible"? Are we then to TRANSLATE A TRANSLATION into other languages to be missionaries to the world??? What small minded worldview has something in English as the "real thing"? One would have to have not left Kentucky in their lifetime to think that we here are that big in “the big picture”... What happens when you translate a translation? There are words that can't be accurately matched from Greek and Hebrew to English, then words that can't be matched from English (apparently the language of God) to Zimbabwean... Do you know that while in the Greek there are four kinds of love and words for each, we in English have only one word, and no way (without verbose description) of differentiating these 4 kinds? How then are we superior?

I really am not expecting you to give this consideration. The information you have posted speaks to one who “believes what they believe” and "don't confuse me with the facts"...but I hope and pray that you might just give this a moments thought.

I am going to pray for you tonight. And I am going to remember you occasionally from here on out. If your many efforts here are really meant for the good of the Kingdom, I hope that God will lay it on your heart to do some objective thinking.

My wife and I were talking about the full frontal attack that you have posted in the guise of a Bible believing, soul-saving site, and we had an interesting epiphany. While we tend to think only of false prophets coming from the left (that means liberal), the damage that is done by the false prophets on the right (strict rule based, regulatory "Christianity") is probably much more damaging. There are likely more people deceived (and turned COMPLETELY away) by distorted truth than by flat out lies.

Sincerely,
Dwight