Military Bibles!



I worked in a Christian Bookstore years ago -- during my seminary days -- and sold Bibles. This was the early 1980s and the number of styles and versions of Bibles and were still pretty limited. Things have spun out of control lately, or so it seems, with graphic novel Bibles and teen magazine bibles and on and on.
But the SBC entree into this marketing frenzy with its recently released Soldiers Bibles really takes the cake. Now back in the day when I was selling Bibles (not door to door remember) we did sell Bibles designed for the military. The only only difference was the piece of metal in the binding -- good for protection from bullets!
But here according to Michael Westmoreland-White at Levellers the SBC has taken on the role of cheerleader for the military.
I was horrified to see the cover of this Bible with attack helicopters featured. And the list of features comes right out of a very distorted version of America's Civil Religion.
Here are some of the features listed by Michael:
  • The Star Spangled Banner
  • America the Beautiful
  • The Battle Hymn of the Republic
  • Onward Christian Soldiers (I guess they missed the “marching as to war” lyrics and failed to understand that the hymn is meant to depict spiritual warfare along the lines of Ephesians 6:10-17 and is not talking about Christian participation in physical warfare at all.)
  • The Pledge of Allegiance (to the U.S. flag and to “the Republic for which it stands”)
  • The Plan of Salvation
  • Scripture readings for all occasions (including the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Rom. 12?)
  • Prayers of General George Patton and General/President George Washington! (Wait, wasn’t Patton well-known for believing that Christianity made men[sic] too soft for war? Didn’t he believe that he was reincarnated as an eternal warrior keeping the world safe for more wars? Wasn’t George Washington a Deist??)
  • Quotes from President George W. Bush! (Is that like having a copy of the “Sayings of Chairman Mao?” which quotes–”Mission accomplished?” “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?”"God told me to smite Saddam and I did?”)
  • Officer’s oath
  • Enlisted personnel oath (I guess they are cutting out Jesus’ ban on oaths in Matt. 5:33-37.)

I do think I'll pass on this. I'm not a pacifist as Michael is, but this is simply a crass way of packaging the Bible, and the Gospel of the Prince of Peace!

Be sure to visit Michael's site as he has offered several comments on this and has some links -- click here to visit.

Comments

Popular Posts