In light of my previous post about Biblical literalists, I have found something upon which we might reflect. My reading for the day was Leviticus 12-14. I am in the process of reading The Daily Message: Through the Bible in One Year, a daily reading from Eugene Peterson’s translation of the Bible.
Today’s reading was three chapters on skin disease and ritual cleansing. I know what you’re thinking—spirit-filled reading, right? “The priest will pour some of the oil into the palm of his left hand, and with his right finger sprinkle some of the oil from his palm seven times before God.”[1] Riveting! As I called it in a sermon recently, it is God’s divine micromanagement (Oh, P!).
When dealing with fundies, especially the trolls, we tend to go back to our usual pronouncements: it’s the well from which we draw. But here is something else. As our friend suggested in Encompass (my response in the previous post from last week),
“[Self-described] Orthodox Anglicans fervently believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and none come unto the Father except through him. Jesus gave us this doctrine himself, and it becomes a litmus test for the theological deviation that has occurred and is progressing at an alarming rate.”
Jesus also said in Matthew 5:17-20:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”[2]
From Jesus’s sermon on the mount, our humble teacher took a pretty defensive posture toward the law as laid out in Scripture. I think our friends would agree that to be a sensible thing. They would argue that we are breaking those laws on a regular basis and that we must be brought back into the fold of conservative churchmanship. They would be ignoring their own duties, of course.
One of the highlights of the Leviticus reading gives detailed accounts of how a priest should examine the skin of the people to make sure each does not have an infection. Despite the obvious metaphorical interpretation of this, not to mention embodying the same remedy: banishing the infected to the wilderness outside of the city: I have not heard of regular blood sacrifices being done throughout the 'orthodox' church (or the real Orthodox churches, for that matter).
But this is my favorite: from the second half of Leviticus 14, we discover what to do about “a serious fungus”:
“When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “There seems to me to be some sort of disease in my house.” The priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, or all that is in the house will become unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to inspect the house. He shall examine the disease; if the disease is in the walls of the house with greenish or reddish spots, and if it appears to be deeper than the surface, the priest shall go outside to the door of the house and shut up the house seven days. The priest shall come again on the seventh day and make an inspection; if the disease has spread in the walls of the house, the priest shall command that the stones in which the disease appears be taken out and thrown into an unclean place outside the city. He shall have the inside of the house scraped thoroughly, and the plaster that is scraped off shall be dumped in an unclean place outside the city. They shall take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and take other plaster and plaster the house.
If the disease breaks out again in the house, after he has taken out the stones and scraped the house and plastered it, the priest shall go and make inspection; if the disease has spread in the house, it is a spreading leprous disease in the house; it is unclean. He shall have the house torn down, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and taken outside the city to an unclean place. All who enter the house while it is shut up shall be unclean until the evening; and all who sleep in the house shall wash their clothes; and all who eat in the house shall wash their clothes.”
I suggest we make sure that our friends in San Joaquin,
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