Today’s featured article is written by Richard D. Stafford, Ph.D.
In college, my dad gave me a copy of The Living Bible, a popular Bible translation in the 1970s and still widely read today, and my “go to” Bible when I want to understand my faith, other faiths, or folks with no faith, better. It’s based on the seven previous English translated Bibles dating back to 1100 A.D, when the first translation was made during the early days of the English language.
One of the most provocative and startling scriptures, written by the disciple Paul as he addressed the early followers at Corinth, who were fighting like cats and dogs about every aspect of the dawning Christian faith, has much to say to us. I feel Paul’s observation of their infighting addresses where we find ourselves today in world religions and even amongst and between individual Christian denominations around the globe and in Georgia, and even in our paradise community of Habersham. How?
Well, Paul was addressing the growing wave of people who liked what Jesus had to say. Jesus was very popular, indeed. They felt, like Jesus, that the religious doctrine, the multitude of laws governing every aspect of their daily lives were burdensome and in many cases just simply ridiculous, perhaps even immoral, such as being required to marry your brother’s wife, if your brother died and left his wife and kids alone, or, if you ran out of wine (alcohol) during a wonderful wedding celebration, or, if your work animal fell in a giant hole on a Sabbath and needed to be retrieved, else it would die. Jesus went to bat for people who felt oppressed by religious doctrine.
So, what Paul said, very wisely, was that they, as followers of Jesus Christ, were like a body…a human body. He said, and I’ll paraphrase it for you:
“The foot doesn’t say, because I am not a hand, I must not be a part of the body. If the whole body were just an eye, how could it hear anything? And if the body were just an ear, then how could we smell anything? The eye can’t say to the hand, I don’t need you! If one part suffers, then all the parts suffer, if one part is praised, then all the parts are praised. All of you are a part of the Body of Christ.”
Does the arguing of the people of Corinth sound familiar? When I was a teenager in Texas, my church forbid the boys in our youth group from growing their hair long like the 1960s music group the Beetles. Nor could we dance, especially at church. Our church youth room had a record player and a radio, but we were only allowed to listen to music, not dance. The laws of Texas (and Georgia) forbade the selling of any object at a discount store that was deemed a luxury on a Sunday (Blue Laws), and until only last year in Georgia, wine and beer.
What was it Jesus did at that wedding feast, water-to-wine? Was it on a Sabbath, Friday sunset to Saturday sunset? My grandmother, who I loved and respected dearly and whom I lived with for a year after college, would not let me wash my clothes in her washer and dryer on a Sunday, as it was deemed un-Christian by her. It did not matter that I worked Monday-Saturday. So, where does this take us? Particularly if you add in other religions and faiths?
Well, Paul was absolutely correct. Why argue? It was as if he were driving a family van on vacation, and was having to draw imaginary lines between all the kids to keep them from fighting. Why fight about religion when we all belong to the body of One Humanity, on one globe? Establish what you personally wish to believe and follow it. Gather your friends around as well, establish a Synagogue, a Temple, a Mosque, a Catholic or Protestant Church. But trying to make others obey your own beliefs, to follow your own laws, to perform the same actions as yourself, when the ideas are based on personal religious beliefs, leads to destructive behavior. Just look at CNN, the problem is splashed on the screen worldwide daily, whether it’s a story from Georgia to Iraq.
Religious intolerance is bad whether it is an Islamic terrorists killing an innocent American, or Eric Rudolph from North Carolina setting off bombs in Georgia businesses and in Atlanta Olympics in 1996, killing innocent Americans, all in the name of ultra-conservative Christian values.
Denying black citizens from white cemeteries, schools, lunch counters, buses, banks, voting, all in the name of Christian beliefs, while public officials burned crosses in front yards, as many of our Georgia and Texas ancestors did two generations back, is not how Paul suggested we behave. Nor would Jesus approve it.
And Georgia’s current official and legal stance on Hispanics who, without much of a thank you, tirelessly process our chicken in Habersham, pluck our apples and peaches, dig our peanuts and sweet onions, clean up after us in restaurants, roof houses and build buildings because we’re too lazy to do it for ourselves, then having elected officials deny Hispanic children, through Georgia law passed four years ago, an opportunity to attend top colleges in our state even if they have the grades, the SAT Scores, the desire, the dream and the money to pay for it?
Our world is screaming for my 1970s version of Apostle Paul, maybe Jesus Christ himself, to walk back in our Corinth-like door and say, “What’s happen’ man? How’s that part about one-body workin’ for you?”
Richard D. Stafford, Ph.D.
I Corinthians 12: 12-31
