COLUMN: Can't speak for God
Mr. Van Noy, I was delighted to read your “My Turn” column in Friday’s Coeur d’Alene Press (The Press, May 31, 2013). I am always pleased to read a written text clearly reveals the specific opinions of its author, one which makes quite clear the thought processes and logic which led that author to those personal opinions.
You certainly do not disappoint me with your “My Turn” missive! It is unlikely that any sane, informed person would choose to argue with your 15 “points” as you present them.
I am concerned, however, when you or anyone else makes an unqualified claim to have “the” truth of what “the Bible” or “Christianity” holds to be true — and to thus claim that he speaks authoritatively on behalf of “God” or for “Christianity.”
Perhaps you are unaware that there are many differing “versions” of the “Christian Bible” published in English? Perhaps you are unaware that there exist many versions of those same texts in the “original languages,” texts which differ from one another on many points? Perhaps you are unaware that a majority of humans — including both “Christians” and those who consider themselves “non-Christians” — understand the teachings and the meaning of the many texts of “the Christian tradition” in a quite different way than you do?
Almost certainly you and I differ significantly in our personal understanding of what Jesus taught and exemplified during his life on earth in the first century AD/CE. I have not discovered a single reliable New Testament passage — a “quote” of Jesus’s words, in any of the four Gospels — in which Jesus actually advocates fear or paranoia, or any statement in which he tells his followers to exclude fellow humans who do not understand his message.
Please understand, Mr. Van Noy: I do not say that you are wrong. I simply question your apparent assertion that your own views — your own understanding or misunderstanding — are the “correct” appreciation of what Jesus taught. I question how your “Christianity” is “The” Christianity, a version of Jesus’ teachings that is in some way better than the very different understanding of the vast majority of other Christians.
If you were to say, even once, “I understand it this way …” or “ … one way of looking at that is …” or “ … in my opinion …” I might still disagree with your understanding, but I could respect it for what it actually is: one man’s “read” on what Jesus taught, one man’s opinion about “what God wants.”
Lacking that, I am left with only one option: I must read your “My Turn” column at face value, take what you say as what you say it is, and leave it at that.
As I thus begin that “face value” reading, I see that in your second paragraph, you state “… I would like to say that I do not believe Coeur d’Alene is a racist, bigoted, or homophobic city. Nor am I.”
Upon that, at least, you and I can find firm agreement. Whatever your personal bias may be, you, sir, are definitely not a city. Thank you for that clarification!
As for the rest? Let your own first argument suffice:
In your very first “point,” you assert that if our city were to publicly advocate for fair treatment of our citizens, by doing so we would thereby state that we are discriminatory. Following your own logic, I must ask: does you own public advocacy of your own version of “Christianity” therefore “send a message” that your “Christianity” is wrong?
And so it goes with the rest of your delightfully circular 15-point sermon.
Again, I thank you for a delightful “read”!!
J. EDWARDS
Coeur d’Alene