A Bible for All!

This was posted in a special section of this Sunday's New York Times.   The section captured some of the Op Ed entries submitted to the Times over the past 40 years!   This one really grabbed me for obvious reasons!

"Those who speak for the religious right do not speak for all American Christians, and the Bible is not theirs alone to interpret.  The same Bible that the advocates of slavery used to protect their wicked self-interests is the Bible that inspired slaves to revolt and their liberators to action.

The same Bible that was used to keep white churches white is the source of the inspiration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the social reformation of the 1960s.

The same Bible that anti-feminists use to keep women silent in the churches is the Bible that preaches liberation to captives and says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free.

And the same Bible that on the basis of an archaic social code of ancient Israel and a tortured reading of Paul is used to condemn all homosexuals and homosexual behavior includes metaphors of redemption, inclusion and love — principles that invite homosexuals to accept their freedom and responsibility in Christ and demand that their fellow Christians accept them as well.

In this summer of our discontent, one of the most precious freedoms for which we must all fight is freedom from this last prejudice."

PETER J. GOMES, an American Baptist minister, is a professor of Christian morals at Harvard.   This Op Ed was originally posted by PETER J. GOMES, on August 17, 1992

Amen!