Letter: Bible used correctly can be a good guide

Saturday, Nov. 12, 2005 | 9:02 a.m.

So Timothy Carroll -- in his Nov. 7 letter, "Bible is framework for Constitution" -- thinks the Bible is a great guide for America today? Not the way he interprets it, ignoring 5,000 years of human progress. The ancient Old Testament values were tribal loyalty, wars, conquest, slavery, the second-class status of women and hostility toward homosexuals. These beliefs lead to obeying, believing without proof, labeling people and creating redemptive and unjust suffering. This part of our evolutionary past is best forgotten, but is still cursing us today.

Thankfully, humanity is a work in progress. We now have seminarians studying every book written about Jesus. Turns out, he was quite the radical. His mission was to "free" humanity from the petty rituals of oppressive and regressive beliefs. The true Jesus resented religion that was behavior-controlling, power-seeking and intimidating. Instead, he embraced human empowerment and a continued search for truth. Time and again, his parables taught that actions that diminished the being of another were nothing less than the expressions of sin.

"Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, do unto others" and "inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, ye have done it unto me." And, gee, please note, President Bush, how hard it was for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. Even Paul finally understood in Galations 3:27 when he stated that "... in Christ there is neither slave nor master, Jew nor Greek, male or female."

If these are the values Mr. Carroll wants to teach in the schools, fine. These are the values present in our Constitution. "All men are created equal." But let him leave his judgmental, outdated interpretations of the parts of the Bible out on the retired book shelf where it belongs.

Jay van Dam

Las Vegas