Comments on: Realistic Moments (or, the Bible is a dangerous book)

By: charity

charity — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:15:57 +0000

BTW we have a mini schnauzer named Boaz so we are all about having fun with the Old Testament.

By: charity

charity — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:11:11 +0000

I saw these on rachael held evan’s blog and took pure joy from these images – I showed them to my husband when he came back from a weekend away and we actually cried from laughing! Both raised on evangelical furvor and very Precious Moments…we LOVED this. I didn’t realize it was your dad, though, that came up with these! How awesome is your family?

By: dad

dad — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:59:10 +0000

That’s my girl! Far and away my favorite line from the whole series!

By: Rachel Stone

Rachel Stone — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:51:21 +0000

Aslan safe? ‘Course he’s not safe. But he’s good.

By: Bryonie

Bryonie — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:23:52 +0000

I guess if it’s written by a lion that is not tame then the book itself wouldn’t be tame either.

By: dad

dad — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:57:52 +0000

If I remember correctly, I did these after reading of the restitution to the Gibeonites in 2 Samuel 21. The image of that poor woman watching over those bodies for months–a sad and gruesome vigil if ever there was one. But of course that is just the sort of grim horror that happens every day here, in between Gen. 3 and Rev. 20. Sentimentalism has always troubled me because by minimizing the brokenness of this world we thus minimize the wonders of His grace.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:53:08 +0000

Right there with you, Rachel’s Dad! Sappy sentimentalism toward the Bible is just as dangerous and irresponsible as more blatantly antagonistic mis-readings of the Scripture.

Can you do a treatment of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in Genesis 22? How about Saul standing over the cloaks during the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7? Uriah standing alone as the army of Israel withdrew and left him standing defenseless before the enemy? Just a thought

Tim

By: dad

dad — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:41:42 +0000

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by the negative comments, as satire is a form of humor that is easily misunderstood. Nevertheless it bothered me to see people thinking that I was making light of the biblical texts, when in fact I was trying to do the very opposite!

It is precisely because I do take the Bible seriously that I did these in the first place. In the Bible I see the real world, the world as I have seen and experienced it: a place of great pain, sorrow, injustice, tragedy, etc. The Bible affirms what I see every day: that this world is a terribly broken place, where even the best things are tainted by the Fall.

The good news, of course, is that in Jesus Christ God Himself has stepped into this dreadful mess we’ve made to fix it forever!

So I guess more than anything I was simply trying to say, through parody, that the Bible is not a sweet little story book. We should teach it to our children, of course (in an age-appropriate manner), but it is not cute and sentimental.

Come to think of it, neither are the classic fairy tales I heard growing up. Those are pretty dark and scary too!