At the end of 2006, a group of German scholars released a new politically correct Bible that tones down “divisive” teachings and shows enhanced sensitivity to several groups such as feminists and homosexuals. God’s gender is no longer such a sore point: instead of praying to “Our Father,” Jesus (the “child” of God, never “Son”) gently urges us to pray to “Our Mother and Father who are in heaven.” The devil, of course, remains fully male.
While our politically correct scholar friends have made genuine progress in updating the inconvenient scriptures, much work remains to be done to overcome the heavy hand of the patriarchy and big business on the Word. Here is my little contribution to progress:
In the next edition of the Politically Correct Bible, we will learn that Noah actually was a passionate environmentalist, an animal rights activist, and a woman. Noah was deeply concerned about the massive clouds of smoke and greenhouse gases being generated by the right-wing patriarchy with all their abusive animal sacrifice ceremonies. With the help of her unnamed partner, a gay vegan multi-racial male with skills in carpentry, ship building, and energy conservation technology, she worked to organize the people in peaceful demonstrations against animal abuse, and personally liberated dozens of endangered goats scheduled for sacrifice. But her civil disobedience resulted in jail time and a misogynous smear campaign, fueled by the Big Animal Industry and powerful patriarchal energy industry that provided the fuel for animal incineration to appease right-wing corporate gods.
Inspired by Gaia, Noah learned that the smoke and greenhouse gases from widespread animal sacrifice and other wasteful uses of energy were causing global warming. Fearing that the ice caps would melt and cause catastrophic flooding, Noah and her partner crafted a giant ship, The Earth Goddess, and began the ultimate exercise in diversity: gathering up hundreds of animal species to prevent their extinction should mankind destroy much of the ecosystem with climate change and flooding. Big business and right-wing politicos scoffed, but she was undaunted.
After many years, Noah’s prophecy of catastrophic flooding came true. Fortunately, when the ice caps began to melt and great glacial lakes were suddenly released, Noah and her animals were safely and peacefully living in the arc, where even the carnivores embraced their inner vegans and learned to make do with tofu-based mock carcass and other treats. Noah rejoiced that the animals were saved, and rejoiced even more that the flooding, tragic as it was, had helped solve the other major crisis that had troubled Noah: human overpopulation. With the elimination of the human race and the rescuing of diverse animal species, there was now hope for the Earth.
The story would have ended happily at that point, were it not for that one fatal character flaw of our heroine, Noah, and the thing she had for that darned vegan male she brought on board. Turns out he wasn’t completely gay after all, and thus the cycle of human population growth and environmental havoc began all over again a few years later. But perhaps we can learn from the mistakes of the past.
Tragically, the male also wasn’t completely vegan, and among the many male weaknesses he had, he simply couldn’t result a thick juicy steak. Thus came the extinction of the mammoth and several other species.
(If there is any point to this facetious post, it is to remind us that cultural and political pressures can result in corruptions to a text and certainly to how a text is interpreted. The corruption of some parts of ancient scripture is an important theme that I’ll address again soon.)
“The devil, of course, remains fully male.”
That made me really chuckle. They can’t stand the thought of a male God or a male Jesus, but a male devil is fine. What a riot!
Genius! Nothing short of genius!!
Except, you DID leave out a couple things.
Surely,in her quest for diversity and full tolerance, this “she-Noah” would have conducted experiments on board The Earth Goddess (with all that free time, you know) to try and meld together the sets of two animals. They might have boarded the ship as male and female of each species. But certainly, in effort to rid the world of the sin of “gender”, the animals would have to leave the ship not as male and female, but as sexless/asexual creatures.
Oh, and the bathroom aboard The Earth Goddess was most definately a “unisex” facility.
ok – so the whole pc bible is quite ridiculous…but there is a side of Christian history that has focussed so much on the masculine aspect of scripture and biblical culture that our mothers, sisters and daughter’s may get the impression that ours is a faith about men, of men and for men. Under the right circumstances I have no problem with gender-inclusive language when it comes to religious talk…
In application, I agree Chad.
When discussing the lessons, the doctrines and how they apply to us, of course.
But you can’t change the truth just to make people “feel” better. Especially when we’re talking about important truths. The nature of God, for example, is important. I AM a woman, and I don’t feel “left out” or unimportant just because God is my Father, and isn’t female. Nor do I feel slighted because the bulk of the scriptures mostly speak about men.
That’s because I understand that what’s important is what I’m supposed to LEARN from Noah, not whether his name was Noah or Noette 🙂
Great blog! It’s nice to see a free-thinking, proud LDS person. I fear we are too few sometimes.
I don’t understand why people who are strong believers in God don’t see the connection between God, the environment and animal rights. If God created this marvelous world that we live in, if he made all of the beautiful trees and flowers and the millions of unique and incredible species of animals, and if we love God, then why wouldn’t we want to respect and take care of his creations?
Tracy,
We can love God and respect His creations. But that doesn’t mean we have to buy into a lot of the environmentalist hooey to do so. Animals rights? Animals were given for man to eat (see Genesis 9:3 and Deuteronomy 12:15 and 2 Timothy 4:3). We should certainly treat them with respect, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat them.
You may decide to buy in to the environmentalist agenda, but it is going to not only lead to the economic decline of this country, but it is also going to aid heavily in our descent toward socialism. The government is already trying to tell us what kind of light bulbs we should be allowed to use. Instead of allowing us to make such choices, they will force us, leaving us with no choice. Socialism equals less freedom.
Tracy, believers in God DO see a connection between the Alimighty and His creations– the environment, the animals, etc.
Certainly, we should treat them with respect and do what we can to take care of them to the best of our abilities.
That isn’t the same thing though as “extremism” in those same areas.
There’s a big tendency to take these things to the extreme however, actually putting them above God’s greatest creation, mankind. And that’s what Jeff’s satire (and mine as well) was aimed at.
Amen, Tatabug!
Wow. I would have laughed a lot more but I can’t shake the nagging suspicion that I’ve already read this account in my college history book…
Tracy,
I can say the reason we don’t see the connection, is that some of those animals just taste too good, especially with bacon.
All I can think of when I hear about the so-called “pc bible” is bovine feces. I simply cannot understand how someone could turn the scriptures into something little better than toilet paper. Come to think of it, at least toilet paper serves an important purpose.
Hilarious!!