Re: Sacred tangent (was Re: just checking...)

I believe *The Bible* is literally sacred. I think *Bibles *are books which
contain the message and truth of The Bible, but the books themselves are
just that, books that happen to contain the text of The Bible. In that
sense, the message and truth of The Bible is sacred but the pages are just a
delivery mechanism. If somebody held me up and told me my Bible or my life,
I'd give up the book. I can get more books. That's the first part.

The second part is more like what you are suggesting. Christians and Muslims
each consider their holy books as sacred. (One is correct and one is not to
my way of thinking, but I wouldn't rub their noses in it.) That's the second
sense. So far, all of this has a spiritual or religious connotation.

To further say that the American national documents are sacred doesn't fit
any of the primary definitions as I understand the word. If a patriotic but
otherwise atheist American said they revered the Declaration or the
Constitution as sacred documents, I'd parse that as 'esteem it highly' and
understand where they were coming from. I'd think that was weird use of
language coming from that perspective, but I'd understand where they were
coming from. I would just privately think they didn't understand what I
think I do, but I wouldn't be at all confused about their use of the
language. I wouldn't agree with it, but I wouldn't be confused.

In my thinking, national pride is as effective as sports team pride, which
is to say, fun to flirt with but better not to take too seriously. At the
end of the day, I am a Christ-follower first and an American second due to
the whole First Commandment thing. I know well-meaning Christians who
elevate national patriotism over obedience to God. (I know even more who
elevate love of their local sports team over God, as well, but at least in
that case, many of those people don't worship God and don't think twice
about elevating their affection for their team to a position of primacy in
their lives. In Wisconsin, the Packers are essentially a secular religion.
When the Packers play, the streets are empty and the stores quiet. It is
quite impressive and just a bit scary.

At the heart of all this is, I believe, a lack of perspective. Patriotism is
well and good as long as it does not seek to dethrone God in the process.
Passion for one's team is also a nice diversion as long as it doesn't
supplant God.

So to summarize, to my reading, something sacred is something blessed by
God. The Bible (the text but not the physical form) is blessed by God and we
are to treat it as genuine and important and the source of genuine truth. As
much as our national documents are highly esteemed and are cherished as
having national and historic importance, I don't see any sign that we are to
treat them the same way we treat The Bible.

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |


On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Karl Swenson <[email protected]>wrote:

> You are talking about this intrinsically, I am talking metaphorically.
> Maybe that isn’t right either.
>
>
>
> At issue is not whether the document itself is actually sacred and
> deliberately sanctified by God, but whether people feel it is.
>
>
>
> Is a bible sacred?  Did God create and sanctify my old childhood King James
> bible, so tattered and torn by my decades of use?  If so I am damned for
> illtreating such a sacred object.
>
>
>
> Or was the text sacred and that sanctification is auto transferred to the
> billions of copies?
>
>
>
> How we answer either means we water the use of the word to nothingness, or
> we restrict the use to nothingness.
>

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