Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

The religious right loves to cite the Bible to justify their positions but there is one problem–all those liberal ideas which are in the Bible. Apparently the Bible, like reality, has a liberal bias. Conservapedia, which has already been writing its own facts to support their ideology, has started the Conservative Bible Project to remove all this liberal bias from the Bible. This is comparable to how they have rewritten the works of the founding fathers to deny the existence of separation of church and state.  (Hat tip to Rachel Weiner)

Following are the ten principles they are using in their rewriting of the Bible:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level^[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;^[4] defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”;^[5] using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

Amy Sullivan wonders what they will come with for a conservative, free market interpretation of “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Even some conservatives realize how crazy this is. Rod Dreher writes, “the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it’s wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don’t worship God. They worship ideology.”

Ed Morrissey writes:

…if one believes the Bible to be the Word of God written for His purposes, which I do, then the idea of recalibrating the language to suit partisan political purposes in this age is pretty offensive — just as offensive as they see the “liberal bias” in existing translations.  If they question the authenticity of the current translations, then the only legitimate process would be to work from the original sources and retranslate.  And not just retranslate with political biases in mind, but to retranslate using proper linguistic processes and correct terminology.

Update: While conservative bloggers have joined liberal bloggers in mocking this item, as I noted above, at least one nutty right wing blogger has the audacity to try to turn this around into a means to attack liberal bloggers. I won’t give someone who lies about what I have written the dignity of a link back, but will mention this briefly for the benefit of those who have following his link. He misrepresented this post to imply that I am writing as if all conservatives take Conservapedia seriously (while making the equally absurd assertion that “no conservative blogger has ever cited, referenced or in any form acknowledged ‘conservapedia’ as a source for anything ever.”)  This is despite the fact that in writing this post I quoted the reaction of three other bloggers and intentionally used conservatives for two out of three responses.

The same blogger had also submitted an almost incoherently written comment which attacks liberals while distorting the substance of this post. I responded the way I generally respond to liars who distort posts in commenting. I generally delete such comments and place the author in the blacklist so that I will not have to waste any more time looking at other comments they might submit.