The Convenience of Cafeteria Theology

Protestant denominations in particular are guilty of cafeteria theology, picking and choosing from the Old and New Testament those passages which are convenient to their agenda.

The conservative old-calendarist Greek Orthodox are impressive in their efforts to somehow combine everything in the Old Testament and New Testament into one unified theological vision. To some lesser extent, Roman Catholicism has labored to forge such a unified vision. One may easily verify this by noting how the Philokalia, a collection of Greek monastic writings which spans the 4th century to the 14th century, roughly, has so many references to the Old Testament, the Prophets, and the Psalms.


But, Martin Luther of the 15th century Reformation, latches onto to one obscure passage in the Old Testament Book of Prophet Habbakuk (ch. 2 verse 4), "For the just man shall live by his faith", and inflates it into an entire theology of salvation by faith alone.

Yet, Martin Luther totally ignores the Old Testament lesson where a man, Jephtah, in battle vows to sacrifice the first living being he sees upon return home, if he is victorious. To his horror, his daughter is the first being that he sees. He tells her of his terrible vow, and she FORCES him to keep his vow, since it is better "never to vow at all than to vow and not pay." Now, Martin Luther never stopped to consider that he had voluntarily taken the Augustinian monastic vows of a life time of chastity. Instead Martin Luther devised theological arguments to show that all celibacy was demonic and contrary to God's divine will.

Modern day Protestants, whenever confronted with an inconvenient passage in the Old Testament, will casually dismiss it saying, "Oh, well, that was the OLD LAW, which was done away with by the NEW LAW of Jesus."

I must post this for now, so I do not lose all this typing, and come back to add to it during the day.

The late Kurt Vonnegut illustrated the hypocrisy of American Protestants by pointing out that they are always agitating to have Mose's Ten Commandments on display in public, government buildings, but no one ever suggests erecting some monument to Jesus' Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount.

The family members of the late George Wallace are perfect examples of such Protestant hypocrisy. When the man who shot and paralyzed Gov. Wallace was released from prison, they said "Well, of course we forgave him, since that is God's will, but we think he should rot in prison." (ok, not their exact words, but my paraphrase)

As a child, I thought George Wallace was so evil, trying to keep a few black students out of a university, that, when I learned he was shot and paralyzed, I cheered. Good for God! At last, a bastard gets what he deserves in this life. And then, Gov. Wallace, prevented by law from seeking another term in offices, arranges for his WIFE to become governor, so he can continue with his reign of iniquity. And his wife is STRUCK DEAD WITH CANCER, while in office. Hooray for God! Now, Protestant televangelists are anxious to claim that HIV/AIDS is God's punishment to us, but they are hesitant to ascribe the paralysis of a racist biggot, and the death of his puppet wife, as an act of divine justice.

Let's pretend for a moment that the U.S. Constitution is amended to FORBID anyone from public office who is affiliated with organized religion, on the grounds that such a person could not represent their constituency in a genuinely unbiased fashion. What do you think that aspiring political candidates would do. I say they would carefully distance themselves from any religious affiliation, and portray themselves as secular humanists.

As it is right now, with Protestant affiliation being so fashionable for candidates, they strive to attend prayer breakfasts in Bible belt regions, and publicly state how Jesus came into their lives as their personal savior, while they were staggering with a hangover down the beach one day, chatting with Billy Graham.

By the way, the only President who REFUSED to have Billy Graham do his thing in the White house was the MOST devout of all the presidents, Jimmy Carter. When asked about this in an interview, Carter explained that Graham is a fine man, but the Whitehouse is not the place for such activities. By the way, the very first president who let Graham in the White house was Truman, and when Truman saw that Graham staged an unauthorized publicity shot out side the White house later, "bending the knee" in prayer with a few of his cronies, Truman became angry and refused to even entertain Graham again.

Postmodernist philosopher Derrida said it all when he said "Forgiveness, if it ever happens at all, takes place in the face of the unforgivable."

Your dog poops on my lawn, and I forgive you? Big deal?

But, forgiving the Nazi holocaust, or the atomic bomb, or the twin towers, or slavery... now THAT is forgiveness, ... IF you can really do it and not just pay lip service to the idea, like the Wallace family.