Bible burning vicar under investigation: The Church of England Newspaper, July 29, 2011 p 6. July 30, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Biblical Interpretation, Church in Wales, Church of England Newspaper.trackback
Geraint ap Iowerth
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A Welsh vicar’s foray into modern art has elicited responses of bad taste and heresy — and has landed him in hot water with the Bishop of Bangor.
On July 23 the Western Mail reported the Rev Geraint ap Iorwerth, vicar of St Peter ad Vincula Church in Pennal, Machynlleth, was under investigation by his bishop for burning parts of the Bible he believed were unchristian and contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
The 60-year-old vicar cut out passages of the Bible that offended his moral sensibilities and displayed them on a mural in the church hall, and burned the scraps from the Bible in a symbolic gesture celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.
Mr ap Iorwerth told the Western Mail: “The passages I cut out referred to the wrath of God, a God who killed millions of people in a vengeful, spiteful way. This has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus, a reactionary leader who preached peace. I’m not a complete pacifist, I’d use a baseball bat if anyone came for my family.
“But he was the ultimate campaigner for peace and I wanted to literally cut out parts of the Bible that seemed to preach violence – naughty children being rewarded, bad children not being just punished but killed violently,” he noted.
“Nietzsche said we should philosophise with a hammer, whereas I prefer to theologise with a pair of scissors,” Mr ap Iowerth said.
The Bishop of Bangor, the Rt Rev Andrew John responded that “destroying parts of the Bible we don’t like is disrespectful and will offend many people. I have therefore written to the Rev Geraint ap Iorwerth and will be investigating the matter.”
While there were difficult sections of the Bible, “it is not given to us to pick and choose” those passages we will honour. “Sometimes the most challenging parts are those which we need to wrestle with most of all,” the Bishop said.
However, Mr ap Iorwerth said he was not persuaded by his Bishop’s words. “The charred remains [of the burnt Bible] were a memorial to the millions whose lives have been destroyed as a result of the cruelty of this kind of God and his followers,” he said.
While Mr ap Iowerth’s actions may be avant-garde for the Diocese of Bangor, they have arisen from time to time in the course of church history. In the second century, Marcion taught that Jesus was the saviour sent by God and Paul of Tarsus his chief apostle. However, Marcion rejected the Old Testament, believing the wrathful God of Israel was different from the loving God of the New Testament. The early church denounced Marcion as a heretic, and while his writings have not survived, Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem has preserved some of his arguments.
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So Koran burning is a crime in England but Bible burning is Ok. What a nice communists dictatorship you Island monkeys have. Too bad we in the colonies will soon be joining you. We already have the dictator, and a crypto-Muslim one at that. We’re just waiting for him to start banning Christianity.
Actually I didn’t burn the vile bits – I put them altogether on one board – The Wall of Shame…..