The Bible in political debate
Subtitle: what does it really say?
By: edited by Frances Flannery and Rodney A. Werline
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
ISBN-13: 9780567666574; 9780567666611; 9780567666581; 9780567666598
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Bible and politics; Politics in the Bible
Description: Politicians and pundits regularly invoke the Bible in social and political debates on a host of controversial social and political issues, including: abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, the death penalty, separation of church and state, family values, climate change, income distribution, teaching evolution in schools, taxation, school prayer, aid for the poor, and immigration. But is the Bible often used out of context in these major debates? This book includes essays by fourteen biblical scholars who examine the use of the Bible in political debates, uncovering the original historical contexts and meanings of the biblical verses that are commonly cited. The contributors take a non-confessional approach, rooted in non-partisan scholarship, to show how specific texts have at times been distorted in order to support particular views. At the same time, they show how the Bible can sometimes make for unsettling reading in the modern day. The key questions remain: What does the Bible really say? Should the Bible be used to form public policy?
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Frances Flannery and Rodney A. Werline; title: pt. 1 The Bible in Contemporary Political Debate. The Bible and Family Values / Andrew Klumpp and Jack Levison; title: Diasporas "R" Us : Attitudes toward Immigrants in the Bible / Hector Avalos; title: Ending a Life That Has Not Begun : Abortion in the Bible / Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte; title: Senators, Snowballs, and Scripture : The Bible and Climate Change / Frances Flannery; title: Work, Poverty, and Welfare / Rodney A., Werline; title: Culture Wars, Homosexuality, and the Bible / Jonathan L. Jackson; title: The Bible and the Divine Sanctioning of Governments / Colleen Shantz; title: Teaching Evolution versus Creationism / Daniel K. Falk; title: pt. 2 The Bible in Historical Political Debate.; title: Tracing the Use of the Bible in Colonial Land Claims in North America / Judith H. Newman; title: The Bible, Slavery, and Political Debate / Emerson B. Powery; title: Women, the Bible, and the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution / Christopher A. Rollston; title: pt. 3 Concluding Thoughts. What Is "the Bible"? / Kelley Coblentz Bautch; title: Compromise as a Biblical Value / John F. Kutsko; title: Notes.