The Left spouts off on two things the Bible supposedly is responsible for.

Brace yourselves. I just saw a testimony of what The Left actually thinks of the Bible, and it's straight from an editorial signed by "THE EDITORS" of The Nation. It was in a eulogy to William Sloane Coffin, Jr., in the May 8, 2006 edition of the rag. Coffin was involved in many causes, from opposition to Vietnam to the nuclear freeze movement to civil rights.

The eulogy ends with a discussion of who might replace Rev. Coffin in the peace movement:

Bill Coffin is, of course, irreplaceable, but he left some advice to successors. Writing in The Nation, he spoke of the "two great biblical mandates: to pursue justice and to seek peace."

Now when it comes to issues where The Left disagrees with the Religious Right, we're supposed to believe that The Left first and foremost hates God and the Bible, and then therefore attacks those who seek to follow His will. I remember an adult Sunday School teacher flatly informing me, "The media hates God."

But now we here have a testimony from The Left that the Bible's main commands are love and decency and compassion. I just don't get it.


Aside from that, from my Lutheran background, there are at least three flavors of Christians:

• liberal Protestants, who have stripped Christianity of all its spiritual and eternal content and turned it into something about temporal ethics,
• Theologians of Glory, who have turned the Gospel into another law requiring striving after salvation, rather than God's unconditional gift,
• and Theologians of the Cross, who at least get the idea of grace correct.

Now I don't know a whole lot about Coffin's theology. I honestly fear he's more liberal Protestant or maybe Glory than Cross, and if so I won't count myself as a disciple the way I might for Bonhoeffer or Romero. But I now want to read more of his stuff.