Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Lewis, the Bible and the Pope


New episodes of "Lewis" featuring Inspector Robbie (Kevin Whately) and his sidekick James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), now airing on PBS, have been among the consolations of my bed of pain (still whining about the cold).

How could you not like a series in which one of the episodes, "The Lions of Nemea," revolves in part around the date in ancient times when the constellation Leo first was identified with, you guessed it, the Lion of Nemea.

Episodes one and two can be viewed online now at the PBS Web site; episode three will be broadcast on Sunday --- then we'll have to wait another year for more.

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I've also spent some time reading about Steve Green's new Museum of the Bible, now commencing construction in Washington, D.C., with completion date estimated at 2017. Billionaire Green, of the Hobby Lobby family, has accumulated approximately 40,000 artifacts related to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament during the last five years for his $800 million project. Creepily enough, the largest privately-owned collection of Jewish Torah scrolls is part of the collection.

There's something mildly horrifying about the history of the Bible being placed in Southern Baptist hands, although Green promises to welcome everyone, apparently one won't have to be "born again" in order to work there and even gay folks, if detected, will be allowed to enter.

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And then how about that Pope? Francis, continuing in contrast to the rhetoric of his Nazi Youth predecessor, Benedict, managed to push through a synod of bishops a preliminary report called "revolutionary" by some because it does not refer to gay people as "intrinsically disordered" or bad-mouth us in other ways. Nor does it excoriate divorced and/or remarried (without benefit of annulment) Catholics.

Mind you, nothing really changes --- it all just sounds better. But perhaps a stop to the name-calling might be the place to begin.

1 comment:

Mary Ellen said...

OK, maybe the change won't be immediate but I think the Pope's move is highly encouraging.