Dear Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth, that’s not art, but Marcionism coupled with pyromania
The Church in Wales says it is investigating after a Gwynedd rector burnt some pages from the Bible.
The Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth of St Peter ad Vincula Church, Pennal, also cut up pages from the King James Bible to create an artwork.
Unveiling it at a church event, he said it revealed a “cruel and vile God”.
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“I cut out all the nasty bits of that Bible, the language of which is being celebrated all over the place this year, because I don’t think you can separate that language from the God it is representing.
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“The King James Bible should be praised for its language but not for the God it represents – the two need to be separated.”
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He said he also planned to create a “wall of shame” at the church naming all of God’s “cruel actions”.
Tags: Church Life
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:29 pm
[...] Dear Reverend Geraint ap Iorwerth, that’s not art, but Marcionism coupled with pyromania [...]
July 22nd, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Obviously generating publicity for an art is income retirement, has he never heard of the Jefferson bible sort of the same cut and paste job.
Where do the church authorities find these puerile men of the cloth?
July 26th, 2011 at 6:45 pm
When did God get so puerile?
Calling this vicar’s actions heretical doesn’t magically excuse the horrble texts — they have to be defended in themselves.
August 2nd, 2011 at 8:05 am
If one study’s the N.T. we find that this is EXACTLY the same as what Jesus did. Jesus took only the ‘nicest’ love verses from the O.T. and left the genocides, stonings, child rape, bashing babies against rocks (exodus, leviticus, psalm 23 etc) ‘nasty’ bits for evil Mohamad and his korang !
Truth will out
Good on the pastor
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:36 am
As you can probably tell Stuart by the resurgence of comments, I have time on my hands as I’m off work recovering from llness again. It’s been a great pleasure spending some time reading your always thought provoking posts.
And today I was compelled to look up Marcionism on Wikipedia, and found it absolutely fascinating. Thank you for using the term!
I must admit that I find Marcion’s arguments quite compelling. A question to readers of this – Did Jesus at any time say that his followers must follow the Old Testament to the letter? This is an open question. I have not read the New Testament for a while and I don’t recall whether He did or not.
August 29th, 2011 at 7:35 am
For the record I did not ‘burn’ the Bible. I cut out the actions of the cruel god and put them all on a Wall of Shame. I am not a follower of Marcion – I value the Older Testament greatly. It is a record of some of the great insights into the human condition as well as our struggle to discover the source of love and compassion, that eg the likes of Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah pioneered for us. A question – look at the Wall of Shame and then anwer me the question – “When do we introduce our ‘children’ to this cruel god? Age 8? 10? Just before they enter their teens? If more people met Jesus’s ‘abba’ we wouldn’t need to ask this question!