Lawrence O'Donnell, Scriptural Illiteracy, and Hubris

Lawrence O'Donnell is not an impressive Biblical exegete. At. All.  Excerpts:

...The Presidential Inaugural Committee said that “whoever delivers the benediction rejects the same parts of the Bible that President Obama rejects, and most Democrats reject, even though every word of the Bible is the word of God.”

All presidents who undergo their inaugurations should, in theory, “accept all of the teachings of the Bible” as they place their hand on the book. But O’Donnell said that because “there are no literal followers of the world of God as presented in the Bible left on Earth,” reciting the oath of office upon the placement of their right hand on the book makes the pledge “one of our most absurdist traditions in the government that invented the separation of church and state.”...

When will atheists and the swath of absolute literalists begin to actually get that the Bible, in some places, offers an authoritative interpretation of itself? See, for example, Acts 15 and Ezekiel 20:11-26. Further, when will they get that the Bible must be read both as a unitary book (the Word of God) and as a library of books by different human authors in different genres with different intended audiences using different standards for what to include? Of course a parable isn't going to make sense if held to the standards of a front page news clipping. Proverbs isn't the same thing as Chronicles isn't the same thing as Psalms isn't the same thing as Genesis isn't the same thing as Isaiah isn't the same thing as the Gospels. Folks! Use your heads!

“...This time, as it was last time for the first time in history, the book will be held by a First Lady who is a descendent of slaves. But the holy book she will be holding does not contain one word of God condemning slavery. Not one word. But that same book, which spends hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages condemning all sorts of things and couldn’t find one sentence to condemn slavery, does indeed find the space to repeatedly condemn gay people, as the now banished Louie Giglio said it does. And as the First Lady is holding that book for the President, sitting someone near them will be a pastor who the Inauguration Committee will make sure is much more adept at hiding what that book actually says than Louie Giglio was...”

Not one word? Anywhere? Tell that to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the many Christian abolitionists. Tell that to William Wilberforce and John Newton. Tell that to the Christians leading the modern anti-slavery movement.  I think you'll surprise them greatly.  Ironically enough, the event featured in that CNN article was crafted in part by Louie Giglio, whom O'Donnell is laying into.

But let's see if there's anything, anywhere in those hundreds of pages of the Bible, that we might consider a slavery-condemning verse.

For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendant, heirs according to the promise.--Galatians 3:26-29

And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’--Matthew 25:40

Just for starters.  For more, see The Popes and Slavery, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, Special 75th Anniversary Edition (Martin Luther King, Jr., born January 15, 1929), and For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery.