I’m no fan of Tony Campollo. One of his “things” lately has been to call himself a “Red Letter Christian [1]” as in follow the words of Christ since, for an odd reason [2], they tend to be printed in red in our modern Bibles. What about the rest of the Bible? Well, who knows.
Anyway, there is now a Green Letter Bible. From Time [3]:
Now there is a Bible trying to make gardeners of us all. On Oct. 7, HarperCollins is releasing The Green Bible, a Scripture for the Prius age that calls attention to more than 1,000 verses related to nature by printing them in a pleasant shade of forest green…The new version’s message, states an introduction by Evangelical eco-activist J. Matthew Sleeth, is that “creation care”–the Christian catchphrase for nature conservancy–“is at the very core of our Christian walk.”
So there ya go. Green or Red, you now have your choice in which subsection of the Scriptures you wish to obey or rise above other portions!
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness – 2Ti 3:16Okay, end the sarcasm. I don’t disagree with the “Red Letter Christians” that we need to wake up to social issues. And I don’t disagree that the Bible has some serious implications for Christians in the area of “creation care”. These are areas where our following of Jesus really needs to improve. Hitching our wagons to the politically conservative train has done us a disservice in these areas. However, I really, really chaff at the approach that seems to emphasize one part of the Bible over against another. There is a danger in that approach that can lead to an unbalanced approach to the issues. We need the black and the green and the red letters of our Bibles to tell us how to live as God’s people in a fallen world.