# The Conservative Bible, or I'm Square Athwart Poe's Law Here **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742 "2009-10-05T22:44:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/61 "2009-10-07T01:00:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Because the Conservative tendency, echoing its name, is to _conserve_ the good things of the past. And one of the stroingly-held tenets has been that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. That’s not an exclusively Protestant Fundamentalist view, it’s held by Conservative Roman Catholics and other groups as well. But not held, obviously, by people of a range of other religious perspectives, or of a non-religious perspective, any or all of whom may be politically conservative. Hence conservatism doesn’t _have_ to affirm the inerrancy of scripture as a good idea, but it may be politically advantageous to do so in a society like the US with high religiosity, and a degree of preference for religiosity in politics. But, the point is, people with a religious belief in the inerrancy of the Gospel of John don’t believe that its inerrancy hangs on the fact that it was all written by John, or that it was all written by the same author, or that it was all written at the same time. In the Christian view, scripture is inerrant simply because it’s scriptural, and it’s scriptural because it has been received by the church as scriptural in a process of canonisation inspired by God. The “canonical” fourth gospel, received by the church in this way, unquestionably includes the passage dealing with the woman taken in adultery. Hence the scholarly view that the passage is an interpolation by a different author has no implications at all for its scriptural inerrancy. And this is a point which the author of the Conservapaedia piece doesn’t seem to be aware of, or has decided to overlook. Which fuels my suspicion that the attempt to reconcile conservative politics and Christianity is driven by the desire to seek political advantage in the light of US religiosity, rather than by Christian faith. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > . These are folks who don’t believe you can “pick and choose” the parts of the Bible you want (although they can interpret all over the place). To have anyone in that bunch sugest removing a part of the New Testament – even one that might be interpreted as against their agenda – is absolutely outrageous, in my experience. This is something wholly new. remember – you can always re-interpret. It’s absolutely outrageous from a Christian perspective. But if your fundamental driving ideology is political and social conservatism, then you will measure Christian faith in terms of its utility in advancing conservatism, and discount, disregard or ditch those elements of Christian faith which seem unhelpful – which is exactly what is going on here. And, my point is, there is no reason to presuppose that Christianity _will_ tend to support social and political conservatism. As other posts in this thread show, there is an abundance of material in the Gospels – and elsewhere in scripture – which must prove challenging to the politically conservative Christian. It presents no challenge, though, to the politically conservative non-Christian, which is where my original point arose – there is no reason why a political conservative, as such, needs to be a Christian or to affirm the inerrancy of the New Testament. Their political ideology may in fact lead them to attack the New Testament. It presents a different kind of challenge to the political conservative who, for pragmatic reasons, wishes to present his conservatism as consistent with, or founded on, Christianity, when in fact it is not. And that, I think, is what we are seeing in the Conservapaedia article. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/62 "2009-10-07T01:15:07Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Because the Conservative tendency, echoing its name, is to _conserve_ the good things of the past. Oh, no. The modern American conservative movement is lot more radical than **that!** ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/63 "2009-10-08T05:00:40Z")
A Conservapedia version of [Daniel in the Lion’s Den](http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2009/10/06/also-whack-the-shepherd/). ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/64 "2009-10-08T08:47:01Z")
Here it is straight from the horses mouth as it were on what they are trying to do. [http://conservapedia.com/Talk:Conservative\_Bible\_Project#Names\_of\_God](http://conservapedia.com/Talk:Conservative_Bible_Project#Names_of_God) ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/65 "2009-10-09T00:50:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Conservapedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Schlafly) is the creation of (and perforce closely watched and edited by, after all that prankery ;)) Andy Schlafly, son of [Phyllis.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly) If he’s not in the mainstream of movement conservatism, who is? Being the child of a famous conservative does not guarantee status in the movement. If that were the case, Ron Reagan would be our king. Also, unless he’s claimed to have changed, isn’t Andy gay? Edit: Nope- that’s his older brother John. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/66 "2009-10-09T04:17:44Z")
Is that John the Baptist, or John the Episcopalian? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742/67 "2009-10-09T04:39:15Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Is that John the Baptist, or John the Episcopalian? I would assume, unless there’s any info to the contrary, John the Catholic. He’s kept his Mom’s politics so he’s probably also kept her religion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-conservative-bible-or-im-square-athwart-poes-law-here/512742.md?page=3)