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• Friday, February 16, 2007 08:54 AM

  To Monkey in Chief

  Marcotte wasn't fired or forced to resigned by the Edwards Campaign but rather a combination of the right-wing media feeding frenzy and the threats she received. Whether one agrees with the outcome or Marcotte's decision, the tactics are reprehensible and a threat to Democratic party. I have no doubt that these very same people will use similar tactics to smear whoever is the Democratic Presidential nominee.

  I also find the fuss about Jesus' conception to be ironic. Recent scholarship has all but proven that the virgin birth came to Christian texts very late and did not appear in early texts. Its presence is likely is due to either a mistranslation or deliberate revision in the story of Jesus to answer critics who noted that Jesus was an illegitimate child. The only faith Marcotte could have attacked is a faith in a version of the story of Jesus that provably didn't happen.

  I agree that Marcotte's statements are somewhat in inflammatory. She'd be more effective digging into history and scholarship surrounding the early gospels. The misognyst interpretation of the Bible relies heavily on the Old Testament and passages in the New Testament that are of questionable authenticity. Though most of the modern faithful don't know it, the Old Testament was only added to the Bible for its prophecy of the messiah. The inclusion of the Old Testament was never intended by the compilers of the canon to be an endorsement of its other contents. Otherwise, all Christians would be bound to live by the Jewish law mandated in the Old Testament.

  You totally misunderstand the issue. For Christians, this is not about disproving the Bible, or Christ's conception, or anything like that. If you, or anyone, thinks that that is possible, even with science, even with fact, then you're sorely mistaken. We're not offended by Marcotte's insult because we think it somehow invalidates our faith... it does not. We are offended because it takes two of the characters who are incredibly central to our very view of how the world came to be and why we still exist and aren't doomed to suffer into eternity, drags them through her filthy, vulgar writing, and then she expects us to think it's funny, or ironic, or enlightening.

  Imagine, for example, someone took a figure who was central to your entire existence, someone you love and cherish, someone to whom you owe everything... an ailing grandparent, your mother or father, your very best friend, your young child. Imagine some woman who knows nothing about you and your relationship with this person, making vulgar jokes about them, and then expecting you to laugh along, and getting shocked and defensive when you get pissed off. Take that sense of insult and outrage, multiply it about fourteen times, and then you've got some sense of outrage and hurt that we Christians feel when people blatantly disrespect our beloved creator, to whom we dedicate our entire lives and from whom we receive the divine grace that we do not truly deserve.

  Trying to "attack" Catholics from a scholarly perspective would have been laughable. Those of you who are outside the religious world don't realize that, within the religious academy, there already exists a very healthy world of research, study, and debate about every issue you could possibly think of. I, for example, just recently read a book on Christian ethics by a liberal, Catholic, feminist author named Lisa A. Cahill, who argues the case for God and homosexuality in the pages of the same book. It's not as unusual as you might think. Donohue may paint a terrible picture on the religious, but we are far more sophisticated, intelligent, and reflective than most people. Read up on feminist theology sometime... there are literally thousands of books written about it. Any attempt by Marcotte to actually dip her toes into this sprawling world of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic academia would have required degrees in Biblical studies or theology. Biblical studies, like science, is not something you can just make up on your own. Liberals laugh at conservative pseudoscientists who try to do the scientist's job by explaining why evolution is not possible, etc. etc. Well, people of faith would laugh at a secular writer with no background in Biblical studies trying to "disprove" our faith ona blog. It just isn't going to happen.

  Oh, and please don't try to tell me what the Old Testament was added to the New for. I'm getting my bachelor's degree in history and religion, and I know plenty about the historical-critical method of interpretation. Your oversimplification of that particular issue does not stagger me in awe of how superior your knowledge of the Bible is, as I'm sure you'd hoped it would, but merely reveals that you probably were told that little tidbit and have been waiting for a perfect opportunity to try to use it on a Christian. My professor of the Hebrew Bible from last semester would have probably laughed at you if you'd told the same thing to him....

  —Chloe, irked at secular people who think they know our faith better than we do
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