Letter to the editor: The Bible has been misused for questionable purposes

Textual teaching

I have been intrigued by letters to the editor in recent weeks discussing the role of women in the clergy. One writer on Sept. 28 said his reading of the Bible forbids women from serving but does not cite the book, chapter or verse. (10A)

The Bible has been used to support a broad range of questionable opinions. For example, servants are ordered to be obedient to their masters in Titus 2:9-10.

At various other points, it also justifies slavery and marginalizes women who are going through normal physiological cycles.

According to 1 Timothy 2:15, women can obtain salvation by bearing children. If this is valid, then Mother Teresa and her sisters of in the Missionaries of Charity would be out of luck getting into heaven.

President Abraham Lincoln is said to have once declared: “My concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side.”

And Martin Luther King Jr. is credited with warning: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Coming from another faith tradition, I say namaste, which means that I recognize the divinity within you and I respect you for it — but not your biases and misappropriation of biblical teaching.

Mani M. Mani

Lenexa