"The Next Testament" (attn: Usual Suspect: you're gonna ho..

In the same issue of The Atlantic Monthly that I
earlier recommended, there's a short article by the
managing editor, Cullen Murphy, called "The Next
Testament". Murphy always writes with a wonderfully
subtle tongue-in-cheek tone, but says some intensely
meaningful things along the way.

His article ultimately is about:

Suppose a committee were formed and given this
charge: select a collection of texts in English,
written over a period of centuries, that somehow
fulfills the same functions as the books of the
Hebrew Bible and the New Testament -- the Next
Testament, it could be called/ What would be in such
a collection?

However, by way of introduction he writes the following
three paragraphs. (Man, I've got to stop thinking of
posts that involve a lot of verbatim typing. I used to
be an excellent typist, maybe 75-80 wpm. Now, I find
it unbelievably tedious, and I'm developing
fingerlexia.) You'll love the third:

The facts of the case are familiar to almost
everyone. A few months ago, as winter was setting
in, Judge Roy Moore, the chief justice of the
Alabama Supreme Court, was removed from office for
his refusal to heed a federal court order. U.S.
District Judge Myron Thompson had instructed Moore
to clear the state judicial building's rotunda of a
2.6-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments,
arguing that the monument violated the
constitutional principle of separation of Church and
State. The monument had been placed in the rotunda
by Moore in 2001, and he had ignored all entreaties
to get rid of it.

The saga of "Roy's Rock" followed a predictable
pattern. Liberal and secular groups railed against
the intrusion of an overtly religious symbol into
the highest state court in Alabama. Moore's
supporters argued that the Ten Commandments broadly
represent "the moral foundation of law." As the
controversy raged, atheists asked to have a monument
of their own placed in the court's rotunda: a
statue of an atom. Judge Moore turned them down
(though there would have been more than enough room
for a life-size rendition).

Well, the battle is over now. What remains, as
always, is the double life the Bible leads. On the
one hand, it is obviously a religious document --
for believers, either literally or "in some sense"
(as a squirrelly Anglican might have it) the very
word of God. On the other hand, it is a
foundational text of our culture, an artifact that
has shaped even secular aspects of Western
civilization.

"Jonathan Ball" <jonball.DeleteThis@whitehouse.not> wrote in message
news:3sO_b.6612$yZ1.2796@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> In the same issue of The Atlantic Monthly that I
> earlier recommended, there's a short article by the
> managing editor, Cullen Murphy, called "The Next
> Testament". Murphy always writes with a wonderfully
> subtle tongue-in-cheek tone, but says some intensely
> meaningful things along the way.
>
> His article ultimately is about:
>
> Suppose a committee were formed and given this
> charge: select a collection of texts in English,
> written over a period of centuries, that somehow
> fulfills the same functions as the books of the
> Hebrew Bible and the New Testament -- the Next
> Testament, it could be called/ What would be in such
> a collection?
>
> However, by way of introduction he writes the following
> three paragraphs. (Man, I've got to stop thinking of
> posts that involve a lot of verbatim typing. I used to
> be an excellent typist, maybe 75-80 wpm. Now, I find
> it unbelievably tedious, and I'm developing
> fingerlexia.) You'll love the third:
>
> The facts of the case are familiar to almost
> everyone. A few months ago, as winter was setting
> in, Judge Roy Moore, the chief justice of the
> Alabama Supreme Court, was removed from office for
> his refusal to heed a federal court order. U.S.
> District Judge Myron Thompson had instructed Moore
> to clear the state judicial building's rotunda of a
> 2.6-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments,
> arguing that the monument violated the
> constitutional principle of separation of Church and
> State. The monument had been placed in the rotunda
> by Moore in 2001, and he had ignored all entreaties
> to get rid of it.
>
> The saga of "Roy's Rock" followed a predictable
> pattern. Liberal and secular groups railed against
> the intrusion of an overtly religious symbol into
> the highest state court in Alabama. Moore's
> supporters argued that the Ten Commandments broadly
> represent "the moral foundation of law." As the
> controversy raged, atheists asked to have a monument
> of their own placed in the court's rotunda: a
> statue of an atom. Judge Moore turned them down
> (though there would have been more than enough room
> for a life-size rendition).
>
> Well, the battle is over now. What remains, as
> always, is the double life the Bible leads. On the
> one hand, it is obviously a religious document --
> for believers, either literally or "in some sense"
> (as a squirrelly Anglican might have it) the very
> word of God. On the other hand, it is a
> foundational text of our culture, an artifact that
> has shaped even secular aspects of Western
> civilization.

No use posting this ~~jonnie~~He's gone.

He read his own posting on HIV an slithered down to the clinic for a quick
check over.
BTW. Is it true that you have a church at the bottom of your garden?
>
>
>