A Good Old Fashioned Bible Burning

Here we go again. In our last post, I told you about a "Conservative Bible" translation now underway from the folks at Conservapedia, who believe that today's English Bible translations are corrupted with a liberal bias and a translation must be made that follows free-market, capitalist, politically conservative principles. The resulting translation now underway is a simply horrible rewriting of Scripture to fit a specific economic worldview.

Now there is a church in North Carolina that has taken it a step further, whose pastor says that not only are all English Bibles other than the King James Version corrupted, but are under the inspiration of Satan and must be destroyed. And he's inviting you to a good old fashioned book burning this Halloween.

On Tuesday, ABC affiliate WLOS in Asheville, NC is reporting that on Halloween night, Amazing Grace Baptist Church in nearby Canton, NC will be burning Bibles that are not the King James Version (KJV). The church's pastor Marc Grizzard told the station that the KJV is the only translation his little church of 14 members follows, and that all other English translations are satanic and perversions of God's Word.

Here's the text, misspellings and all, of the good ol' fashioned Bible burning as it appears at the church's website, www.amazinggracebaptistchurchkjv.com, as reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Halloween Book Burning

Burning Perversions of God's Word

Oct. 31, 2009
7pm - Until

Great Preaching and Singing

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect.

These are perversions of God's Word, the King James Bible.We will also be burning Satan's music such as country , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham Rick Warren Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.

We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.

If you have any books or music to donate, please call us for pick-up. If you like you can drop them off at our church door anytime. Thanks.

Our Scriptural Bases For Burning

The Scriptural bases for what we are doing each year is found in Acts 19:18-20 "And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."

This thing is both laughable and lamentable. No wonder it only has 14 members.

Pastor Grizzard, like many other King James-only advocates, argues that the Textus Receptus, the printed Greek version of the New Testament used as the basis for the original German Bible translated by Martin Luther, the Tyndale Bible and of course the King James Version. However, the Textus Receptus was only half the Bible. The Old Testament in the KJV was translated from the Masoretic Text, which was printed in Hebrew. Does this mean that Pastor Grizzard will have to tear out his Bible's Old Testament and add it to the bonfire as well?

Translation and typographical errors were found in the original 1611 KJV publication, and there were so many misprints over the years a newer, corrected KJV was released in 1769 by Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Which version does Pastor Grizzard hold to?

Then there are the numerous discoveries of older, more accurate Hebrew and Greek texts since the KJV was first published, the Dead Sea Scrolls being the prime example. These newfound texts have been used to create modern translations much more accurate than ol' King James.

Also, I pray thee, who in the 21st century doth speake the Queene's English, in like manner of Shakespeare? English is a dynamic language that has changed drastically in the past 400 years, making the KJV very strange and archaic. "Get a dictionary", the KJV-only advocates say. But most Bible readers would rather have a readable translation that speaks to them in their own language.

Finally, many King James purists tend to have a very twisted, legalistic interpretation of the translation they hold so dear, giving birth to heretical doctrines and outright cults. Harold Camping of Family Radio, who claims secret coding in the KJV tells him the world will end in 2011, is one such cult. False teachings based on the wording from the KJV fall apart when applied to other English translations.

The pastor at my church has always said that God's Word should be taught and presented in the heart language of the people. That's why Wycliffe Bible Translators, Lutheran Bible Translators and other ministries have endeavored for so many years to translate the Bible into thousands of regional languages and dialects. One very impressive effort from Wycliffe is Da Jesus Book, the New Testament translated into Hawaiian Pidgin English, a dialect spoken by thousands of Hawaii residents and considered a distinct language all its own.

And there is Pastor Grizzard's tagging all secular and modern music as "Satan's music". I would shudder to think if he would also attribute to Satan some of the great hymns of the faith like "Amazing Grace", for which his church is named, if it were done in a soft and easy, jazz or pop arrangement, let alone a beautiful Hawaiian-language version I heard on the PBS special "Hawaii: The Sounds of Aloha".

And while some of the Christian book authors Grizzard names are clearly heretical because of their Word of Faith prosperity doctrine (Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer), I can only guess that all the names he drops are Satan's favorites because they teach from translations other than the KJV.

Finally, Acts 19:18-20 has been taken grossly out of its original context. Many of the people of Ephesus burned their books and articles of pagan arts ("curious arts" in the KJV)because they became Christians after witnessing the miracles done by the apostle Paul in Jesus' name.

I don't know if Pastor Grizzard went viral about his Bible burning to draw attention to himself or if it's a diversion tactic to make us ignore how tiny his cultic little church really is. Allowing himself to be interviewed on camera while wearing Billy Bob overalls doesn't necessarily help his cause either. But he, like the Conservative Bible Project, is another example of selfish, sinful pride that draws attention to oneself instead of Jesus Christ, and ends up dragging His name into the mud. Non-Christians will have a field day making fun of it, and Christians will now have to spend time distancing themself from such outrageous heretics. Let it be known that the church at large does not take Marc Grizzard and his Bible burning seriously, and neither should you.

Oh, and by the way, the church and Pastor Grizzard were not available for comment the day after this story broke, and the church website was shut down and put "in system reserve".