Ten Green Bottles

This was written by some guy called Alan Bale from my course, and I found it sufficiently amusing and offensive to post here. Apparently there's a lot of anger in it. I'm all in favour of us evangelicals using our brains to consider criticisms of evangelicalism, so I figured I'd post it! I hope it provokes thought, but I really doubt it!



Ten Green bottles (new international Version)


The NIV introduces this first piece from its “classic medley series” for use on Christian oriented journeys, for fellowship and edification, while encouraging the memorisation of the evangelical position on the essential Christian doctrines. Reasons for the “falling” of the bottles, we felt, are implicit within the context of the song, and we have merely expanded on the original text for clarity….


Ten green bottles, sitting on a wall,
Ten green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle’s not Trinitarian
There’ll be nine green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Nine green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle thinks the pope’s infallible.
There’ll be eight green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Eight green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle says “its works that save us all.”[1]
There’ll be seven green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Seven green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle should be pluralist at all
There’ll be six green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Six green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle thinks the bible may have flaws[2],
There’ll be five green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Five green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle should not like church at all,
There be four green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Four green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle says “Give women equal roles.”[3]
There’ll be three green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Three green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle disapproves of wealth at all[4],
There be two green bottles, sitting on a wall.

Two green bottles, sitting on a wall,
And if one green bottle is homosexual[5]
There’ll be two green bottles, sitting on a wall.

One green bottle sitting on a wall,
And if that green bottle says “its possible I’m wrong.”
Then there’ll be no green bottles,
And then God’s work is done.


[1] See Rom 1-3 but ignore James, and, for example, 1 Tim 2:9-10, and Matt 25:31-46
[2] Cff John 1:1, Rom 1.16, 1Tim 4:13, but avoid for example the three disparate accounts of Paul’s conversion and the fact that none of the quotations in favour of the ineffability of scripture are valid in context at all.
[3] See 1 Tim 2:11-15 but avoid noticing all the things women do in Christ’s ministry and for the early church.
[4] Most modern scholars agree despite the obvious statements against wealth by Jesus, Paul, James, most prophets, and everyone else, that to have excessive wealth is ok so long as the Christian is theoretically prepared to give up his wealth “should God ask him to”.
[5] The Greek here implies not everyone who is homosexual, but only those who admit it and/or are not deeply ashamed.

WSJD

Lecturer in New Testament studies today was talking about how Paul's ethics were fundamentally connected to his doctrine of 'participation in Christ', i.e. the doctrine that we are in Jesus. I briefly thought about this, concluding that the bracelet should not be WWJD (What Would Jesus Do), but WSJD (What Should Jesus Do) - we who have faith are united to Christ in a very real spiritual way, such as that anything we do, Jesus does. When we choose what we do, therefore, we should consider carefully whether it is right that we do it - we're not just doing it for us, we're doing it for Jesus - not only on his behalf, but he is actually literally doing it. Is what we do apppropriate for Jesus to actually literally do?

Various amusing articles

The New Evangelism

Also check out some of the other stuff on that site, some of it's pretty funny... eg How to argue religion, and a transcript of a Radio talk on Spiritual Discernment... there's also some non-religious stuff there, but naturally I can't comment on that. :)