Home ›

Andy Schlafly

Printer-friendly version Send to friend

Let He Who Is Without Sin Cut The Entire Passage

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on October 20, 2009 - 1:29pm

I guess we shouldn't really be surprised that Andy Schlafly's Conservapedia effort to re-translate the Bible to adhere to their right-wing cultural and political agenda would lead to changes things like this:

Schlafly, the son of national political activist Phyllis Schlafly, says a conservative Bible should be masculine, for example, using the words mankind and man rather than more inclusive language. It also should shun terms like laborer or comrade. It also should put a free market spin on the sayings of Jesus.

Take Mark 10:25, where the King James Version says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Liberals have used that passage to attack the wealthy, Schlafly said. The Conservative Bible substitutes "a man who cares only for money" for rich man.

"I don't think Jesus is saying, 'Let's all be lazy so we can get to heaven.' That's not the message. And, if you translate the word rich as simply rich, some people are going to get the message that 'I am going to be lazy so I can get to heaven easier,' " said Schlafly, who graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science and from Harvard Law School as an attorney, according to his Web site.

...

Schlafly also removed an edit suggesting that liberals conspired to have Jesus killed, by substituting the word liberal for the word Pharisee.

"The possibility that Pharisees, which is a term that's not familiar to most of us, could be better translated as liberal is intriguing," Schlafly said. "But we haven't gone with that yet."

But that is nothing compared to the fact that they are also removing chapters and verses that they don't like:

The most radical change in the Conservative Bible might be dumping two passages of familiar Scripture.

One is the long ending of Mark's Gospel, which includes verses about snake handling and the story of the woman caught in adultery. Neither is found in most of the oldest Greek manuscripts used to translate the Bible. Schlafly says that adultery story, in which Jesus says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," should be cut because it portrays Jesus as being soft on sin.

"It's a liberal addition, put in by people who wanted to undermine the reality of hell and judgment," he said.

Interestingly, the article quotes Jennifer Knust, an actual Bible scholar who teaches the New Testament at Boston University, who explains that the adultery story was accepted universally until the 1800s, when liberal scholars began to question its authenticity, noting that traditionally "it was the liberals who wanted to take the story out and the conservatives who wanted to keep the story."

PFAW
Filed under:

Meet The Man Behind The Conservative Bible

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on October 7, 2009 - 11:44am

If you thought that Conservapedia's ludicrous effort to rewrite the Bible in order to better adhere to their right-wing agenda could get any more ridiculous, then you obviously missed Alan Colmes' interview last night with Conservapedia's founder, Andy Schlafly. 

Schlafly explains that Conservapedia's effort is entirely necessary because those who are producing current translations of the Bible are overwhelmingly people who voted Barack Obama. 

Seriously.  That is his reasoning. 

In Schlafly's logic, the people who produce translations of the Bible are professors and everybody knows that all professors are, by definition, liberal.  Ergo, the Bible is being translated by Obama loving liberals and so it is up to people like Schlafly and other amateur Biblical scholars to translate the Bible according to its true intention. 

When Colmes asked Schlafly about Conservapedia's effort to "identify pro-liberal terms used in existing Bible translations, such as 'government', and suggest more accurate substitutes," Schlafly insisted that the word "government" is most certainly a liberal word and declared that more accurate substitute would be "tyranny."

That would certainly give a new meaning to Isaiah 9:6:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government tyranny will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Listen

PFAW
Filed under:

Building a More Conservative Bible

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on October 5, 2009 - 10:39am

It looks like Conservapedia, the conservative alternative to Wikipedia founded by Andy Schlafly, son of the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, has undertaken a new project - making a more conservative Bible:

Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning:

  • lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts of Christianity
  • * lack of precision in modern language
  • * translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.

Of these three sources of errors, the last introduces the largest error, and the biggest component of that error is liberal bias. Large reductions in this error can be attained simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English.

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]

4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".

5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census

6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

Thus, a project has begun among members of Conservapedia to translate the Bible in accordance with these principles.

The new Conservapedia-approved version of the Bible can be found here, but it looks like they have a long way to go as none of the Old Testament has been translated and only small portions of the New Testament have been properly updated.  But from what is currently available, it looks like this is what we can expect from this endeavor:

Here is Chapter 3, verses 1-6 from the Book of Mark (New International Version)

1 Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.

2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.

3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."

4 Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.

5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Here are the same passages from the Conservapedia translation in which "Pharisees" becomes "intellectuals"

1 Jesus returned to the synagogue, and noticed man with a crippled hand.

2 The intellectuals watched Jesus to see if he might catch and accuse him of healing on the Sabbath.

3 Jesus told the man with the crippled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."

4 Jesus asked the intellectuals, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: doing good or evil? Saving a life, or killing one? The intellectuals did not answer."

5 Jesus looked at them, feeling anger and pity for the hardness of their hearts, and said to the injured man, "Open your hand." He then opened and held out his hand, and it was as good as new.

6 The intellectuals then fled from the scene to plot with Herod's people against Jesus, and plan how they might destroy him. 

PFAW
Filed under:

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 2, 2009 - 5:41pm
  • Cornerstone Christian School, which is connected to John Hagee's Cornerstone Church, is suing after it was dropped from the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools' athletic league, saying it is being discriminated against because it is a religious school, while the league counters that it was dropped due to Cornerstone's "ongoing problem with illegal recruiting of foreign students for athletic purposes."
  • The American Conservative magazine reports on the state of the anti-choice movement, saying it "has endured for so long precisely because it has failed" and cites offers this anecdote: "Alan Keyes soon leapt to the stage and addressed the audience of about 100 people. He compared Obama to Cain, who killed his brother; to a 'bad tree' in Christ's parables; and to Hitler."
  • What do Liberty University professors do when they are not teaching? Search for Noah's Ark, of course. Archaeologist Randall Price is set to travel to Mt. Ararat in Turkey to search for it based on claims by a Kurdish shepherd who says he has seen the ark, and even climbed on top of it, when he was a boy: "They found the spot, Price said, but it now is covered by an estimated 60-foot-deep pile of boulders. Price believes the landslide may have resulted from attacks against Kurdish rebels on the mountain, or perhaps from explosives that were set off to cover up the ark."
  • Finally, just let me say that I hope Andy Schlafly starts writing more posts for the Eagle Forum's blog:

    • Notice how Springsteen skipped his song "Born in the U.S.A." at the Super Bowl?

    Bruce Springsteen is a liberal rock star who sang during the halftime of the Super Bowl last night. He has working class appeal.

    Springsteen sang nearly all his top hits ... except there was one glaring omission. He did not sing "Born in the U.S.A.," one of his most popular tunes of all.

    Wonder why??? The Obama mind controllers would not have been happy if he sang that title! Obama still has not proven that he was born in the U.S.A.

PFAW
Filed under:

The Conservative Way of Knowing

Submitted by Anonymous on May 30, 2008 - 4:01pm

The rise in popularity of the online, collaborative reference Wikipedia has posed a challenge to librarians and teachers who are trying to teach rigorous research methods to high school students. But while these educators have directed their students to use more traditional sources or, at least, to read Wikipedia with skepticism, one teacher decided the solution was to let his students write their own encyclopedia.

That teacher was Andy Schlafly—son of the famous culture warrior Phyllis Schlafly—the class was a group of home-school students, and the result, Conservapedia, immediately become the Internet equivalent of a laughingstock. The problem according to Schlafly was not Wikipedia’s fundamental unreliability—by design, there is no authoritative editing and factual inaccuracies may creep in despite a vigilant volunteer base—but its supposed bias against America and Christianity. Thus, Conservapedia’s obsession with right-wing politics, evolution, and homosexuality.

In spite of the ridicule, Schlafly and his young followers soldiered on, and they are still at it today. Eagle Forum just released a video promoting Conservapedia as an affirming alternative to the Wikipedia world:

STUDENT: They have an article about evolution, and when conservative or Christian editors tried to add information to that about the other side of the argument and the argument for creationism or Intelligent Design, it was censored or taken out of there.

SCHLAFLY: On Conservapedia, you’re going to get the other side of that. You’re going to get evidence against evolution. Same thing for homosexuality. We bring in all the health harm that’s caused by homosexuality, all the biblical quotes against it—you get that on Conservapedia. You’re not going to get that sort of fair treatment on the Wikipedia entries.

“I don’t have to live with what’s printed in the newspaper. I don’t have to take what’s written in Wikipedia,” said Schlafly. “We’ve got our own way to express knowledge.” Whether it’s the use of “A.D.” instead of “A.C.E.” to mark dates, or anti-gay propaganda instead of science, Schlafly’s “way of knowing” offers the Religious Right familiarity, and a respite from the oppressive world of newspapers and reference works. Or, as Stephen Colbert termed it, their own Wikiality.

PFAW
Filed under:

Checks, Balances, and Wiki

Submitted by Anonymous on February 13, 2008 - 3:02pm

Phyllis Schlafly has been a towering figure on the Right for more than four decades: inspiring Barry Goldwater’s foot soldiers with “A Choice Not an Echo,” founding the Eagle Forum and leading the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, and continuing to rail against supposedly “activist” judges standing in the way of her agenda.

“Liberals in this country know that they don’t have the hearts of the American people…so their game plan is to take their issues to the courts,” said Schlafly at the Conservative Political Action Conference, repeating a theme she’s been talking up for years. What was new this time was that she brought her son, Andy.

Andy Schlafly, general counsel for the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, may seem like an unlikely candidate to be a right-wing spokesman—even if, as his mother felt the need to say, he attended Harvard Law School. But the AAPS is hardly just a boring professional society; it’s a far-right splinter from the American Medical Association dedicated to opposing abortion and government-funded health care. And Andy Schlafly has already made a name for himself on the Internet, first as a defender of creationism on a USENET discussion group and then as an instructor of right-wing politics for Eagle Forum University.

But what really made Andy Schlafly an electronic celebrity was his quixotic fight against Wikipedia, the user-compiled online encyclopedia. Decrying Wikipedia’s “liberal bias,” Schlafly founded Conservapedia, which quickly became a laughingstock for its bizarre agenda and shoddy execution on subjects such as animal origins, homosexuality, and basic facts.

Mr. Schlafly believes that the judiciary, like Wikipedia, has a liberal bias. He called upon the CPAC crowd to pressure John McCain on the issue, to make “sure we’re not fooled by the next Supreme Court nominee.” McCain, of course, promised to nominate judges like Roberts and Alito, but “that’s not good enough,” according to Schlafly, who called on McCain to set up a right-wing panel to select candidates for the judiciary and get assurance on their far-right bona fides. “[We] don’t want judges who say it’s unconstitutional for a teacher to lead class in prayer,” said Schlafly—but most importantly, “[we’re] looking for the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

Ultimately, Schlafly was pessimistic about the chances for more right-wing nominees in the next few years—but he had a plan: court-stripping. Merely by writing into legislation a clause taking away the court’s jurisdiction, Schlafly asserted, Congress can keep the federal courts (and Americans’ basic rights, apparently) “under its thumb.”

Schlafly said court-stripping would be “essential to the life issue,” complaining that judges have a habit of delaying the enforcement of newly passed abortion restrictions—ones that push the boundaries of reproductive law—while the legality of such laws is being considered. Schlafly encouraged lawmakers to include in such legislation a provision telling courts to take a hike.

When a child is misbehaving with a toy, Schlafly said, “You take the toy away from the child. When the court is abusing its authority, you take that authority away.”

Of course, the judicial branch is not a child, and Congress is not its parent. Simply editing checks and balances out of the picture—like Conservapedia’s creative rewrite of a “biased” democratic encyclopedia—does not actually change reality.

PFAW
Filed under:
Syndicate content