118 thoughts on “Reader Submitted Photos: Monarchs”

  1. That lion’s hair is touching his ears 😛

    OK, so when does the 1769 Authorized Version lion came in and eat this lion?

  2. I just don’t get fundies. Why are they always boasting about the 1611 Authorized Version when that is not the version that they read. If they actually got their hands on a 1611 they would not be able to understand most of it.

    Do they know this and are just being deceitful? Or are they just ignorant in this area?

    1. PS – That was always a question I had. Whether it was about the KJV or anything else that I knew they were wrong on. Are they lying or do they just don’t know. And in either case, it made me ask (myself of course) what else are they lying about or just ignorant about?

    2. I think it’s willful ignorance. My dad would use “fundy logic” (previously covered on this site) to shut down anyone who tried to challenge him on his AV1611 love so he wouldn’t have to face anything he might not like to hear.

      1. MrsSarahN – I completely agree with your comment – but could you please get another gravatar picture, your shoulders are exposed.

        1. I’m 99% sure this is satire, and brilliant at that if so. I’m getting a good laugh. Just think of all the fundy marriages she’s breaking up!

    3. Don’t forget that the original had the Apocrypha. If they wanted to be true to the 1611 title, I could get up there and ask them to turn to 2 Maccabees 1:28-30 – “28 Punish them that oppress us, and with pride do us wrong. 29 Plant thy people again in thy holy place, as Moses hath spoken. 30 And the priests sung psalms of thanksgiving. (2Ma 1:28-30 KJA)” I think that would make for a great sermon! 😉

  3. I love the books the lion is tearing up. A.T. Robertson. Nothing is more dangerous to the church than an outdated 1000 page grammar textbook, right?

  4. This is a great metaphor on how fundies focus on The Bookâ„¢ rather than getting to really know the author.

      1. Actually, I disagree on that one. We come to know God more fully through prayer and through forming relationships with others, who bear the image of God. If we do nothing but lock ourselves away with the Bible all the time, we’re missing out on fully knowing God.

        1. ‘Focus’ as it were must be in all of those places. Prayer and fellowship that aren’t informed by scripture lead to something quite different than a fuller knowledge of God. Can’t have one without the other.

        1. @TonyMel – Absolutely true. It was this precious Word that finally got me moving out of fundyism.

          @I should be working – (Prayer and fellowship that aren’t informed by scripture lead to something quite different than a fuller knowledge of God. Can’t have one without the other.)

          You guys are singing my song. This top-down authority system in religions circles (not just fundyism) leads to all types of foolishness. That Word is what really matters. If your “Authority” sticks close to that Word, good for you, but guess what? He or she is bound to screw up sooner or later, and that’s when you or me or the deacon board or someone goes to that “leader” and explains to him/her how they have gone off the tracks. If they are sensitive to the Holy Spirit they will listen if not, they may have a meeting to discourage your independent thinking, it was said of me after I left, that I really liked an argument.

    1. And the kind that Cheney and Bush did run for eight years.

      (I know I’ll get flamed for that, but it has to be said.)

        1. Bush Years – down the memory hole!

          Although Bush didn’t come close to theocracy, it’s strange that Cheney, and especially Rove were considered Evangelical Christians by association.

      2. Under Bush, I had a job. Under Obama, I lost it. Where’s all the great change he was promising us? Oh yeah. America’s situation has changed–for the WORSE, but that is STILL change!

        Yeah, I had to say that, too.

        3. Rose, remember: Obama said “change.” He just did not say what kind of change. Change can be good and it can be bad. Few asked which “change” he had in mind. 🙁

    2. @Greg “They love that selective memory.”

      One reason I’m not a Conservative is that they often lack imagination. Taking my words and reworking them. I’m aware that I appropriated from George Orwell, so I know that originality is relative, but you turned this into an “I’m rubber, you’re glue . . .” argument.

      I don’t have a broken narrative, of the last three years, in my head, and you respond with a dose of Freudian projection.

      Forget about it, politics has become a “Rah! Rah! Go Team!” type of thing.

      1. Aaron – I would love to respond but my imagination isn’t working right now, as a matter of fact I’m really lacking in imagination.

        I’ll give you credit, that is one “novel” comment!

  7. John 3:16 KJV 1611

    For God so loued ye world, that he gaue his only begotten Sonne: that whosoeuer beleeueth in him, should not perish, but haue euerlasting life.

    2. It ocurred to me that I should homeschool in this language so my kids can read this excellent and never-to-be-changed or challeneged text. Forget modern spellings . . . we’ve gotta get back to this Olde Path.

    4. 2 Corinthians 6:11-13

      “O ye Corinthians our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same. (I speak as unto my children.)be ye also enlarged.”

      And that’s the 1769 version.

      1. … Paul wants to enlarge our bowels?
        Were the Corinthians constipated?

        I think I’ll go back to the NRSV.

        1. I think that’s what “straitened in your bowels” means. I was a bit straitened in my bowls until I had a colonoscopy and got the problem fixed. :mrgreen:

  8. My non-fundie Baptist preacher friend warns people about Bibliolatry. He is concerned that people will worship the Bible and relegate God to second place in their lives.

    1. Many seem to have sermons, doctrines, and conferences about the Bible, rather than about what the Bible actually says (in context) and how to live that out.

  9. Umm…is there a book in there titled, “English”?

    That’s strange. Dated or not.

    @Morgan – “Bibliolatry” is a very real and scary thing. The physical text replaces the Holy Spirit in the Triune Godhead. Seriously, John 1:1 and all…

    1. That is an excellent point. I didn’t realize until recently how I used “Word of God” to refer to the Bible, but it’s actually Jesus.

    2. yup, have heard John 1 used in this way – “literal, historical, grammatical” seems obvious, what did it mean to the guy who wrote it. Yet it seems that deciding when to interpret the Word literally or figuratively in order to shore up their own applications and interpretations in spite of the obvious context of a passage is something fundies definitely like.

    1. What’s so offensive about Aristole or Plato? What did Einstein do to get put in the pile (being a Jewish agnostic maybe?)? And what do fundies have against the Vulgate? Don’t they know that the Douay-Rheims actually predates the KJV? But it was Catholic, so I guess it doesn’t count.

    3. I could imagine them hating Mark Twain, who was an outspoken satirist against religion, but I don’t recall Dickens as being any particular sort of “threat” – and certainly not Tolstoy – unless it’s just that they wrote fiction. Some extremists think fiction is sinful because it violates Phil. 4:8 about thinking on that which is true.

      Are they wanting the lion to rip into Tolstoy just because he’s Russian?

      1. I’ve heard Fundies rip on Dickens because A Christmas Carol features ghosts and suggests a purgatorial existence immediately after death. Tolstoy was actually a huge philosophical figure at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries who advocated an ascetic, strictly pacifist, vegetarian, sexually abstinent, lower-case-C communist Christianity.

        1. So THAT was it! I’m just amazed because there really are dangerous philosophies out there, and it seems silly to choose Dickens to attack. But Dickens is well-known, thus an easy target. Still it seems to reinforce my idea that fundies shrink back from the front-line of battle, instead hiding in their own little bunkers and sniping at OTHER PEOPLE on their own side instead of actually engaging with the enemy.

        3. And my theory was going to be, they don’t like A Christmas Carol because it violates the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Even if ’twere possible for a dead Jacob Marley to return and tell Scrooge how horrible his punishment in Hell/Pergatory/Paradise/Sheol/Hades/Limbo was, he would not have listened since he apparently didn’t listen to the prophets.

          Ok, its a stretch, but I have heard sermons with less connection to their foundational texts.

        4. Capt. Solo, that’s actually an astute observation. “A Christmas Carol” is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, retold with a happy ending. Arguably blasphemus.

  12. There is sort of an odd disconnect with both of those topics. Funny when you think about it.

    I noticed Einstein, Darwin, and Emerson. Hell hath no fury…

  15. That lion seems bent on destroying other Bible versions, because that’s just what God intended with the “Second Immaculate Conception” in the form of the Authorized 1611 King James Bible.

      1. No, because those other versions aren’t actually the Word of God, dontcha know?

        *grrrr!* 👿

  16. Out here in Touchet (tooshie) WA there is a little IFB cult…errr…church and they run about 20 people, but there are two billboards in the little town because it’s a few miles from Walla Walla. The pastor would always rent one of those huge billboards and one time when I drove through, that exact picture was up on this giant billboard in this town of 150 people. Too funny.

    1. Mike Paulson. He isn’t a Baptist. He doesn’t baptize at all. He refers to himself as a “right divider” or a “grace believer” or “Pauline dispensationalist”. He used to be baptist though.

    2. I live in the Tri-Cities and used to drive through Touchet several times a year on my way to Walla Walla. I remember those billboards…I think they usually had something about KJV 1611 on them. I must have missed this one, though.

        1. I attended Bethel (Conservative Baptist denom.) for most of my life. We (my wife and I) left recently (on good terms, mostly) and are becoming a part of a small church that meets in a home. Our heart is to be planting small reproducible churches, but we’re not there yet.

  17. I think it so hilarious that they build the KJV translators up to be just under Jesus for holiness, btw they were pretty sharp, but if you read the “Translators to the Readers” which was also for many years printed with the KJV (wish it still was) They say that “a variety of translations is profitable for finding out the sense of the scripture”

    How many sermons have we heard about them vile Catholics “sprinkling” babies, when all but one of the KJV translators were Anglican! Speaking of catholics, they have a catholic priest (Erasmus) to thank for providing them with their new testament, he remained a faithful catholic til his dying day.

    I believe the KJV is a fine translation in 17th century shakespearean english. I just have a hard time understanding it.

    1. I got very tired of hearing how holy and godly the KJV translators were; how do we really know that all these centuries later? They were just men – yes, wise, educated, and dedicated, but sinners none-the-less. The way some KJVO folks hold them up like they were a special tribe of supersaints is annoying.

      I love the KJV, but there are passages that are beautiful more than meaningful. I like reading many versions. And, BTW, Proverbs REALLY comes to life when translated in today’s English.

      1. Well, we do at least know that their particular moral proclivities were more well hidden than say, those of the NIV translators…come to think of it, that in and of itself makes them more godly to fundies

    2. I’ve always wondered about that disconnect between idolization of the KJV and the fact that its origins were Catholic and Anglican.

      Moreover, the same people who so fervently embrace the KJV would be HORRIFIED at the thought of using the Book of Common Prayer. Vain repetition, y’know.
      😉

    1. No! Here’s an interesting quote from C. S. Lewis that really resonated with me when I read it:

      “We must sometimes get away from the Authorized Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear, but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity, the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed, and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame, or struck dumb with terror, or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations.”

      1. do your remember the citation for that quote? that’s one I’d like to add to the archives…

        1. I’ll get back to you on that. I’m going to try to find it! I just grabbed it off a quote site, but I know I read it in the original source before.

        2. I found it!! The quote is from “God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics” by C. S. Lewis, ed. by Walter Hooper in Part 2, chapter 10 entitled “Modern Translations of the Bible.”

          It adds, “This essay was originally published as an Introduction to J. B. Phillips’ ‘Letters to Young Churches: A Translation of the New Testament Epistles’ (London, 1947)”

      3. Yeah, I remember a few of those times when I read passages in the NIV that had been so beautiful to me in the KJ and I finally saw the arrow sink deep into my chest and realized it was talking about me!!!

        C.S. Lewis’ writings has had that effect too. Sometimes the well aimed dart goes oft astray (or you don’t feel the pain because the craftsmanship of the arrow is so good)

        “Message for you, Sir!”

        1. Yeah, I thought you were, but I couldn’t pass up on a chance to talk about Narnia and C. S. Lewis!

  20. No monarchs for me. I’m for a republic, all the way. In other words, I won’t be attending the upcoming Royal Wedding.

  21. Am I wrong or is the book to the left of the A.T. Robertson book simply called “English”? Why would the “standard for English speaking peoples” be tearing up a book called “English”?

  22. Has anyone ever hear any fundies say “We don’t use any Perversions in this church”(referring to every other version of the Bible then the KJV). I guess we should be happy they are using words higher then two syllables but come on! Perversions? The only perversion going on is their willingness to be ignorant of the Bible and where it came from. There is a song that’s popular about this topic and I think it would be great background music for the picture. It’s a remix of a Beatles song “Yellow Submarine”, i think its called, “We all read from the KJV”

    1. Yes, I have heard that. Often. “Those other so-called bibles, small b, are perversions just like the queers!”

      Yes, “small b” and “small g” for “god” were part of his regular sermon speech.

    1. Yes indeed, found Doug Kutilek some years ago, even e-mailed him a time or two, I wish I had known about him earlier. KJVOnly.org is a fantastic site! Highly Recommend.

    2. You know some letters or official complaints have been lodged with his Domain Name Registrar – the onLIES have to be PO’d that he owns that one. Its just not right!

    4. The “unbound” Word of God–I’m so glad he brought that to my attention!!! However, now I face a real dilemma. As he stated, I must have the Bible written on a scroll, so that it will not be bound. Yet, verily, the entire Bible written on a scroll will be a very cumbersome thing to carry around with me. Especially since the scroll cannot be bound either. Even very small Gothic font will make the scroll quite large. I thought of separating out the Old Testament from the New Testament and putting them on different scrolls, but I am still tripping over the sacred “pages” as I carry them around with me. In this case, is it OK to put each book of the Bible on a separate scroll? Would that be what the Bible means by “rightly dividing”? And even then, what do I do about Psalms?

  26. It’s interesting that the picture reads, “Turn him loose! He can take care of himself!” Yet the fundies spend so much time defending the KJV and attacking other translations.

      1. The 2009 burning amounted to them playing “Good Southern Gospel music” and tearing up books and putting them in a garbage can. You never see anything but from their shoulders down as they tear the books and break the cd jackets. really rather pathetic. Tearing up a “Living New Testament” claiming it all was a lie. Think about that statement and if you don’t understand what he actually said ask me and I’ll explain it…

    2. “we are not encouraging any church or individual to break their state laws and act stupid”

      Too late!

  28. Darren – Never have two good men of God been so slandered by the kjvonly’s.

    Wescott and Hort gave the world a very good new testament, which was published in 1881.

    What is so funny or pathetic is that none of our current modern translations are based on their work. The NIV, NAS, NKJV are all based on the Nestle/Aland text (1st edition,1898, 27th edition 1993)

    So when that MOG, gets out his Gail Riplinger/Peter Ruckman/Samuel Gipp notes behind the pulpit, watch out comedy hour is coming.

  29. Someone tried to tell me that the ESV was an inferior translation to the King James.

    Apparently the King James uses a better greek manuscript than the ESV.

    I nearly punched that person in the face.

    Oh lord, where to begin on reasons to not use the KJV?

  30. Okay–this is awesome LOL!! I have seen this before. The church I grew up in distributed these in the early 1970’s when Peter Ruckman came to preach. I don’t know if he drew the picture, but that’s where my family got theirs. Bet I know which loyal reader sent this!! HA!

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