LIFE

Talking Faith | Answers to your questions

Mansfield News Journal
Trump Clinton

It's fun to read feedback each week on my Talking Faith column. I wanted to use this week's column to answer some questions that come up.

Trump vs. Clinton

I've written about the upcoming presidential election several times already. I've written about how God doesn't care about political parties and how we should keep politics out of churches.

But since this is a bitter election, various people have asked if I favor one candidate over another in my columns.

Simple answer: I don't.

The truth is I haven't decided who I'm voting for in November. Each candidate doesn't really bring much to the table for me.

Another mentioned that politics and religion should have a link. I think we should care about the people seeking office, but churches are for worshiping God and bringing others to Him, not discussion of political parties — no matter who they may be.

But either way, I firmly believe that God doesn't care about political parties, Republican or Democrat.

Sword drills and Bible apps

Several weeks ago, I wrote about my struggles with Sword Drills and how Bible apps are taking over carrying your Bible to church.

I got a really interesting response from Craig Rairdin, the author of PocketBible, a Bible app.

"As the author of PocketBible, I'm with you 100 percent," he wrote in the email. "However, I worry that the ease that apps like PocketBible bring to finding your way around the Bible will feed the concept of the Bible as a database of pithy sayings as opposed to a living book, rich with history, stories, and theological teaching that helps us come to know God personally.

"It concerns me when people ask us to display the books of the Bible in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the book they want. I wonder how you could not know that "1 Corinthians" is in the New Testament and that "1 Chronicles" is in the Old; how putting the books in alphabetical order is going to help you remember that 1 Corinthians is an epistle, not one of the Gospels; and that it was written by Paul. You can figure all this out from where it appears in the canon, but you lose it when you're looking at a sterile, alphabetical list. In all fairness, sword drills promote the same idea — that the Bible is a collection of disconnected sayings and that being able to find one of those aphorisms quickly is a virtue.

"I'm more impressed with the missionary who led our campus Bible study group who could walk through the Bible and tell you the subject matter of each chapter from memory. I'm sure she could find Hezekiah 3:16 faster than anyone else in the room, but that wasn't as impressive as what she just knew from actually reading the text. (Using a paper Bible no less.)

"I hope this helps the Old Guard understand that those of us who are staring at our smartphones during the sermon are probably not only following along, but are cross-referencing, reviewing maps for geographical context, and looking up the original language meanings of words. And yes, figuring out very quickly that Hezekiah 3:16 is not a verse in the Bible."

I agree with Rairdin here. My focus is leading people to the Bible is the most important thing, no matter how you get there.

Chris Pugh is a web producer and a faith columnist for the Media Network of Central Ohio. Have a question or story idea for him? You can connect with him at clpugh@gannett.com, Facebook at Chris Pugh - Journalist or on Twitter@CPugh_Gannett.