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It’s been pretty chilly lately, hasn’t it Warriors? While many of us will be keeping warm this October by bundling up and stoking our inner fire through our yoga practice, the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina will be warming up parishioners with a good ol’ fashioned book burning this Halloween.

This won’t be your run of the mill book burning however. Pastor Marc Grizzard is calling on his community to burn all bibles except the King James version which he refers to as the “preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God.” Grizzard went on to explain that all other versions including the New Revised Bible, New International Version Bible, The Message Bible, The Living Bible, and seven other versions are “satanic” and “perversions.”

“We believe the King James Version for english speaking people is God’s holy word, ” Grizzard told Asheville TV station WLOS.

He later added, “A lot of different authors we consider heretics, such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren, the list goes on and on.”

It certainly does, Pastor Grizzard.

Other “heretics” slated for burning according to the church website include T.D. Jakes, James Dobson, Oral Roberts and Mother Teresa.

Now I don’t know about you but when I hear something like this, my first instinct is usually to get pissed off and act out. Upon hearing the story of Amazing (dis)Grace Church, I wanted to “get all up in there” and beat some ignorant ass. But nowadays the slightly cooler head which sits atop my yoga heart prevails. It doesn’t mean I do nothing though, as I can be a wordy cuss when I wanna be. So I wrote Pastor Grizzard this letter:

Dear Shithead,

(Stupid I know considering that in the off chance he did start reading this, I probably lost him right there)

Thanks for clearing up the fact that the King James Bible is in your words the “infallible word of God.” That is great information for everyone living in the 21st century, and good news for everyone who has lived during the last four. While I am tremendously relieved that God finally chose the year of 1611 to clear up any misconceptions about “His Word,” it does tickle my brain a little to wonder why he waited so long to do it.

Since you clearly have all the answers, could you shed some light as to why our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator waited until after the passing of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 to inspire the correct translation? I suspect a question like that may induce a finger down your throat and vomit answer, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Mysterious indeed.

What I find far more mysterious than the nature of God, is the nature of a man like you who claims the absolute authority on the inerrant word of our creator.

What you may consider doing with your congregation is playing the old game called telephone. Remember how to play? Pick your favorite verse from the bible (King James I’m guessing) and whisper it into the ear of someone. They whisper it into the ear of the next person, and so on and so on. Since as I understand it, you have a congregation in total of exactly 14 parishioners, it shouldn’t take too long. While I am not a gambling man, (it is a sin after all) I would be willing to bet that the last person whispers back to you something quite different than what you started off with. How mysterious!

Still more curious is how you missed the preface of the King James Bible, where the 54 translators selected by the king wrote a few words expressing how they felt about the work they were doing.

“Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,…but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against, that hath been our endeavor.”

It sounds to me like they were expressing a fair measure of humility in translating The Word, which makes your hubris all the more distasteful. You may also be interested in noting that of the previous translations from Greek to the Kings English, they wrote;

“We are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry’s time, or King Edward’s…or Queen Elizabeth’s of ever renowned memory, that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his Church, and that they deserve to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance.”

That’s strange. The men you respect so much as the authority on all matters of faith weren’t big on condemnation, yet you wave it with greater zeal than a Steeler fan waves a terrible towel. My question is this pastor. Any advances in our understanding of the Christian Bible stopped 400 years ago? Do you cling also to 400 year old medical advise? Do you use leeches to suck blood from your body when you are sick, condemning cold medicine as the work of Satan?

You are not a man of faith Mr. Grizzard. You have a decided lack of it, because you do not trust your creator to have endowed everyone on the planet with the spirit, power and intellect to interpret their own path to God.

Have fun at your satanic book burning pastor! Be sure to toss in any Oscar Wilde you come across before anyone reads where he wrote, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

Best,
Scott Anderson

P.S. I do yoga every day and think that Mother Teresa was a bad ass, so I hope you will pray for me.

…and not to be an instigator or anything, but if want it, Pastor Grizzard’s email address is: jonmarcgrizzard@aol.com