It's from the Gospel of St Al the Manbearpig
Posted on 04/25/2008 10:27:41 AM PDT by NYer
Washington DC, Apr 24, 2008 / 10:17 pm (CNA).- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is facing criticism for repeatedly attributing an incorrect quotation to the Book of Isaiah that concerns ministering to creation, Cybercast News Service reports.
The speaker has used the quotation at least five times, often in reference to environmental concerns.
The falsely-attributed quotation most recently appeared in her April 22 Earth Day news release, in which Speaker Pelosi said, “The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature.”
Biblical scholars, however, are at a loss as to the source of Pelosi’s quotation.
John J. Collins, Holmes professor of Old Testament criticism and interpretation at Yale Divinity School, told Cybercast News Service that quotation is “not one that I recognize.”
“I assume that she means this is a paraphrase,” he continued. “But it wouldn't be a close paraphrase to anything I know of."
"The quote does not exist in the Old Testament, neither in the New Testament," said Fr. Andreas Höck, a professor of Scripture who teaches in the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver's St. John Vianney Seminary.
"Even in pieces or bits, [it] cannot be found in the Old Testament," he said.
According to Cybercast News Service, Speaker Pelosi has used the quotation before.
In a December, 2005 message to the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker Pelosi used the quotation after a reference to the prophet Isaiah. Her message read:
"Mr. Speaker, as we leave for this Christmas recess, let us say, 'God bless you' to the American people by voting against this Republican budget and statement of injustice and immorality, and let us not let the special interest goose get fat at the expense of America's children.
"The gentleman from Washington [state], Mr. McDermott, quoted the prophet Isaiah. And as the Bible teaches us, to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship, to ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us. Let us vote no on this budget as an act of worship and for America's children."
Speaker Pelosi has used the same phrase in at least four statements in 2007: in February remarks before the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee’s hearings on global warming; in April in congressional remarks before the Easter recess, in which she attributed the quotation to the Old Testament and advocated the reduction of greenhouse gas pollution; in an April speech to the League of Conservation Voters in Washington, D.C. in which she advocating tackling “one of humanity’s greatest challenges yet—global warming”; and in an October television interview with PBS host Tavis Smiley, in which she said her faith was related to her Democratic values.
Scripture scholars who spoke to Cybercast News Service reflected on whether environmentalism had an explicit scriptural basis.
Mark Goodwin, an associate professor of theology at the University of Dallas, said Pelosi’s use of the quotation was vague.
'To minister to the needs of creation is an act of worship' doesn't sound right to my ears," Goodwin said. "To minister to the needs of creation'- yes, but not as an act of worship. I'm not sure what she meant by that, and if I were there, I would have raised my hand and asked her to clarify that."
Eric Jenislawski, a theology professor at Christendom College in Virginia, said the Bible teaches in Genesis that man was placed on earth “to till it and keep it,” but also instructs mankind “to fill the earth and subdue it.”
“Responsible use of the Old Testament,” Jenislawski said, “cannot divorce the biblical notion of stewardship (that man is obligated to care for God's creation) from the equally important biblical view that the entire natural world was created for man, for him to subdue it and to reign over it.
"Environmentalists who make man subservient to the natural world actually invert the biblical view of man's relationship to the earth," he said.
I am amazed that most politicians have no problem “quoting” the Bible when it is pretty obvious they haven’t bothered to sit down and read it.
Or the “Book of John”
Liberals...
Now they’re making up false “scripture” to support the new liberal “religion”. Talk about buiding your house on sand.
Next thing they’ll be telling us the verses she quoted are “fake but accurate”.
Sheesh...
Not surprising Pelosi can’t get her scripture right.
Give her a break. Catholics are not as good as the Baptists at spouting Bible verses. lol. Yes I am a Catholic and can attest to that. We had neighbors who were Baptists and they practically knew the entire Bible by heart while I was struggling to learn the ten commandments for my Catholic Grade school Religon test the next day. lol.
When you belong to the party of Satan, it isn't surprising that you would get the Bible so wrong.
Of course, I was raised Episcopalian and had my 12-year Sunday School pin, but even in those days Piskies weren't big on Scripture. So maybe it's because I went to a Presbyterian high school where one year of Old Testament and one year of New Testament were required courses? Or maybe because I just like reading the Bible?
Our parish even has Vacation Bible School now!
P.S. Pelousy is an idiot.
"Be sure your sin will find you out."
Isn’t the full title “The Apocalypse of St. John the Divine”?
She probably meant this scripture:
Rom 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their ignorant hearts were darkened.
Rom 1:22 Though claiming to be wise, they became fools Rom 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that looked like mortal human beings, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Rom 1:24 For this reason, God gave them over to impurity to follow the lusts of their hearts and to dishonor their bodies with one another.
Rom 1:25 They exchanged God's truth for a lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Rom 1:26 For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. Even their females exchanged their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural.
Rom 1:27 In the same way, their males also abandoned the natural sexual function of females and burned with lust for one another. Males committed indecent acts with males, and received in themselves the appropriate penalty for their perversion.
Rom 1:28 Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to retain the full knowledge of God, God gave them over to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done.
Rom 1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents,
Rom 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Rom 1:32 Although they know God's just requirement-that those who practice such things deserve to die-they not only do these things but even applaud others who practice them.
I find it interesting that these new pagans, the ones who worship the earth, the creation, the environment, are exactly the ones who generally espouse the other things Paul was referring to.
I understood. I find that those who don’t know the bible, when they quote from John, they say “the book of John”, not “The Gospel According To John.” I gotcha.
That sound you heard was Bible theologians scratching their heads. LOL!
Good one. I’ll have to remember that.
And the rest of us all respond (in chant): "Glory be to Thee, O Lord."
The really hard-core lector then chants the entire Gospel, concluding with, "The Gospel of the Lord."
Whereupon we chant, "Praise be to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ."
. . . at least that's the way hard-core "High Anglicans" (a/k/a Catholic Lite) do it.
Well, most Christians would call it the Gospel of John anyway.
And the call-response is the same even in the bogus ordo, minus the chant, of course.
"A reading from the Gospel according to St. John."
"Glory to you, Lord."
"The Gospel of the Lord."
"Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ."
And it's not fair to call it "bogus ordo." That's ugly (and disobedient). It is a valid and ordinary form of the Roman Rite, and it can be celebrated correctly and reverently, as it is in our parish.
I will grant you that it is more open to abuse by priests and congregations who are inclined to take advantage, but that is not necessarily the case.
And I will grant you in return that Il Papa celebrated it in a most moving and reverential manner on his visit, though I have to say there were still some moments that made me cringe. The new translation can’t come soon enough. It didn’t hurt that they used the Roman Canon though.
In fact, it made me homesick for the parish I was confirmed in... I kind of miss it.
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