Quote:
ATLANTA (BP)--To restore their prophetic voice in the culture, Baptists must reject "narrow" interpretations of Scripture and oppose both the Iraq war and President Bush's tax cuts, plenary session speakers said Jan. 31 at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta.

Quote:
Novelist John Grisham said it is time for Baptists to stop reading the Bible with so-called narrow literalness and celebrate diversity.

He criticized the Baptist church he attended during his youth for taking what he said was an inconsistent and intolerant approach to Scripture.

"In the Baptist church of my youth we were taught that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God -- every word is divinely inspired and it is to be read literally," Grisham said. "It just dropped out of heaven. Five thousand years ago God made the earth in six days, 144 hours. Then He rested on the Sabbath, which is really on Saturday but we're not going to start that debate. Methuselah lived to be a [thousand], and when Paul wrote that women should be submissive, that was the literal interpretation. It was the law.

http://www.baptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?id=27309



Grisham speaks

Quote:
The meeting also heard from well-known author, John Grisham.

Baptist Press reports he criticized the Southern Baptist church where he grew up for teaching that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God. According to the BP article, Grisham called churches holding such beliefs intolerant and harmful to the cause of Christ. " The church was proudly intolerant of other people, other denominations, other religions," Grisham said. "Sadly, in many ways and in many places, that church still exists today."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=66257

Sad - but if you have read some of his novels, you would probably see he is getting more liberal as time goes on, more swearing and suggestiveness. In fact, some of his latest novels no longer have clear cut good and bad guys. One of them had corrupt lawyers (who were imprisoned) trying to blackmail a gay guy who was running for President. I liked some of his earlier novels as a younger believer - but when I reread a couple a few years ago, I realized that they were not as clean as I remembered - in fact, I had a hard time reading them a second time around.

If you do a search of his bio, you will also find he was the co-writer of Cujo, a horror novel by Steven King - though only King put his name on the novel because Grisham was not an established writer yet. So his writing career started off wrong, seemed to go good for awhile, but now is bordering on immorality and more and more offensive.