 "Photo: Timothy Meinch")
A 14-member congregation will destroy Bibles, books and music despite negative international coverage and thousands of e-mails, Pastor Marc Grizzard said.
“The burning of the perversions of God’s word, which includes the New International Version and the Revised Standard Version and so forth, is a statement that tells the community, ‘This is where we stand on the word of God,’” Grizzard said of his Independent Fundamental Baptist congregation.
The agenda includes preaching, singing, eating fried chicken and burning books and music this Saturday at 7 p.m.
“I don’t have no problem with the Spanish Bible, the French Bible or the Russian Bible as long as it’s based on the textus receptus,” he said.
According to Grizzard, the inspired, infallible word of God for English speakers is the King James Version Bible of 1611. All non-English Bibles will stay far from the flames on Saturday along with the KJV, Geneva, Tyndale and Wycliffe Bibles, all four of which adhere to the textus receptus standard.
A list of “Satan’s music” also appears on the burn list, condemning genres such as country, rock, rap, pop, heavy metal, jazz, southern gospel and contemporary Christian.
“We also stand against heretics, people that preach heresies,” the 42-year-old pastor said.
The pastor’s list of heretics, authors of “Satan’s popular books” that will be destroyed on Saturday, includes: Billy Graham, the Pope, Mother Teresa, Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, James Dobson, John Piper and many other popular theologians, evangelicals and Catholics. Grizzard said just because they are heretics doesn’t mean they will all go to hell.
“I’m not saying that they’re witches or warlocks or satanic people,” he said. “I’m just saying that most of them don’t believe in the KJV for sure, and most of them are off in other doctrines. A lot of them are hooked up with Catholics, and I have a major problem with Catholics. I’ll be honest there.”
Grizzard said Billy Graham is a good person who has helped a lot of people and is saved, but he supports the Catholic faith and other false doctrine.
“I have a problem with Billy Graham because he says that he can no longer say that there is a fire in hell,” he said.
No other local churches currently support the event, according to the pastor of 14 and father of three daughters. Grizzard has received thousands of e-mails and phone calls about the event, many cussing him out with threats toward him and his family and one threatening to burn down the church.
“Most of them say that they’re a Baptist or a Methodist or they’re a Satan worshiper or whoever,” he said. “But most of the meanest ones, to be honest, are from Baptists.”
Grizzard said he decided to just rip up the books instead of burning them after receiving a phone call from a local fireman.
News of the small event appeared in headlines across the nation and did not miss the eyes of local church pastors.
“There is a world of difference between us and that group there. It’s a fortress, isolationist mentality that is retreating from the world and not engaging the world with the gospel,” Pastor Shannon McCready said of the event. “Being a missional church, there are three things we love: We love Jesus and his word, the Bible; we love the church; and we love our culture, the world around us.”
McCready is the pastor of Highland Christian Community, which meets every Sunday morning in the Orange Peel, downtown Asheville’s staple night club and music venue.
“There’s a huge curiosity factor that we’re a church that meets in a night club,” McCready said. “But I think it’s also a statement to say we’re not a church that’s afraid to engage with culture, and we’re not gonna hide from our culture but we’re going to go smack dab in the middle of it.”
Highland is a biblical community centered on Christ, focused on helping outsiders become insiders through discipleship, said 40-year-old McCready. “Anybody is welcome to walk through the doors, and there isn’t a spiritual I.D. check,” he said. “It’s more belong before you believe, which is kind of the idea that St. Patrick had in Ireland.”
McCready said his initial thought was ‘ridiculous, ridiculous,’ when he heard the announcement of a church hosting a Bible burning.
“As a communicator I just struggle with the reaction of these people and it just hurts my heart to hear that,” he said.
A newer Bible translation, the New International Version, helped McCready’s father on a slow journey back to Christ, according to the pastor of the the four-year-old church.
“My dad picked up a Bible that was in the pew at church and opened it up and started reading, because he was bored listening to the preacher,” McCready said with a laugh. “He started reading and looked over at my mother and said, ‘what kind of Bible is this? I understand it.’”
His father grew up reading the KJV Bible and never understood the language, according to McCready.
“Linguistics is a science, it is not a conspiracy. The other translations are not a conspiracy, they are following the principles of linguistics,” said Charles Reed, who started an independent Bible translation project in Africa in 2001.
Reed, an American, has lived in Malawi for 20 years, committed to the holistic development of the Bantu people, advocating and providing spiritual, agricultural and social stability. He is currently undertaking a “meaning-based translation” of the Bible, preserving the oral tradition of the Bantu people.
“There is a sense of some kind of conspiracy to destroying the meaning of scripture,” the 52-year-old Reed said. “The thing is, I’ve met plenty of crooked pastors, but I do Bible translation and I’ve never met a crooked Bible translator.”
Reed, holder of a bachelor’s of international development, applies general communications principles to translating. He said you must consider your audience and culture to accurately convey a message, while maintaining the original meaning, particularly with the Bible.
“The process of refining it, even in minute details, is ongoing,” Reed said. “A relational God intends for ongoing communication. We shouldn’t consider it a static word.”
At the time of King James, scholars thought the New Testament was written in a holy Greek, more elite, lofty language. Yet more recent Greek-manuscript discoveries reveal the New Testament is written in koine Greek, the Greek of the day in plain everyday language, according to Reed. This discovery motivated the translations after the KJV Bible.
“They said, ‘Oh, God inspired the New Testament in everyday person’s Greek, shouldn’t we translate it into everyday English?’” Reed said.
Grizzard said the event is no publicity stunt and was surprised to find the first reporter outside his door. After consenting to that one interview, Grizzard turned away all media attention, including large networks such as Fox, reporters from Great Britain and another from France.
“I didn’t know I was gonna be so popular in this world,” Grizzard said. “If something happens to me and you hear, ‘Hey, that preacher from the interview is dead,’ don’t believe it because I’ll be in heaven and I’ll be walking streets of gold.”
![[Valid RSS]](http://admin2.collegepublisher.com/polopoly/polopoly_fs/1.1170992.1266976362!/image/986050622.png "Validate my RSS feed")
2 comments
The funny thing is, these people do things like this to show how 'Christian' they are... in their own minds of course.
They love to pass judgement on so many others.
Yet, to be Christian, one must be Christ-like.
Jesus said" If any man hears my word and believe not, I judge him not. For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
So how can someone be so ready to pass judgement and still be Christian?
Well that IS the question.... isn't it.
Of course some people will do or say whatever they want to justify their actions, even if it goes against the very thing they say they want to protect.
I find it rather sad and amusing all at the same time.
There is only one judge!! only ONE..and He is GOD
The word of God is not a BOOK , you do not read it as a book...but is living water
As you read it...it flows trough the Holy Spirit to you
No matter the translation..thousands of hours went into this translations to make common people understand it,
And you see...once you start a relationship with God..Then He will let you know!!
I also believe that The King James version is the closest to the original translation, but I am sure..as being a human..that one or two words..just were not translatable from those idioms; So as a humble Sister I read The King James version...and if I get stuck on something...I use the NIV..to relate to the meaning
But neither fills me up more...Than that wonderful relationship with our Father...And in those moments of prayer...after reading the Word...I get it!!!!!!!!! I get the only the one most wonderful translation of His living water!
So..in my humble opinion, You Will Not Show the LOVE of GOD..With this hateful unchristian like Acts.!