A baptist preacher teaching history is like a baptist preacher teaching compassion or sex ed.
hairband "Since when is deception Christian?"
You might be surprised. Samual, Jesus, Lot, Jacob, Rahab, "God put a lying spirit in their mouths", and maybe someone could help me find the bit about the Apostle Paul, supposed father of christianity said that telling a lie to get someone into the fold was just fine to do, because the 'good' outweighed the lie.
Then of course there is all of the other blatant lies of the bible, and the unintentional lies, and partial lies and the...
Jerome is not alone in his candour. Bishop Eusebius, the official propagandist for Constantine, entitles the 32nd Chapter of his 12th Book of Evangelical Preparation:
"How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived."
Eusebius is notoriously the author of a great many falsehoods but then he does warn us in his infamous history:
"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity."
(Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 8, chapter 2).
John Chrysostom, 5th century theologian and erstwhile bishop of Constantinople, is another:
"Do you see the advantage of deceit? ...
For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ...
Here it is, I guess it was Martin Luther, but it's in the same category...
"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."
Martin Luther
Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the tireless zealot for papal authority he was the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) even wrote:
"We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."
And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."
(Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1).
