The hero fails the quiz

Nicholas Kristof has been playing games with the Bible.  In his weekend column, Kristof revealed not only his lack of basic reading comprehension but an inexcusable ignorance of concepts like paradox and progressive revelation or the difference between something that is an implicit conclusion to be drawn from a text and an explicit teaching of the text.  

But, of course, Kristof really has no deficit in reading comprehension.  His real problem is with Christianity and its sacred text, the Holy Scriptures.  Kristof is a hero to many who work against anti-trafficking and oppression of women around the world.  But here, as well as in the book Half the Sky, he reveals an agenda that isn't really about liberating women from oppression.  It's about liberating women to certain kinds of waged work in consequence of their liberation from childbearing and homemaking.

Kristof used to have the reputation of being a good journalist, doing stellar work and one able to keep his own beliefs reigned in.  That is no longer the case.  Someone on this blog recently warned me, "you become what you hate".  That certainly seems to be the case with Kristof.  He has become the sort of unthinking, unreflective, uncomprehending reactionary he seems to think orthodox Christians are.

ht: Brian St. Paul