Non-scriptural Handwriting #SOLSC24 29/31

A ten-hour drive in a rickety van that occasionally broke down during trips to college debate tournaments necessitated finding ways to entertain ourselves in the late 1970s and early 1980s before smartphones or even iPods were part of Steve Jobs’s imagination.

We performed van olympics, rewrote hymns, practiced our speeches, did homework occasionally, and composed NON-SCRIPTURAL HANDWRITING.

I offer this glimpse into a coed’s life at a Southern Baptist liberal arts college during an era that emphasized liberal arts and critical thinking.

We had fun making fun of ourselves and our theology. For example, we sang the hymn “Jesus Paid It All” as Jesus paid it all, so why should I tithe?

We sang the hymn “Love Lifted Me” as I was sinking deep in sin. Weee!

During my undergrad years I was into Christian humor, so I loved writing non-scriptural handwriting, notes we composed on yellow legal pad and smashed onto the van’s side and back windows as communications with passing vehicles, those next to us at stop lights, and those following behind us. Our notes were harmless, although I don’t recall the specifics of them. I do remember smiles, waves, and thumbs up responses, as well as an occasional scowl.

Fast forward to this holy week and a different kind of non-scriptural handwriting, Donald Trump’s latest grift, selling bibles. You’re probably already familiar with Orangey’s new money-making scheme and his so-called “God Bless the USA Bible” that features Lee Greenwood’s non-scriptural pseudo-patriotic song popular among the MAGA crowd.

The Trump bible includes several documents Trump knows little about and likely hasn’t read: The Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

I can think of three reasons the Trump bible is the KJV version: It’s the only one Trump has heard of. Trump has seen it in hotel rooms where the Gideons leave them. The KJV bible isn’t subject to copyright laws, so more money for TFG.

No way has Trump read the KJV bible. That would be akin to him reading all of Shakespeare’s plays, also penned during King James’s day.

Frankly, there’s nothing scriptural about Trump’s reference to two Corinthians, his holding a bible upside down in Lafayette Park, or the royalty he’ll collect from the rubes who pay $59.99 for a bible they can download and read for free. They could also easily steal one from a hotel room and read it. All would be preferable to sending the so-called billionaire money.

During his brief lifetime Jesus wanted nothing to do with money changers in the temple. He threw them out into the street. The KJV version of Matthew 21: 12-13 reads:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

If Jesus had such a strong reaction toward the non-scriptural practices of the BCE grifters, imagine the Lord’s response to the likes of Donald J. Trump defiling God’s holy word with his non-scriptural money-making scheme in the name of all that is holy this holy week.

As this community knows, I don’t attend church, but I do have faith. These days I find myself listening to Rev. Benjamin Cremer:

I also wrote a poem expressing my outrage at Trump’s latest grift:

Georgia O’Keefe’s ‘Black Cross with Red Sky. I took the photo in 2022 at the O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe