I have written about how one of the most surprising — at least to me — reactions to The No Asshole Rule has been the small, but vehement, group of religious folks who have endorsed the book. Richard Beck over at Experimental Theology has been especially supportive, first writing a post about how he read from The No Asshole Rule in a bible studies class to make the point that the book’s main message was quite similar to the famous 1 Corinthians passage.
Richard ends the post as follows:
So, we reflected on all this in my Sunday School class. And after reflection on the No Asshole Rule, I read these famous words:
Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…
Basically, don’t be an asshole.
I was most interested to see that Richard’s post generated 8 other quite supportive comments, many applauding him for his open-mindedness (I agree heartily). And comments on Richard’s follow-up post suggest that he inspired at least one other person to raise the rule in a bible studies class.
I also had some interesting exchanges with a Presbyterian minister who thanked me for writing the book and reported that, although he didn’t quite think it was appropriate to discuss in a sermon, the problem of "jerks" plagued every congregation that he had worked with, and that he was having one-on-one conversations with people about the book, and its implications for running the church.
In that spirit, someone sent me the above Bizarro cartoon, which shows the "delete button" being pushed at the gates of heaven. The message seems to be that being a believer isn’t enough.
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