"laestadian, apostolic, gay, lgbtq, ex-oalc, ex-llc, llc, oalc, bunner" LEARNING TO LIVE FREE: May 2011

Friday, May 20, 2011

TV and the KJV

I was reading this short article in the New Yorker, celebrating 400 years of the King James Bible and its contribution to the English language, culture, etc., and was struck by how sometimes "high" and "low" culture intersect on strange topics, for different reasons.

Laestadians will often give different reasons for their King James Onlyism, sometimes tipping a hat to its beautiful language, but of course that is not the reason they insist on it. I've heard people say that the Kings James version was inspired and protected by God in ways that later English versions were not. Many of those same people would be shocked to learn that the original 1611 King James Version contained the apocrypha and also the astrological signs of the Zodiac.

When I was in college I took a class on media and I remember the professor saying, "99% of all households in the United States have at least one television. The other 1% are either college professors or religious fanatics." Having been raised in the 1% of non-college professors, it intrigued me that academic elites and religious fundamentalists would share a rare behavior for different reasons.

What are some other examples of this?