Barabbas Goes Free

By Erik Rottman

Catholic-ometer: 2.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 3.5 of 5

Today, a change of pace; a children's book about Jesus and Barabbas, and the verdict before Pontius Pilot.  Of course, like most children's books on the subject, it's told in rhyme, but it basically covers all the important points of the actual story of Barabbas in the bible.  In fact, in a way, I was surprised by how much of the tale survived the transition into a children's book.

There is one problem, however, which I simply can't overlook.  On the fifth page of the book, there's a verse about how God's fourth command is to obey the government.  Um...  No, it's not.  The fourth commandment is to honor your father and mother, or in the Orthadox tradition, to keep the sabbath day holy.  At no point does God prescribe broad, sweeping obedience of every government authority as neccesary or holy in the entire bible.

In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5, verse 29, it clearly says that the obligation of Christians is to obey God's commands, over the orders of any human being; including those in positions of authority.

"But Peter and the apostles said in reply, 'We must obey God rather than men.'"
Acts 5:29

I wouldn't make such a big deal of this, except that exercising proper discernment about the morality of government laws and orders is more neccesary now than it's ever been since the days of the roman persecutions of Christians, and since the government runs our schools, we need to be preparing kids to defend themselves from corrupt authority figures at a very early age; not encouraging moral weakness in the face of opposition from oppressive politicians and judges.

Shortly after that, the book also states that those in authority are always "God's sent."  No.  They're not always, and it's niave and dangerous to believe that.  They always have an obligation to carry out God's will, but to suggest that every human authority figure fulfills that obligation, or worse, should be treated as though they do, is just stupid.

This is a grievous mistake for a book like this to make, and it would be enough for me to avoid purchasing it, or reading it to kids.  It's also the reason why I gave it such a relatively crumby score on the Catholic-ometer.  This kind of dissention in the ranks is just something that none of us can afford.