Today tens-of-millions of Americans will tune in and watch the Super Bowl, and it is certain that most observers are football fans who know the rules and the players, but they will be devoutly polarized depending on the team they support, or bet on to win the grand prize. Football fans understand that although the goal is to win the game by adhering to parameters set in stone and enforced by the officials, each team takes a different approach to winning the big game. There is another Sunday activity across America with a similar goal, winning a contest, but like fan polarization and different team tactics to win the big game inherent in the NFL, there are two completely different approaches to Christianity. However, unlike football, one group of Christians is playing by a different set of rules that defy the tenets of the religion and its adherents’ claim to be followers of Christ.

The issue bifurcating Christians is whether or not they follow the teachings of Jesus Christ clearly laid out in the New Testament, or strictly adhere to the set-in-stone edicts in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) based on ancient Jewish law as uttered by god to Moses. The fundamentalist sect of Christians claim the entire Christian bible dictates their lives as followers of Christ, and yet they follow commandments that contradict everything the Messiah taught in sermons, parables, and his examples to his disciples. What boggles the mind is how it is possible to claim one follows Christ’s teachings while practicing everything he condemned and preached against by picking and choosing aspects of the Old Testament that fit a non-inclusive, judgmental, and non-loving agenda that defines anything other than a follower of Christ.