LINK The REAL Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel
If these fourteen men (who wrote the document) were being at all honest with themselves and with us, here’s the real statement that they’d have made this week:
We are terrified.
We are afraid of gay people and Transgender people and brown people and Muslims—in a time when others are rapidly abandoning such fear.
We are white, Conservative, old men, and we realize that we are rapidly dying dinosaurs approaching extinction.
We see the culture becoming more intelligent, more scientifically aware, more connected across faith traditions and borders, and far less willing to be dictated to by white, Conservative, old men—and we are panicking.
We’ve made our bed politically with a man who is antithetical to every word and deed of the life of Jesus in the Gospels, and since we can’t change him or risk severing those ties now—our only option is to rewrite the Jesus story; to retrofit him to the monster we’ve created.
We want a Christianity that secures our privilege, that hordes our power, that doesn’t require us to be at all confronted or inconvenienced by Jesus.
We will do anything to resist equality, curb diversity, and keep marginalized people where they are—even betray the very heart of the Gospels.
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8 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The traditional fundamentalists calling out their brethren on this are about as influential now as "traditional" or "principled" Republicans. There will be some eloquent, high-profile defections from both groups, but they will not stop the juggernaut. Pandora is out of her box, I'm afraid. This dumpster fire is going to have to burn itself out, hopefully without consuming us all.
mordant
Level 8
Sep 16, 2018
2
I'll agree with that piece except insofar as, Jesus probably didn't actually say most of the things he's supposed to have said. The "books" (manuscripts) were cobbled together decades later by men who most likely never met Jesus (who possibly never lived anyway) and are at best heavily fictitious, if not completely so. There was no concept of documentation as we know it, and the legends of Jesus passed on by word of mouth were conflated with the prophecies of the Torah so that Jesus would qualify as the Jewish Messiah. The fact that he was born in two different places, depending on which book is read, is uniformly overlooked by Christians.
But, yeah, the philosophy is pretty good at times. Jesus was way cool.
Paul4747
Level 8
Sep 16, 2018
2
I agree with every word except where they are all terrified old me. In truth they are those that willfully go along with the terrified old men because they do not want to see changes in their religion or power structure. This means they are NOT rapidly dying dinosaurs approaching extinction. They are a fearful group that wants to have America as a Christian Nation and they believe everything else should go into extinction. They will sell, prostitute, or otherwise change their Jesus to get there. Their "Christianity" will indeed secure their white privilege.
I hate them with a passion. The earth is a big box of crayons. We are all of the colors inside that box. The powers that be do not give a damn about Democracy. The rich will still be rich even in a Fascist regime.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Sep 15, 2018
4
Exactly. There's a subset of the terrorized, and I'd argue that fear is a strong undercurrent regardless. But there are those who positively revel in otherizing and tribalizing, and there are those who will thrive even under totalitarianism (or at least think that they will). They are happy to throw anyone and anything under the bus, including civil society and representative democracy, in the service of having things their way.
All about power, control of people, & their cash.
Lilac-JadeCanada
Level 9
Sep 15, 2018
4
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