“Rather Jesus represented the way of non-violence and even anti-violence. He represented the way of love – not of force or brute power. He opposed the Myth of Redemptive Violence and turned it on its head. In his death, he was not satisfying the demands of a vengeful God for a violent sacrifice to restore order. Rather he was taking upon himself all the violence of the world system, of us, in order that it and we might be healed, redeemed, saved from the otherwise endless cycle of violence and revenge."The cross of Christ and the Myth of Redemptive Violence ☀

'A lot of interpretive decisions were made for you before you picked up Romans. Ignoring verse divisions, chapter divisions, and paragraph breaks created by committees is one way to begin taking Romans back. Trying, as best we can, to read Romans as its original recipients would is the key. Knowing a bit about Greek style in writing rhetoric is indispensable. Forgetting caricatures of Judaism drawn from unbalanced reading of Jesus’ criticisms of some Pharisees in his time should be a prerequisite. And it might be worth supposing, from what we know of Gentile god-fearers in the first century, that the Gentile readers of the letter to the Romans respected Jewish teaching. It might be further worth supposing that Paul saw himself as a better Jewish teacher than any they might be getting advice from.”
—   How Your Bible Christianizes Paul, via azspot.net as well

Manifest Destiny Is Unbiblical, Unjust

“Manifest Destiny became a commonly held ideology in the early 19th century and was the belief that the United States had a God-given right to aggressively spread values of white civilization across the land mass of the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It wreaked havoc on creation and entire communities of indigenous Americans including the Five Civilized Tribes, who were forcibly removed or annihilated based on the assumption that they were an impediment to God’s purposes being realized. Manifest Destiny justified the conquering of the indigenous peoples of Texas, New Mexico, California, and other parts of the Southwest; and the inclusion of the Oregon territory in the United States. Christians must confess the many ways we have contributed to this tragic history by acknowledging and repenting of our sins. We need to repent of our attitudes about the divine right of conquest, white supremacy, ethnic superiority, Manifest Destiny, the pursuit of wealth, and the brutalization, domination, and murder of thousands of Native people who have lived before us." Mae Elise Cannon ☀

America Is Not A Christian Nation

“Instead of preaching a gospel of self-sacrifice and generosity, right-wing Christians support the mega-wealthy who yearn to stifle democracy and move us further toward plutocracy: Keep the riffraff from voting. Keep alternative views out. Live in the bubble of like-minded people, not the marketplace of ideas and diversity where Jesus lived. Instead of proclaiming confidence in God’s care, they push fear: fear of immigrants, fear of the dark-skinned, fear of Islam, fear of Ebola, fear of education, fear of honesty, fear of the poor, fear of gays and lesbians, fear of women, fear of the gospel that Jesus actually proclaimed."


America Isn’t a ‘Christian Nation,’ and Never Has Been ☀

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