A Loving God in the Hands of Angry Sinners

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I've become increasingly progressive and liberal NOT because I read a lot of liberal, anti-conservative material, but because I was raised within, listen to and read the arguments of extreme conservative white Christians. (And I need to cite specifically "white Christians" because conservative black Christians often don't hold to the same theology as conservative white Christians).

Take the "sin nature" of humanity. These conservatives assure me we are all - ALL of humanity, right down to our newborns! - evil humans intent on rebellion against all that is good and decent and of God.

I don't think they understand how shocking a claim this is to a large portion of humanity - that even newborn babies are not innocent of sin, of having a "sin nature," and that this "sin nature" is so bad, so evil, that even newborns are "deserving" of an eternity of torture for having this "sin nature."

Now, most of them, I believe, will hedge their bets and say that God will probably give a pass to babies and children up to a certain age, not because their "sin nature" isn't deserving of an eternity of torture, but because, they are guessing, that they haven't reached an age where they can make reasonable decisions not to commit these awful sins that come from this "sin nature."

I ask them regularly what they mean by "sin nature..." and never get much of an answer.

Are they saying that these newborn babies are imperfect humans who, given a chance to grow up, will make mistakes and "sin," and do wrong in numerous ways? Of course, that comes with being imperfect humans.

But what specifically are these infants doing - or going to do - that is SO heinous, SO evil that it deserves to be punished with an eternity of torture?

Or what about these conservatives, themselves. What have they done, specifically, that is so evil that the only reasonable punishment is an eternity of torture? Not merely rebukes or temporal punishments for the typical "crimes" of humanity - the being jealous, being greedy, telling a lie, telling 1,000 lies, lusting after a man or a woman... - that the ONLY possible punishment for it is an eternity of torture, something akin to being burned alive forever??!!

I ask and get no answers.

Or the answers, when I get them, are vague and unsupported and frankly, a bit irrational. "You're committing 'cosmic treason' against God almighty!"

"Cosmic treason??" What's that?

Ultra-conservative RC Sproul says in an essay on "cosmic treason..."

“The sinfulness of sin” sounds like a vacuous redundancy that adds no information to the subject under discussion."

And he's not wrong. It DOES sound like a vacuous redundancy. He goes on with this nonsense.

What I meant by that statement was that even the slightest sin that a creature commits against his Creator does violence to the Creator’s holiness, His glory, and His righteousness. Every sin, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is an act of rebellion against the sovereign God who reigns and rules over us and as such is an act of treason against the cosmic King.

Fine. But says who? Where is the support for this nonsense?

Does he know EVEN ONE PERSON - much less proof that it's common amongst humanity - that is deliberately "rebelling against the sovereign God..."? I mean, I'm a fallen, imperfect human just as we all are, and I know a good number of fallen imperfect humans... but I've never met one person who has said anything to suggest that they are deliberately wanting to do evil, or deliberately wanting to rebel against a sovereign God. Where is the evidence for this?

I just don't see it and they never provide it.

I then have often asked, "What about you? Your children and family? What specifically have they done where they said, in effect, 'I want to spit in the eye of God and commit atrocious crimes that cause harm to people and the world and to God...'?"

Again, I get no answers, no response.

Maybe it's the case that I just know a better class of people - fallen, though we all may be. I just don't know anyone like this. I can't imagine what it is that I or the people that I've known throughout the years that is SO evil, SO atrocious that the only apt punishment is an eternity of torture, of being burned alive, forever.

And when I repeatedly get no answers from the conservatives that I grew up with, the conservatives I know now... I have to think that they simply have no answers.

They believe that newborn babies are guilty of having a "sin nature," and that "sin nature" ought to reasonably be punished with an eternity of torture... even though they have no proof of this. They believe that people - themselves included - regularly, naturally engage in cosmic treason, deliberate acts of spitting in the face of God and saying, "I WANT TO REBEL AND DO EVIL..." even though they can't even point to one thing that they've done that supports this crazy-sounding claim.

What do we do with that?

The God of the Oppressed in the Bible

God made it clear that God sided with the poor and oppressed and marginalized throughout the Bible, if the authors of the Bible can be trusted. A small sampling...

Deuteronomy:

But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor.
Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and
the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression.

Judges:

I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you
from the hand of all your oppressors;
I drove them out before you and gave you their land.

2 Samuel:

And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that
they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.
Wicked people will not oppress them anymore...

1 Chronicles:

[God speaking] they [Israel] wandered from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another.
God allowed no one to oppress them;
for their sake he rebuked kings:
“Do not touch my anointed ones;
do my prophets no harm.”

Nehemiah:

when they were oppressed they cried out to you.
From heaven you heard them, and
in your great compassion you gave them deliverers,
who rescued them from the hand of their enemies.

Job:

For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute;
he has seized houses he did not build.
“Surely he will have no respite from his craving;
he cannot save himself by his treasure.

Psalms:

The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

Psalms:

You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.

More Psalms:

May God defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy;
may God crush the oppressor.

More Psalms, this time apparently speaking directly to the GOP leaders in KY, TN, TX, etc...

From their callous hearts comes iniquity;
their evil imaginations have no limits.

They scoff, and speak with malice;
with arrogance they threaten oppression.

Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.

I could go on and on in Psalms and really, every book, but continuing...

Proverbs:

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

Ecclesiastes:

I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.

Isaiah:

Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,
this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.

Isaiah:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?"


Isaiah, later quoted by Jesus as to what his ministry was about:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn...

Jeremiah:

If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly,
if you do not oppress the foreigner,
the fatherless or the widow and
do not shed innocent blood in this place,
and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm,
then I will let you live in this place...

Ezekiel, explaining what the "sin of Sodom" actually was:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:
She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned;
they did not help the poor and needy.

Amos:

They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and
deny justice to the oppressed.

Zephaniah:

Woe to the city of oppressors,
    rebellious and defiled!
She does not trust in the Lord,
    she does not draw near to her God.
Her officials within her
    are roaring lions;
her rulers are evening wolves,
    who leave nothing for the morning.
Her prophets are unprincipled;
    they are treacherous people.
Her priests profane the sanctuary
    and do violence to the law.

Malachi:

So I will come to put you on trial.
I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers,
against those who defraud laborers of their wages,
who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and
deprive the foreigners among you of justice,
but do not fear me.

And that's just a tiny sampling from the Old Testament. Let those who have ears, hear.

I Hate Your Religious Festivals, More

Not that it's likely to matter to people like the conservatives who need to hear this - the ones who routinely think they know what's best for everyone else, better than the experts, better than the people involved and their families and allies, but...

I attended a large rally last night with hundreds of LGBTQ, Drag performers, preachers, church folk, city leaders and allies.

What we heard is that the LGBTQ community is telling anyone who's listening that they're living in terror about these anti-trans, anti-drag laws being pushed by conservatives.

They told us that these laws WILL kill LGBTQ people, including children.

They told us that the pretenses of the anti-drag laws are fallacious, built upon lies not supported by reality.

In my own Kentucky, for instance, the conservative religious bigots are saying they have to protect children from sexually explicit performances like Drag Queen Story Hours (DQSH)... but that simply doesn't happen at DQSHs. It's a lie meant to attack and demonize, which attacks actually DO cause harm.

One Drag Queen pointed out the false claims that they're "sexualizing" and "grooming " children, but as she testified - and the crowd roared in approval - she was NEVER groomed by any LGBTQ people, NEVER harmed by any LGBTQ people.

She was, however, baptized as an infant, against her will. She was sent to weekly Bible classes and told what she should believe... she was told that if she continued this transgender path she was on, she'd be burnt alive for an eternity... this is what she was told by conservative zealots.

Let's talk about who's actually grooming!

She said she was never molested, never harmed, never groomed by LGBTQ people, no. Instead, the LGBTQ community were the ones who were there to embrace and support her in the face of the torment she received from conservative bigots. To pick her up when she'd been beaten down by conservatives.

Many of the speakers talked about how they were so oppressed, demonized and reviled by conservatives, including those who said they love them - their family and church family - that they felt it would be better to just kill themselves.

As children, this is what conservative mistreatment had led them to. According to them.

Do you all really think you know their situation better than them?

Fortunately, at least in large parts of the world and most of the US, the tide has turned against these fundamentalist bigoted ways of thinking. The majority of the US recognizes that of course, LGBTQ folks are their own best experts and that the actual experts agree with them, NOT with the minority view of anti-reason, anti-data bigots who are trying to force these laws on the majority of the states and nation. The old white religious conservatives may win temporary battles, but we will make progress and sooner or later, these hateful religious views will simply die off and be replaced with more progressive ideas.

It's really quite simple: Let's stand against those laws that cause harm and for those laws which promote wholesome, healthy lives. Let's stand against religious bigots - even if they don't realize they're bigots, and stand with the marginalized and oppressed.

And it should go without saying that any hateful comments made here will be deleted. Any comments that suggest that human rights should be denied to some people will be deleted.

Choose to side with freedom, justice and decency. Choose to side for children and families and healthy lives.

Them Lyin' Media and Corrupt Politicians!

Far too many conservative extremists have been attacking the "mainstream media" for years, complaining that they're dishonest and shills for liberal causes and knowingly report false claims. This, of course, undermines trust in the reported word and does damage to a free republic in the process. Treating the media as a literal "enemy of the people" of the US is precisely part of the process for authoritarians throughout history. "Don't trust what they're reporting... Trust ME and ONLY ME..." It's a dangerous, twisted road to go down but it's exactly what Trump and his ilk have been doing for years (well before Trump, he's just upped the volume and viciousness). Indeed, Fox News played this same gambit for years. "WE are the fair and balanced ones... Don't listen to any other media!"

Of course, wise citizens have always recognized this con for what it is. But then, there are the gullible citizens. The ones susceptible to cons and grifts.

So, now that Fox News and Trump's own lawyers and allies are making it clear that they were lying about the "stolen election" claims they pushed relentlessly, and that they KNEW they were lying and that they lied ONLY for the reason of hanging on to profits and power (some of the signs of con artists throughout the centuries)... NOW, will that cause those who whine about unsupported and unsubstantiated claims of reputable media outlets to finally open their eyes and recognized they've been played for useful idiots all along? NOW, will they admit they've been suckered? NOW, will they turn their attacks on Fox News and Trump and his allies for these admitted cons?

I have yet to see ANY sign that MAGA country is willing to admit what was always clear and what is indisputably clear now. I have yet to see them condemn Fox News for knowing Trump was an incompetent ass and irresponsible liar and STILL promoting him. Indeed, Fox News acolytes of Trump have made it clear that they literally loathed the corrupt orange idiot. But not one word from any of the Fox Country conservatives out there.

What will it take?

Environmental, Simple-Living and Agrarian Wisdom from Liberals

At least two conservative types who have regularly commented here expressed an ignorance of knowledge that liberals are concerned about simple-living, healthy-living, wholesome life concern for rural and agrarian topics. They appear to be wholly unaware of this vast Agrarianism field in progressive writings and expertise.

Indeed, the term, Agrarian, itself, is a progressive philosophy regularly espoused by liberals. From Wikipedia:

Agrarianism is a political and social philosophy that has promoted subsistence agriculture, smallholdings and egalitarianism, with agrarian political parties normally supporting the rights and sustainability of small farmers and poor peasants against the wealthy in society. In highly developed and industrial nations or regions, it can denote use of financial and social incentives for self-sustainability, more community involvement in food production (such as allotment gardens) and smart growth that avoids urban sprawl, and also what many of its advocates contend are risks of human overpopulation; when overpopulation occurs, the available resources become too limited for the entire population to survive comfortably or at all in the long term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarianism

A partial list of philosophers and writers coming from a more liberal or progressive tradition who have written about agrarianism, simple-living, healthy rural communities, etc include these below among many others (with the caveat that not all would fit neatly in liberal/progressive traditions but nearly all would be considered wildly liberal by many modern conservatives):

Wendell Berry
Aldo Leopold
John Muir
Henry David Thoreau
Rachel Carson
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robert Penn Warren
Harlan and Anna Hubbard
Helen and Scott Nearing
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edward Abbey
Arundhati Roy
Gail Myers and Owusu Bandele
Thomas Jefferson (??)
Miguel de la Torre
Ellen Davis
Thomas Paine
Patty Krawec
Edwin Way Teale
Martin Luther King
Jane Goodall
Marjory Stoneman Douglas

And I could go on and on. Look up rural environmentalists, agrarianism, liberal environmental writers, indigenous environment, black agrarianism, etc. Some quotes:

“The long fight to save wild beauty represents democracy at its best. It requires citizens to practice the hardest of virtues--self-restraint. Why cannot I take as many trout as I want from a stream? Why cannot I bring home from the woods a rare wildflower? Because if I do, everybody in this democracy should be able to do the same. My act will be multiplied endlessly. To provide protection for wildlife and wild beauty, everyone has to deny himself proportionately. Special privilege and conservation are ever at odds.”

“It is those who have compassion for all life who will best safeguard the life of man. Those who become aroused only when man is endangered become aroused too late. We cannot make the world uninhabitable for other forms of life and have it habitable for ourselves. It is the conservationist who is concerned with the welfare of all the land and life of the country, who, in the end, will do most to maintain the world as a fit place for human existence.”

~Edwin Way Teale

 

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

~Arundhati Roy

“Let me outline briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kinds of mind. I conceive a strip-miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health -- his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's, his country's..."

“If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.”

~Wendell Berry

“Campaigners for God, Country and the American Way of Life did not stop when they had crushed radical trade unions and jailed socialist, syndicalist and communist spokespeople. They also bought out and took over the communication apparatus...

The same men who operated mines, factories and department stores became owners, directors and trustees of the entire communication apparatus. Communication, like merchandising and farming became parts of the big business octopus that was reaching its tentacles into every profit-yielding corner of American life."

~Scott Nearing

For a small sampling.

=====

This was a quickly thrown-together effort. There is, of course, SO much to cover on the topic. I'm shamefully not well-read on LatinX authors on agrarian concerns, but I know enough to know there is much written on the topic. As well as from women and indigenous peoples. But it's a start.

"I Hate Your Religious Festivals"

Shame on the GOP.

Shame on the meddlers and busybodies.

Shame on the hypocrites.

Shame on the oppressors.

Shame on those who, on the one hand, are worried that professionals teaching children about the realities of slavery, racism, homosexuality and transgender issues... those who falsely accuse these experts and professionals of the worst motives and behaviors

BUT, who at the same time

insist that THEY are the ones who need to dictate by weight of law
what women should do with their pregnancies
what parents of transgender kids can do to support their children
AND while listening to expert opinion
to save their children's lives.

Meddling oppressors.

Liars.

Those whose policies are dangerous and deadly.

The ones who are ACTUALLY trying to "groom" children to be petty, graceless oppressors like them.

Shame on them and the hell they are creating for themselves.

AND, shame on those conservatives who may not go so far as the legislators in places like Kentucky and Tennessee in oppressing LGBTQ people and dictating medical decisions upon women
BUT who do not speak up and denounce their fellow conservatives.

All it takes for evil to win is for normal people to remain silent.

Shame on modern conservatism and their oppressive, dictatorial tendencies.

You will be remembered as a stain on history and your children and grandchildren will grow to recognize you as villains and oppressors.
 
You are dying out and your day of dictatorial rule can't last much longer.

Repent while you can. Stop harming innocent people as you try to force your vile and graceless, loveless "religion" on others.

There are those who turn justice into bitterness
    and cast righteousness to the ground.

The One who made the Pleiades and Orion,
    who turns midnight into dawn
    and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out over the face of the land—
    the Lord is his name.
With a blinding flash God destroys the stronghold
    and brings the fortified city to ruin.

There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
    and detest the one who tells the truth.

You levy a straw tax on the poor
    and impose a tax on their grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
    you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
    you will not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your offenses
    and how great your sins.

There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes
    and deprive the poor of justice in the courts...

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
    your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
    I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
    I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
    righteousness like a never-failing stream!"

~The Prophet, Amos