In a post at Craig's blog, he suggested I was looking at one verse (Jesus saying he'd come to preach good news to the poor and marginalized) and ignored the rest of the Bible. But indeed, as I've made clear, I'm looking at the ENTIRETY of the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, and seeing concern for the poor and marginalized as either THE or at least ONE of the most emphasized points, one of the most consistent themes. That and the nature of God's Realm (or if you prefer, God's kingdom) which just circles back around to God's realm is where the poor and marginalized are welcomed and protected.
And, as noted, the poor and marginalized are SPECIFICALLY cited by Jesus as WHO his Gospel was for and WHY he had come. When John questioned if Jesus was the One, Jesus said, "Look, I'm preaching the gospel to the poor." And on and on he went and on and on the bible goes. Perhaps you missed it?
I also look at Jesus actually sharing and offering The Gospel to people who were NOT in the right groups.
Well, of course, I've never said that the gospel was ONLY for the poor. Indeed, I've repeatedly insisted that this is NOT the case. Just that Jesus notes that his gospel STARTS with the poor and marginalized, and others are invited to join. Biblically speaking, throughout the Bible. You've read it, right?
Craig further suggested I was ignoring Paul (Side Note: Often, it seems religious conservatives pit Paul against Jesus and interpret Jesus through the lens of Paul's teaching, rather than the other way around - bad form, says I.)
Strangely enough, when Jesus commissioned Paul the right groups were never mentioned, and Paul also preached The Gospel to people of all demographic groups.
Says Craig. And yes, Paul doesn't seem as overtly and consistently concerned about or inclusive of the poor, AND YET, we must remember to understand and interpret Paul through the words and lens of Jesus and not try to make Jesus subservient to either Paul, or modern conservative notions of what Paul was saying.
Indeed, let's remember that when Paul was consulting with the elder apostles and leaders of the church (in Galatians 2) he noted...
they (Peter, James, John) recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of
preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,
just as Peter had been to the circumcised.
And WHO were these circumcised and uncircumcised people they were preaching to? The high-falutin' rich and powerful? Or the regular folk... people who may have often been quite poor? Do you know?
...For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised,
was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.
James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars,
gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship...
When??
...when they recognized the grace given to me.
They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
ALL they asked was...
Was WHAT? Wait for it...
...was that we should
continue to remember the poor,
the very thing I had been eager to do all along.
Seems like the apostles recognized siding with the poor and marginalized was CORE - the one thing that should not be forgotten (as they had actually listened to Jesus) AND Paul was totally in agreement with that. "Of course!" he said. "THE VERY thing I WAS EAGER TO DO ALL ALONG!!"
As one traditional Christian website (them proud boys over at Ligonier!) helps illustrate...
Paul’s readiness is not empty bravado, for during his ministry he frequently exhorted the Gentile churches to help out the poor believers in Judea (Acts 24:17; Rom. 15:25–27; 1 Cor. 16:1–4)...
Giving to the poor is also, in a small way, an imitation of God. Our Creator gives eternal life to those who rely on Him alone, and our gifts can help provide physical life to those who have no finances on which they can depend.
Everyone who claims the name of Christ has the duty to help those who cannot feed themselves (James 1:27). Let us do what we can to make our churches the first places needy people, and needy Christians especially, can find help.
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/remembering-poor
And Paul, along with Jesus, is keen on warning against the trappings of wealth...
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
It is through this craving that some have
wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
And...
As for the rich in this present age,
charge them not to be haughty,
nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches,
but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
They are to do good, to be rich in good works,
to be generous and ready to share, thus
storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future,
so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
1 Tim 6
And again, emphasizing how sharing with/welcoming the poor is just to be expected...
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor,
doing honest work with his own hands...
Why? Because there's a line in the scripture that says "don't steal..."? No.
so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Eph 4
Remember this:
Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and
whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give,
not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times,
having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
As it is written:
“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever.”
2 Cor 9
Paul apparently thought that Psalmist there quoted though that their righteousness would be clear and endure forever AS they shared with the poor.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
Be devoted to one another in love
As an aside: WHO are they being devoted to? THE BELOVED. The Beloved Community of the Church. As you all like to note (when talking about tenets VERY loosely connected to the bible such as "inerrancy" or "penal substitution theories of atonement"), the exact phrase doesn't have to be mentioned, as long as it's clearly there. THE BELOVED COMMUNITY OF GOD is clearly, directly, indisputably in the bible. IT IS perfectly clear, if you're not choosing to ignore it. Continuing...
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.
Practice hospitality...
Live in harmony with one another.
Do not be proud, but
be willing to associate with people of low position.
Rom 12
If you count Paul as the author of Hebrews, there's this...
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.
There's that damned loving beloved community again, EVEN IF he doesn't use that term (Craig had objected to King and others using the term Beloved Community to refer to the Realm/Kingdom of God).
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,
for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison,
and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
Echoing Jesus' "the least of these" teaching. Paul (or the author of Hebrews, whichever) DID learn from Jesus, too, after all.
Keep your lives free from the love of money and
be content with what you have...
Heb 13
Continuing with the Epistles of Paul...
Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction;
whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
WHOEVER sows - NOT from a desire to pleas the flesh, but to please God - WILL reap eternal life, says Paul. Why? Good works? No! Because they have embraced God's grace as is evidenced by their actions. Continuing..
Let us not become weary in doing good,
for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity,
let us do good to all people,
especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Gal 6
we want you to know
about the grace
that God has given the Macedonian churches.
In the midst of a very severe trial,
their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.
For I testify that they gave as much as they were able,
and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,
they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of
sharing in this service to the Lord’s people.
2 Cor 8
That grace demonstrated in sharing with the poor, even FROM the poor.
And I could go on. Paul may not have emphasized working with and for the poor and marginalized as much as Jesus or the prophets or Jesus' mother or James... but that same theme is THERE in Paul's writings for those who aren't closing their eyes.
Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
Indeed. It's almost like Paul and the apostles agreed with Jesus that this grace of siding/allying with the poor and marginalized was central to the Gospel which Jesus said he'd come to preach to the poor and marginalized.
16 comments:
Craig rushed to badly defend his bad defense of Trump on the previous post. But he cannot engage with scripture when you show him how he's wrong.
As they say in Brooklyn: he's fake.
Just saw the debate at Stan's as to which of them (Stan et al or Glenn) best live out a 400 year old theology. Thug agaist thug. (Calvinists persecuted Arminian pastors and Glenn reveals how thuggish modern day Arminians can be) David and Craig and Stan are ready to agree to disagree on how to cherry pick their through scripture.
None of them offer anything of a post-Enlightenment, modern return to the figure of Jesus Christ and the love ethic... and neither side can possibly consider a living Christ who guides modern christian growth in communion with a living Holy Spirit that blows in graceful breezes whereever it will, even blessing alternative identities. Like, say, the nonbinary Incarnation.
"Last week the ReAwaken America Tour, a Christian nationalist roadshow co-founded by the former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, rolled up to the Trump National Doral Miami resort. Two speakers who’d appeared at other stops on the tour, the online streamers Scott McKay and Charlie Ward, were jettisoned at the last moment because of bad publicity over their praise of Hitler. (“Hitler was actually fighting the same people that we’re trying to take down today,” said McKay, not inaccurately.) But as of this writing, the tour’s website still includes McKay and Ward, along with Eric Trump, as featured speakers at an upcoming extravaganza in Las Vegas.
ReAwaken America’s association with anti-Semites did not stop Donald Trump from calling into the rally to offer his support. “It’s a wonderful hotel, but you’re there for an even more important purpose,” he told a shrieking crowd, before promising to bring Flynn back in for a second Trump term. Flynn is exactly the sort of figure we can expect to serve in a future Trump administration — a MAGA die-hard uninterested in restraining Trump. So it’s worth paying attention to how he has changed since he was last on the national stage."
This Trump worship (or at least, "let's give a pass to his atrocities and pretend it's acceptable by our silence...") is just so strange and inexplicable.
Stan jumped at the GOP generated lie that homless US Veterans in NY were displaced from temporary housing in order to house refugees.
They say they were offered money to make such a false claim.
Strange and inexplicable, Dan? No. Stan, Craig, Marshal, and the fake Scot are in thrall to lies. It's the natural outcome of defending white supremacy.
Stop willing some mystery and just accept the reality of what we already know: white supremacy has brought pain, suffering, and evil on everyone - even its devotees.
___
Claims that homeless veterans were pushed out of a Newburgh, New York, hotel to make room for migrants are false, according to two homeless men who told CNN they were part of a group of 15 who were offered money to pose as veterans.
The men allege they were offered as much as $200 to sell the ruse to a local chamber of commerce, which did not believe that veterans were pushed out for migrants, the men said.
The situation made tensions between the area and New York City worse, as earlier this week a New York state Supreme Court judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking New York City Mayor Eric Adams from sending asylum seekers to Orange County, where Newburgh is located.
01 orange county ny migrants arrival 051123
New York City plans to temporarily house migrants in hotels in other counties. Two counties are suing to stop it
“We were scammed,” Douglas Terry, 55, said about Sharon Toney-Finch, a nonprofit leader who houses the homeless. Terry and others identified Toney-Finch as the person who allegedly offered money and never paid up. “It’s messed up how can they do that to us. They scammed us.”
Another man who only gave his first name, William, said the group was allegedly told to say they were military veterans who were pushed out of their hotel rooms. If they were uncomfortable saying that, William said, they were told they should say they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“They dangled a carrot in front of an animal and they led us. Now they took the carrot away and we’re angry,” William said.
Toney-Finch denied the allegations to CNN, saying she never offered money to homeless men to say they had to leave the Crossroads Hotel in the Town of Newburgh.
“I never promised to pay anybody,” Toney-Finch said, adding that she only told State Assemblyman Brian Maher that she had homeless veterans who were displaced, not that it was because of asylum seekers.
Maher, a Republican lawmaker who is also a volunteer spokesperson for the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, which helps veterans in need of living assistance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It read like a false claim. Will Stan have the decency to admit as much?
"Stop willing some mystery and just accept the reality of what we already know: white supremacy has brought pain, suffering, and evil on everyone - even its devotees."
I imagine we can do both: recognize the malignant harm caused by white supremacy and marvel and despair at the mystery that so many buy into it.
Dan
It's not there to buy into. We are born and bred in an unignorable, nurturing socio-cultural inculcating surround of an ideology instead of an identity. Being White is not an ethnicity ("Irish need not apply") - it is an identity substitute born in a capitalism founded emerging from the Atlantic slave trade. To justify slavery and to repress conscence, an ideology of superiority - negotiable over time as direcred by circumstance ("I'm Irish too!) - was derived from power narratives filtered from bibilical/historical/neo-scientific texts.
We are White without choice. But it is a false identity as an exceedingly powerful ideology. The white person generationally from Maine has nothing anymore in common and, in fact, far less with the white person generationally in Utah than they can have with a black person in Maine. But the black person in Maine has a lot in common with the black person in Utah.
We are White without choice, but we can choose to dissolve our identity in Whiteness.
That is what most white Americans are refusing to do: dissolve their identity as ideology that lends a narrative of superiority. It's obvious and easily psycho-socially predictable. But it is an act of moral will to erase the humanity of others.
Stop willing some mystery.
Stan, caught in his slander, responds...
"You will all be relieved to learn that this story is in question. It appears to be fabricated. We bought it so easily because a general perception of the governing bodies of New York as not pro-veterans. And it goes to highlight the danger of excessive reaction to news items, like our cancel culture is so prone to do."
So, instead of apologizing and admitting your mistake and double down on your attack of the victim of your slander. Adding slander onto slander.
This, under the banner of values clarification.
Understood.
Dan
Our current mayor served as an NYPD cop. Stan has to make up his own world because the Lord of Heaven and Earth is betraying him.
Stan - and all GOP brutalists attacks NYC for the same reason that bin Laden did: human rigths defending, liberal modernism.
Whereas Stan's bedfellows attacked our capital, our capital police, and armed themselves with weapons and cuffs and an intent to hurt elected politicians.
Slander? How many of them have been convicted and are going to jail for just that fact?
But Stan fears cancel culture. Stan bin Laden.
Craig tries to make this absolutist trap stick on liberals: "It seems like if one was to choose intellectual consistency, one would wholeheartedly agree that if any reason for an abortion is appropriate, then every reason for an abortion is appropriate."
But the response is easily made: rapists use condoms. So... since Craig is thinking like an absolutist, he has to advocate for the banning of all condoms if he is to be "intellectually consistent."
Craig can't handle the capacity to reason. He's an idiot with an axe to grind.
The truth is that there exists no human good - or a divine good for that matter - that evil people can't corrupt or even just weak people abuse.
Adoption.
Chemotherapy.
Yellow caution signals between green and red.
Congregationtal life.
etc etc etc
Condoms are a good. But rapists have and can use them to get away with horrific crimes.
All goods have been used for harm, even serial harm. Even serial self harm.
So, it's easy for one to say that
adoption
chemotherapy
yellow caution signals
congregational life
condoms
etc etc etc
are goods that may not always be good to use, even thought bad people use them for wrong or weak people abuse them. But human and divine goods remain good.
This is basic, simple ethical reason that has stood for centuries, even millennia
But Craig is so, so ignorant. And hate driven.
Stan bin Laden's reader, Doug: "Per your New York comment, I bought it hook, line and sinker!"
And he as much as admits that they WANT to believe the lies that they create about people they perceive to be their enemies. As if that sort of self-deception is no one's fault but the victims of their slander.
Stan bin Laden, trying to defend himself, writes that reminding Christians not to judge is, itself, judging. He wilfully ignores that it's just reminding him what the Bible, in the person of Jesus, says.
Do not judge.
If anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
If someone hits you, turn the other cheek.
Following Christ is just too hard a challenge for the Stan+Thug's thrill to brutality. The Sermon on the Mount is in conflict with the GOP agenda. They are just political wolves wrapped in selective biblical amnesia.
Post a Comment