A "Different Gospel..."?

Replying to a post on Stan's "Winging It" blog today. Stan was talking about the concept of a "different gospel," as Paul spoke of in Galatians. Paul was warning some in the early church of following different traditions rather than Jesus' actual teachings. Speaking of that, Stan says:

So this "different gospel" was not a gospel at all. It was only masquerading as one. It was a distortion...

In all of this, I don't think Stan and the more modern evangelicals (including me, once upon a time) see the problem they have. They have lifted portions of Paul's letters and you humans have created this theory that's come to be known as Penal Substitutionary Theory of Atonement (PSTA) - a literally human tradition - and they have made THAT set of human opinions the "Gold Standard" of understanding the gospel - the literal good news to the literal poor and marginalized, as Jesus put it - THE ONE TRUE WAY.

The problem with the PSTA? It's completely absent from Jesus' sermons/teachings. Yes, there are approximately TWO times where Jesus used a phrase that PSTA theorists point to - once, when Jesus referred to a ransom and a second time where Jesus spoke of breaking his body and shedding his blood.  But those were in two sequestered meetings with a few disciples and they are more rightly understood symbolically (because they make no biblical or rational sense to try to take them more literally).

The problem? Jesus story and teachings are recorded throughout the four Gospel books and he is clear that he is out preaching the GOSPEL to the crowds, to the poor and marginalized, throughout the Gospels. But in the recorded sermons of Jesus, we have a very grace-centered set of teachings about the beloved community, the "kingdom of God," of standing in opposition to the deadly legalism of the Pharisees on the one hand and the welcoming, grace-full realm of God on the other hand.

This PSTA is quite literally a completely different "gospel" than what Jesus taught.

Stop and understand that:

This PSTA is quite literally a completely different "gospel" than what Jesus taught.

It's completely absent in Jesus' sermons to the crowds. IF Jesus were actually teaching this more modern, revisionist "gospel," wouldn't it have appeared in his sermons? OF course it would! It's literally a different Gospel than anything Jesus is recorded as having taught in the four Gospel books.

Further, as have long been pointing out and as the PSTA crowd keep ignoring, it's HORRIBLE news, this human theory/tradition of theirs. God HATES most of humanity? God created them to be sent to eternal torture?? THAT is supposed to be good news?

It's a literal different gospel and, hell (literally), it's not even a "gospel" at all. It's a nightmare.

So my question to the PSTA theorists of the world - those who hold to this gospel different than found in Jesus' teachings and, I would say, is a corruption of Paul's teaching is this:

Even if you can't find it in you to agree with this more Jesus-centered notion of the gospel, can you at least see how irrational and, on-the-face-of-it, contrary to any notion of Good News to the Poor and Marginalized that Jesus himself spoke of? Can you see how you have to REALLY go into rational and textual contortions to make your idea of Paul's "gospel" fit with Jesus' actual gospel?

One of the other things I've pointed out is, one MIGHT consider this PSTA theory reasonable IF one begins with the assumption that Paul is THE ONE who most correctly represents God and what God wants. Clearly, Paul does use language that can be (incorrectly, I'd say) cherry-picked to create this PSTA.

BUT, if one begins with the notion that Jesus is the best representation of God and God's ways and then read Jesus' actual teachings and THEN read Paul, but through the lens of Jesus, you won't get PSTA. You'll get grace and find that Paul is agreeing with Jesus on the notion of the beloved realm of God as a realm of grace and love and welcome.

To me, this is where the PSTA theorists go wrong.

Fiddling While the World Burns

The Implosion of Irrelevance in the white conservative (and many moderate) church is afoot.

Are any of y'all conservatives gonna talk about the swath of destruction this conservative administration is wreaking upon the US and the world?

* He's plunging the world into economic chaos.
* Mind you, he inherited a solid economy with the promise of making things better, but he appears to be clueless as to what his actions will do. Or how to do so.
* Mind you, that was clear during the election process. He made clear just how corrupt, inept, irrational and dangerous he would be. Half the voters voted for him anyway.
* Mind you, the US average wage for all wage earners is in the top five of all nations in the world. But that's not enough for him??
* Mind you, this was never about making things better for working class and poor people.
* He's ignoring judges. That, or he's attacking and threatening them.
* He's establishing an authoritarian stronghold, firing people he deems not loyal enough to him and putting in their place spineless sycophants.
* He's willy nilly deporting people, slandering them with no support accusing people of being terrorists and yet giving them no due process. He's clearly already deported several (at least) clearly innocent people "by whoopsie accident," he says... AND he's not going to try to fix his mistakes.
* He's slashing the services that US citizens, children, students, veterans, disabled people depend upon.
* He's doing this slash and burn process in theory to make the gov't "more efficient" and save money, but he's clearly doing it in a thoughtless, unmeasured, "destroy them all and see where it lands" approach. No one is opposed to reasonable efforts to create efficiencies and save money, but THIS is not THAT.
* He's placing clearly incompetent people in charge of departments they're just not qualified for.
* He's releasing villains convicted by a jury of their peers who had assaulted and caused harm to dozens of police officers in an effort to undermine our elections.

On and on, the dim-witted, malevolent chaos continues.

To reasoned observers of the election, this is no surprise... again, he TOLD us clearly what an agent of corruption and chaos he would be. This chaos was expected by most of us. What's so strange and what I'm talking about HERE is, WHERE are the conservatives even acknowledging that we're in a crazy, dangerous moment? Outside of the few Liz Cheneys and other purged martyrs to the Felon's chaos, there's an eerie silence in conservative world.

Frankly, NO conservatives are speaking out against it... Not even a tepid, "well, now, dearhearts, maybe he should slow down just a bit and be a bit more rational and decent in his responses..." Just crickets.

Now I know how decent, rational, moral Germans felt in the 1930s!