Have you ever read Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin? In one scene, the colonist is telling the protagonist of the story that there is another version of that parable. In the other version, the Samaritan is the one who’s been beaten and left for dead on the road, and it is the good guy (i.e., “one of us”) who helped out even a low-down dirty scoundrel such as the Samaritan.
Or maybe He wanted His stretcher-bearers to be Samaritan. Because hey, it’s important to Know Your Place.
For many of those who identify as Evangelicals, alas, it is only a Tribal Marker. It’s about who/what they are not. The Judgment? They’ll claim that it refers to being generous and kind to the deserving. For a bunch of people who don’t believe in Evolution, they are quite committed to Social Darwinism.
Also, there is this passage,
IOW all those sayings attributed to Jesus about being good to others? *“Oh that’s not the point.” * You know what that sounds like to me? Jack Chick - being good and just and moral is worthless, all it takes is “Jesus Is Lord” and being against any morality based on, or even merely compatible with, human reson or logic or empathy.
To this faction, anything that seems in any way that involves us humans “building Jerusalem upon this green and pleasant land” is just out, it’s at best folly and at worst blasphemous, for the world is foreordained to end in tribulation and battle and the only hope is that Jesus will come, save those who were steadfast and smite everyone else; who the hell are we to try to fix the world and eliminate suffering, if suffering happens it must be because God has a Plan for it. Tikkun Olam does not apply as it is a Jewish concept.
Those are the types of jabs that would actually be funny if applied to the correct targets.
The OP lists their grievances in fine detail, and all you do is mutter “hater.” So why are you siding with the clergy? Explaining helps.
Can we make it a Cister monastery? The ones with the vow of silence.
Jesus HUSSEIN Christ !
I think virtue signaling is too nice a term. ISTM it’s more of dat ol’ debbil tribalism. People want to be part of a group, and if the dominant group you want to be part of calls themselves Christians, then you’ll want to call yourself one too. Your concept of Christianity will come from what they, and their preachers, say it is, not what* Christ* said it was. That’s been the case through much of history, too - look at all the wars and torture campaigns and slavery regimes that have been practiced in Christ’s name, utterly against any of his teachings, over centuries. The difference now is that most of us are literate and have no excuse for not knowing what Christ’s teachings about loving each other actually were. I personally try to follow them as I understand them (Buddha and Mohammed too) but in no way would I want to be a church member.
Many, many, many, and I am privileged to know more than a few. There are *many *denominations and individuals who take their guidance from the Beatitudes rather than Leviticus, and do try to live their lives as Jesus asked. But the haters get the publicity.
Is there another side of the argument? If there’s an actual plausible debate as to what Christians should do, some possibility that is in conflict with what Christ *said *we should do, then let’s have at it. Whaddaya got?
Nah. Jesus loved lepers, prostitutes, criminals, all manner of sinners… except queers, who so disgusted him that he couldn’t bring himself to mention them.
Christians opposed to social justice and their sister organization, Christians for cancer need to team up. Together they could really fuck their neighbors.
Yes, the reformation is an abject failure. You still have people taking scriptures literally, imagining themselves in middle east lifestyle ca 3,000 years ago.
Has everyone here read it?They’re not against social justice; they’re against what some people call social justice. I’m not keen on countries that called themselves people’s democracies, although who could object to democracy or people?
They said that everyone has value and dignity. They like justice. They think gays are sinners, but so is everyone else. They think men and women have different roles, but are fundamentally equal—just not the same. They condemn racism. I’ve seen better, but I’ve seen worse. They’re not Christians for Cancer.
The Prodigal Son was an illegal immigrant, working in agriculture. The story clearly shows that it would be better if all of them go back home.
Too bad the people who wrote the story left out the murder squads around the family farm.
Uh, yes, they very much are. They do not deny what people call social justice, but the concept itself, claiming it is not biblical and referring to the very concept as “dangerous ideas” and “corrupted moral values.”
On their first statement, they deny “intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory.” On the sixth, they deny that the gospel has anything to do with living justly, when that was Jesus’s entire message. On the eighth, they deny that Christians should fight against unjust laws, or that following them is sinful. On the tenth, they ignore pretty much everything social justice says about sexuality, ignoring them even as social constructs. The next one defends sexism, which is at odds with social justice, and denies the claim in the Bible that there is no male and female in Christ. Number 12 denies that any race could ever be oppressed, which is definitely at odds with the oppressed races mentioned in the Bible, and it denies the requirement of Christians to, as much as possible, live at peace with one another. It spreads the idea that other people’s feelings don’t matter. On 14, they reject being told about any problems they may have with racial issues, and deny the very real fact that some evangelicals very much do have problems with race, even if they aren’t supposed to.
Yes, they may hide this garbage with pretty words that sound good, but the fundamental message is one that is at odds with social justice and Jesus’s command that we help the oppressed. They may deny racism, but they do so with backhanded ways that make it remain relevant.
Is it the worst thing I’ve ever seen? No. But it is at odds with the core of Jesus’s teachings, which were primarily about how one is supposed to act in this life, not just the story of his death and resurrection. And it is very much against the concepts of social justice.
And, given how these same people reacted to Trump, I am no longer inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
unfortunately, Jesus DID say 'servants obey your masters" which slave owners uses to justify slavery; however they ignored the part about how to treat them
but there is also St Paul telling women to shut up and not have dominion over men
Paul, actually. But it’s a good point.
Me, I’m withholding judgement until I learn where they stand on tax cuts.
What’s a yinzer?
If you read what Jesus himself is quoted as saying, it’s clear that he was a radical socialist. Not just “contribute something to the poor” but “give ALL YOU HAVE to the poor”.
A man cannot serve two masters. A Christian is a radical socialist, or cannot claim to be a Christian at all.