No, more like “Give all you have to the poor and wait for me to end the world, which will be happening soon. Like, before you die of natural causes soon.”
To put a finer point on it, the most Christ-like Christian of modern times was David Koresh, in that both were preaching the End Times, And Soon, in a way pretty much incompatible with living in a society. Paul kept that religion from burning out and made it into something which could turn all that Apocalyptic verbiage into something you could interpret (that is, ignore) and still officially believe in while you kept your lawn up and went to work and otherwise lived as if this decade wouldn’t be the Universe’s last.
Christianity is Yet Another Doomsday Religion, this time one which outlived its Great Disappointment and didn’t burn out or fade away, instead becoming fissile, splitting into endless sects and denominations, recursively parochial and endlessly disputing, proving that, hey, maybe this reception theory stuff has something to it after all.
Proof that all good translations are retellings, a truly honest version of the Parable of the Good Samaritan in 1450s Western Europe would be the Parable of the Good Jew, in 1950s Mississippi would be the Parable of the Good Negro, and in 2002 America it would be the Parable of the Good Muslim.
The fact any Church worth its Rood would recoil at those notions as Innovative tells you something.
“Nevertheless, while we rejoice in that privilege we grieve that in doing so we know we are taking a stand against the positions of some teachers whom we have long regarded as faithful and trustworthy spiritual guides.”
I think they mean Jesus. Actually they are probably referring to the Pope.
Jesus didn’t say the government should give everything to the poor, he said you should. It doesn’t work as social policy, because if everyone gives all they have to the poor, the poor now have all the money and have to give it all back.
Underlining mine. Apparently some aspects of the Gospel are essential, and others, not so much. But where in Scripture does it say that? Sounds to me like they have “added to the gospel” “opinions to be held” about the gospel, and have therefore “pervert[ed] it into another gospel.” More oopsies.
No doubt, laws and regulations lack any power to change sinful hearts. But they DO have the power to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, and all that stuff that Jesus says the doing of distinguishes the righteous from the damned. (Matt. 25:31-46)
I would have this to say to my more conservative brethren: if secular Americans, the supposedly unsaved, are trying to organize our society in a way such that it does these things, then maybe the supposedly saved evangelical Christians shouldn’t resist their efforts. Whatever the salvific* value of feeding the hungry and treating the sick, if you’re going to throw yourself in the way of those who are trying to see that these things are done, that freakin’ HAS to be wrong.
I think that’s about as much of their crap as I can stand at one sitting, so to speak.
But where’s that difference coming from? At best, a failure to listen to what ‘social justice warriors’ are saying, a lack of willingness to engage honestly with them, and a willingness to accept a Fox News-driven caricature of them in place of the real thing.
Which would be a failure to recognize that their perceived adversaries, like “all people[,] have inestimable value and dignity before God and deserve honor [and] respect”. (II. Imago Dei.)
Or in the words of Terry Pratchett, “Sin is treating people as things.”
Me, I’m down with antisocial justice. You’ll always get a fair shake from me because it’s the course of action most likely to make you fuck off and leave me alone.
