Sunday, June 28, 2020

The religion of Christianity vs. the religion of politics …

… Jesus Won't Let Us Use Him for Our Politics | Thinking Christian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 First, Jesus was not a “person of color” in any sense that matters. He wasn’t a minority race member. He was a member of the local dominant race and religion, whose leaders had him executed. His killing had nothing to do with race, everything to do with authority conflicts (from an earthly perspective) and God’s purposes (from the wider point of view).

Second, police shootings are not “state-sanctioned violence.” Many are justified actions, the police defending themselves or innocent civilians from imminent danger of being killed. In the small number of exceptional cases the state sanctions nothing; the officers are charged and tried for murder.
 We should never let our politics control or even influence our view of Jesus. But we can certainly let our view of Jesus influence our politics. We cannot try to get him on our side, for our purposes; but we can certainly try to set ourselves on his side, for his purposes, as long as we remember he’s completely in charge.
When last I checked all humans were members of the species homo sapiens. I was taught that all are made in the image and likeness of God. I have behaved accordingly.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, a stupid sign by a roadside church rates an article? This article borders on setting up whomever wrote that sign as a strawman for some significant movement. There's the Clackamas people and then there are the conservative Christians -- whatever that is. Is that a politically conservative Christian, or is it a person who tries to serve both fascism and Jesus, or someone who believes in the Old Testament more than the New, or what? Speaking as a devout Christian, neither the Clackamas sign nor the article are very impressive and well though out. Instead, somebody do something about the horrific un-Christian ways we are treating our refugees and asylum seekers. Come on, Christians! It's neither conservative, Clackamasist, reformist, fascist nor liberal, just Christian, to be a good Samaritan, to love thy neighbor, to accept the sojourner as Egypt did. And maybe we can cut some slack to both sides of this silliness, to say that Jesus was a Jew, another race the neo-Nazis, like the old, are against.

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