exploring the good news

a sideblog for christian stuff

[a-gospel]

christopher hill, the experience of defeat

[beguines]

And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than “going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly.” It is also an imminent reality—a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, “building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side.” The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

- James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

[levoneh]

Then when G-d asks [Cain], ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ he arrogantly responds, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ In essence, the entire Bible is written as an affirmative response to this question.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy. (via letterful)

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

Telling people with anxiety or depression or really ANY mental illness that they just “lack faith” is so harmful and toxic, not just to their mental well-being but spiritually as well. Feeling scared, abandoned, and broken are not sins.

[scarscribbles-archived]

Highkey whenever people tell me this crap when I tell them I have PTSD I refer them to the story of Elijah after he made a sacrifice in front of the Baal Prophets (you know, the one where he legit begged God to kill him and God straight up baked him bread and gave him water and told him to rest)

AND to Luke 22:44, which describes Jesus’ ordeal in the Garden of Gethsemane and had anxiety so bad that He began to sweat blood (and this is a phenomenon that still occurs today, by the way)

Renders people speechless everytime cuz you can’t say one of the greatest prophets or the Son of God Himself didn’t have faith because their minds and bodies were having perfectly natural reactions + the fact they relied on God is anything but a lack of faith so

[girlwhocriedsupernova]

It’s been said before but:

In Jesus’s crucifixion we learn that the powers that be are violent, untrustworthy, and illegitimate.

In Jesus’s resurrection we learn that the powers that be do not have ultimate power or the final word.

That is the basis of my politics - that the status quo is violent and evil, and that there is hope for us to fight back.

[givemeahearingheart]

Holy week, make me strong †

[a-gospel]

But the Christ of the Gospels seems radically disinterested in a terrible final horror or dreadful cataclysm. Homeless, gleaning for food in the field like a sparrow and relying on the kindness of strangers to put him up, he instead seems to have been a man cheerfully resigned to powerlessness, addressing and working among the casualties and collateral damage of empires and kings: fishermen, potters, shepherds, housewives, and whores. He can imagine a day when the world turns upside-down, when the last are first and the widow and orphan are comforted, but timelines and details bore him. Instead he is insistent on being present: “You shall not say of the Kingdom of God, Here it is or there it is. It is here, now, among you” (Luke 17:21).

Anthony Olivera, “The Year in Apocalypses”

[owenburnett]

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

[yidquotes]

“Refugees are at our southern border, many of whom are seeking political asylum and/or protection from physical harm. I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, so I will not claim to know God’s will in this matter. But as a people who feel obliged to hear the voice of Torah, whether as commandment, guidance, or inspiration, these verses demand our attention in this pivotal moment. There may be among those seeking entry opportunists and even criminals. But let’s be honest. Large numbers of our fellow human beings have traveled as many as two thousand miles risking danger, injury, and death. What kind of person makes such a trip? Only the desperate, fleeing an evil fate far more certain than the calamities that the journey may bring. These are the runaway slaves of 2019, arriving penniless and powerless, seeking compassion and protection like the refugees of old. If we do not recognize their humanity, if we ignore their pleas, have we not shut our ears to the Torah’s voice as well?”

— Eliezer B Diamond

[justincraigmorgan]

“The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

— Dorothy Day (via piperlr)

[hymnsofheresy]

“Resistance is not the outcome of mysticism, resistance is mysticism itself.”

— Dorothee Sölle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (via spiritandteeth)

[anatomyofatrend]

@featureshoot

[a-gospel]

when i was first seriously interested in christianity, i was really enamoured with the message that “we are all sinners, saved by jesus” - but as i’ve come to think more seriously about christianity i think that is not the message of christ.

the message i take from christ is homo deus - the man become god, the world as sacrament. the message is that god’s grace is in superabundance, that it blesses every human, every being, every atom every nanosecond of every day.

i just saw charlie kirk has that exact quote in his twitter bio and that’s exactly the problem. a focus on sin makes you feel like injustice in this world is justified by our own sin. but it isn’t. injustice is anathema to a christian, we should be working against injustice in much the same way as jesus gave himself to establishing justice in the world - as jesus made disciples out of zealots, as he rubbed shoulders with lepers, as he rebelled against roman imperialism.

the world is divine. the world, god’s creation, must be identified with god’s grace precisely because it rises from grace and is maintained by grace. to keep it that way, we must work against injustice in all its forms - social exclusion, the corrupt state, empire, capital. anything else is a dereliction of christian duty.

[deephouseforlesbians-deactivate]

“In my perpetual effort to relativise theology, I understand grace not as a doctrine that needs to be laicised or ‘secularised’, but as one (passing) shape that revolution may take.”

— Roland Boer, In the Vale of Tears: On Marxism and Theology, V

[countedhairs]

— 2 Chronicles 32:8

[phoukanamedpookie]

Take the Words “Judeo-Christian” Out of Your Damn Mouth

“Everything about the term is predicated on bad faith. It needs to die.”

Sharing this so I don’t have to explain it again.

[telegantmess]

“Many, many people use the word “Judeo-Christian.” Most of these people are very nice! I’ve probably used it, too! English is a rich tapestry, full of terms we use unthinkingly, like “rule of thumb.” Most people who aren’t Jews probably think it’s fine, even benevolent. But that’s exactly what makes “Judeo-Christian” so insidious—it sounds benign because it purports to involve Jews in the conversation. As if they’re doing us a favor by remembering we exist. But the people who do it the most, like Mike Pence, view that existence as a necessary evil: 77% of US evangelicals like him believe that the Rapture will come in their lifetimes, and their explicit goal is to route all the Jews back to Israel so it can happen. This is well-documented. And even when they aren’t zealots like Pence, there are only two reasons why people like Rubio and Shapiro insist on saying “America is a Judeo-Christian nation.” One, because they want to say “Christian” country, but they don’t want to piss off AIPAC donors, or two, because they really want to say “white,” or “not Muslim.” I guarantee you that they also do not mean to include Sephardic Jews, and they definitely don’t mean to include Black Jews. Everything about the term is predicated on bad faith. It needs to die.”

[restbeyondtheriver]

I can’t stop thinking about Elijah sitting underneath the juniper tree & asking God to die.  God sent an angel who says, “This journey is too much for you.” & that he must eat. Elijah does, then he rests.  He wakes up still feeling hopeless, & the angel repeats himself.  

It took Elijah longer than he wanted to get better.  Sometimes we want to move but we can’t.  Sometimes the journey is too much.  It is not a sin to understand your limitations.  Start there, get stronger, then get up.