A pastor, citing the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk, has called for his neighbors to take down their “Hate Has No Home Here” signs, claiming those messages endorse political violence against people like him.
Yet, at the same time that he called upon his critics to tone down their rhetoric, Andrew Isker escalated his own language, angrily demanding vengeance against those he perceives to be his political enemies.
That’s just it. I don’t think he actually was any of that.
I don’t think the gospels are an accurate reflection of his actual teachings. The more peaceable are probably inserts- at best.
Keep in mind Paul was a Roman citizen, and benefited from that authority (even if Christianity wouldn’t be legal until 313, iirc, with the edict of Milan by Constantine)
But also the messiah absolutely was supposed to be a warlord, leading the extermination and subjugation of every kingdom in the world, as a descendent of David, the messiah was to be a high priest and king all in one.
According to Jesus, the nations of the world would be worshipping the same god, and coming under the law of Moses and all that. Paul decided to drop that, mostly because gentiles didn’t want to snip the tip, or give up comfy clothing or bacon. Or any of the other random ass commandments. (There’s a lot. 613 traditionally in the mitzvot.)
Keep in mind, the gospels were after the Pauline letters, and a lot of thing in them just didn’t happen.
Just to be candid with you, as a UU, I enjoy these texts but they don’t form the full picture of my faith. I find the general theology of the Gnostic texts more aligned with the reality around us (certainly seems like a demiurge fucks with us more each day right now).
As for Jesus’ message, the Pauline letters, and the prophesied role of the messiah, I’m prone to selective pulls as much as Christians. We know the gospels were not written immediately after the events, so there’s a telephone game. In the context of Jesus’ time and some of the horrible scriptures of the Old Testament, passages like John 13:34 feel radical. I also hold Matthew 25:32 as revealing of modern Christian hypocrisy. If we lived in a “Christian” society, we would be proactively eradicating poverty, hunger, helping immigrants, helping those in jail. Instead, we seem hellbent (pun intended) on war with one another.
For that aspect, I squarely blame Evangelicals more than the works themselves. You can use the Bible (and many other religious texts) to validate almost any opinion or belief.
Yeah. No. You can’t. Just to start things off, the catholic church’s wealth is north of 73 billion, and it owns some of the largest hedge funds in the world.
The Vatican itself is its own nation-state.
And throughout history, the Catholics have literally started more wars than any other sect- including crusades against others.m
And, let’s not forgo that the American diocese are full on maga asshats and fully supported Kirk, fully supports war in Gaza and trump in general.
This isn’t a modern thing, by any stretch. We can go through all the awful shit Jesus was apparently cool with, if you’d like. The point being here is that Paul retconned things a bit to make Jesus more palatable to Roman’s, but even then, it was all still quite awful.
Even if you’re quite studious about it, and pare off anything that’s awful, you’re still getting some questionable stuff and largely left with “shit we didn’t need to be told”.