Don't pretend

I don’t understand why, when Christians talk about creating a Christian government, it’s usually focused on some narrow moral enforcements and not on things like caring for the poor

          Matt Mikalatos on Twitter

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Odd isn’t it

That the religion that bears Jesus’s name

Bear so little resemblance to the “way” Jesus taught

 

If one believes in incarnation

If one accepts the idea that somehow

Someway

Mysteriously

Mystically

Jesus embodied the Divine

 

Uniquely

Powerfully

Clearly

 

Then it would seem like the proverbial “no brainer”

To embrace the idea

That God is love

And that God is about such things as

Compassion, and generosity

Equality

 

That God is about feeding the hungry

Forgiving those who have messed things up

Turning the insidious and destructive systems of

Dominance and power

Upside down

 

Turning people inside out

 

Making all things new

 

And it would seem “normal” for those who

say they follow Jesus to look like Jesus (at least a little bit)

 

But instead

We see the religion that claims Jesus

Embracing the old structures of power and wealth

We see coercion, not empowerment

Merit, not grace

Exclusion, not welcome

Fear, not joy

 

We see the rich worshipped

And the poor shamed

We see the stranger turned away

Unjust and predatory systems sustained

Racism ignored

Violence embraced

 

Mary had it right!

The Divine is about disruption

Revolution

Transformation

 

The one embodied in the life of her child

in his birth, life, death, and resurrection

“scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty”

 

That is what God is about!

Believe it!

Deal with it!

Live it!

 

And don’t pretend

That Christian nationalism

Toxic Individualism

Putting God “back in our schools”

The control of women

The oppression of BIPOC

The demonization of our LGBTQI+ siblings

The control of the SCOTUS and Congress, and the White House,

The worship of power and violence

The Second Amendment,

Have anything to do with God

 

Just don’t