#Mass conversion

[apenitentialprayer]

In regard to questions of conversion, it is well to keep in mind that resistance to slavery did not always entail rejecting the master’s religion. It could frequently mean, as is vividly manifested in the case of Nat Turner, interpreting the master’s religion in a manner he did not like.

- Ala Alryyes (A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said, page 25)

Using Christianity to colonize usually backfires eventually because colonized peoples end up discovering that the God they were forced to worship is really on their side. They discover that the God of the Bible is a God who frees enslaved people and condemns those who exploit them. The colonized discover that the Christian story is a story of a God saving people like them from the type of people that forced Christianity on them.

- Damon Garcia (The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus, page 63)

[1001aus]

Phantom is a member of JLA when everyone finds out that the Bats have contingency plans against everyone else.

While everyone else is shouting about trust and betrayal, Danny can't help but be relieved. He's seen his bad future, after all. Dan is reformed now, but that doesn't retroactively save the timeline he wiped out.

Danny only has one issue with the contingencies for him: Batman mistakenly believes that his intangibility works the same as Martian density shifting.

It doesn't. In fact, they're very different powers. Intangibility is more of a phase shift where he turns his physical form into energy.

This means that none of the contingencies in his file will work because they don't accurately account for one of his basic powers.

(The shouting actually gets derailed for a bit when he brings it up. All the scientists are a bit horrified about the implied energy conversions happening whenever he uses this "basic" power. As a halfa with an actual physical form, Danny should be giving off enough energy to blow up the planet whenever he transforms.)

[attyrocious]

like hiring a horse to dogsit

[that-wildwolf]

I still am and will continue to be a little bit messed up about how Garrus, self proclaimed bad boy and vigilante, super capable special ops soldier, best sniper in the galaxy, played his biggest part in the Reaper War not on the front lines but away from any combat. I will never be normal about this. In ME3, no one else checks up on Shepard like he does. Romance or not, Garrus tells Shepard to get some sleep, asks her how she's doing, lets her air out her doubts and insecurities to him... Like I am not joking I am fully serious, Garrus pretty much singlehandedly won the Reaper War. I'm sure she would have broken down if it weren't for that support. Do you think she would have made it otherwise? Do you think she would have had the strength to go on, to win? I'm so so obsessed with this. Mr action hero over there quite literally won that war with the power of love. Not with a gun but with some compassion for a person he loved. Can not will not be normal.

And what messes me up even more is he would absolutely not recognise his part in that victory. Like she won is all that matters. It was her victory. I'm sure it never even occurred to him that no one else checked up on her, it never occurred to him that he was the only thread she was hanging on. Because he loves her, she's his best friend, so of course he's gonna check up on her. He doesn't see this as anything special. It just makes sense for him. I really do think she could tell him outright "hey Garrus actually you're the only reason we won at all" and his brain would not connect that a non-combat thing equals war victory. I'm always and forever going to be a little bit insane about this.

[kingdomoftheheavens]

Top-Down or Bottom-Up Repentance? The Shift Toward Mass "Evangelism" and Group "Conversions"

Top-Down or Bottom-Up Repentance? The Shift Toward Mass “Evangelism” and Group “Conversions”

I readily confess that I have adapted much of what is in this article from Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity (see my Bibliography page), to which I refer the reader for a much more thorough treatment of the subject. At its founding, the Body of Christ was a body largely of outcasts, bound together by their individual faith in and friendship with Jesus Christ. See, for instance, John…

[hellafluff]

Garrus' interactions with Shepard post-Thessia are so fucking well written. Everyone else is telling Shepard they're sorry or doing a soft sad voice asking if she's okay but Garrus has this moving little speech about how losing a fight isn't the end of the war and I just. He's so fucking good. He knows what Shepard needs to hear and has the experience to back up the things he says. He's so good to her

[percki]

i think that a lot of people don’t understand or weren’t conscious of the steddie apocalypse that occurred immediately after st4 aired. it was insane

[tenojan-in-tevinter]

If i had a nickel for every time I've become unreasonably attached to a human male character from a BioWare game with dark hair and brown eyes who you meet in the very first mission of the game, and has trust issues either with himself or others or both, and is also voiced by Raphael Sbarge, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Im talking about them

[my-hot-awkward-turian-boyfriend]

Shepard: *gets injured during a mission*

Garrus: How's your head?

Shepard, on too much medi-gel, probably: Phenomenal. Why? You want some?

Garrus:

Shepard:

Garrus:

Shepard: Oh.

Shepard: You meant--You meant this head, like...the one on my shoulders.

Shepard: Right. Uhm.

Shepard:

Garrus:

Shepard: Yeah, not as great.

[normalbrothers]

JOHN: The head of the family ain't here.

[juha-art]

the strength of conviction and the relief of doubt, shared

[apenitentialprayer]

The Christianization of African-Americans

Postcolonial American culture's preoccupation with breaking away from Europe was far removed from the situation among Africans in the United States at the time. The initial tenacity with which African Americans held onto their indigenous practices and the reluctance of many Southern white slaveholders to teach Christianity to the slaves limited the Christianizing process in the early period. Even the Great Awakening of the 1740s, which swept the country like a hurricane, failed to reach the masses of slaves. Only with the Great Western Revival at the turn of the nineteenth century did the Christianizing process gain a significant foothold among black people. The central questions at this junction are: Why did large numbers of American black people become Christians? What features of Protestant Christianity persuaded them to become Christian? The Baptist separatists and the Methodists, religious dissenters in American religious culture, gained the attention of the majority of slaves in the Christianizing process. The evangelical outlook of these denominations stressed individual experience, equality before God, and institutional autonomy. Baptism by immersion, practiced by Baptists, may indeed have reminded slaves from Nigeria and Dahomey of African river cults, but fails to fully explain the success of the Christianizing process among Africans. Black people became Christians for intellectual, existential, and political reasons. Christianity is, as Friedrich Nietzsche has taught us and liberation theologians remind us, a religion especially fitted to the oppressed. It looks at the world from the perspective of those below. The African slaves' search for identity could find historical purpose in the exodus of Israel out of slavery and personal meaning in the bold identification of Jesus Christ with the lowly and downtrodden. Christianity also is first and foremost a theodicy, a triumphant account of good over evil. The intellectual life of the African slaves in the United States —like that of all oppressed peoples— consisted primarily of reckoning with the dominant form of evil in their lives. The Christian emphasis on against-the-evidence hope for triumph over evil struck deep among many of them. The existential appeal of Christianity to black people was the stress of Protestant evangelicalism on individual experience, and especially the conversion experience. The "holy dance" of Protestant evangelical conversion experience closely resembled the "ring shout" of West African novitiate rites: both are religious forms of ecstatic bodily behavior in which everyday time is infused with meaning and value through unrestrained rejoicing. The conversion experience played a central role in the Christianizing process. It not only created deep bonds of fellowship and a reference point for self-assurance during times of doubt and distress; it also democratized and equalized the status of all before God. The conversion experience initiated a profoundly personal relationship with God, which gave slaves a special self-identity and self-esteem in stark contrast with the roles imposed upon them by American society. The primary political appeal of the Methodists and especially of the Baptists for black people was their church polity and organizational form, free from hierarchical control, open and easy access to leadership roles, and relatively loose, uncomplicated requirements for membership. The adoption of the Baptist polity by a majority of Christian slave marked a turning point in the Afro-American experience [...] Independent control over their churches promoted the proliferation of African styles and manners within the black Christian tradition and liturgy. It also produced community-minded political leaders, polished orators, and activist journalists and scholars. In fact, the unique variant of American life that we call Afro-American culture germinated in the bosom of this Afro-Christianity, in the Afro-Christian church congregations.

- Cornel West ("Race and Modernity," from his Reader, pages 61-63, 63)

[swaps55]

Dark Star

Ao3

Unlike most of the soirees Garrus has been to lately, the food is actually good. The Citadel’s superior supply lines aside, maybe it’s a good sign that all the times he’s stuffed himself into dress robes to put on a show for diplomats and, as Shepard likes to describe it, ‘bludgeon his way through bureaucracy,’ is actually accomplishing something.

Some days, putting a galaxy back together feels a lot harder than saving it in the first place.

Tonight’s party, thrown by the volus as a welcome mat for what is sure to be three days of grueling negotiations over how to prioritize who gets the new – and extremely limited – soil reclamation technology developed by the salarians, is actually more tolerable than most, if only for the company. The humans tapped Shepard to be the figurehead of their delegation. When Garrus asked him about humanity’s position on who deserved the higher share of devices fine-tuned to isolate and neutralize contaminants left behind by reaper corpses, he’d just laughed.

“Did you even know what this whole conference was about?” Garrus asks, handing him a fresh whiskey and Alenko a beer. The key to these events is to hit the bar hard and fast while the stocks hold out, and right now there is a lot of turian brandy. He’s not getting enough credit for juggling three drinks through a crowd without an incident.

“I think Ambassador Cartwright was trying to explain it to me, but I wasn’t paying attention,” Shepard replies, taking a sip of his drink. The band is loud – most everything at these receptions are a little over the top, as if they can force the galaxy back together if they’re cheerful enough – but the elcor singing backup vocals is surprisingly good.

Alenko snorts, but before he can elaborate on his disdain, another uniformed human puts a hand on Shepard’s arm and asks to speak with him about the keynote address he’s supposed to give in the morning and probably plans to make up as he goes.

Shepard gives Alenko a save me look before allowing himself to be towed to a quieter corner of the Silver Coast Casino, which doesn’t really exist.

“He wasn’t listening because he was thinking about all the ways he could incapacitate the guy,” Alenko says, never one to let a good dig go, even if the recipient is no longer within ear shot.

“Of course he was,” Garrus replies, tugging on his sleeve. He’s not sold the yellow stripes were a good choice, here. “That’s why I’ve learned not to stand near windows around him.”

A puzzled look passes briefly across Alenko’s face before he laughs it off. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Garrus flicks a mandible. Jack had brought up Shepard’s one-size-fits-all tactic of booting uncooperative mercs out skyscraper windows every chance she got on the Normandy. It hadn’t exactly been funny at the time, but then again, nothing was, and when there’s nothing good to laugh at you stretch the boundaries of what’s funny until something qualifies. Dark, maybe, but it had been a running joke for so long it had just become part of Shepard’s zeitgeist. Sure Alenko hadn’t been there, but it’s hard to believe that no one had told him that particular story. Especially Shepard. They talked about everything. As Shepard liked to confess, repeatedly and insistently, when he was drunk.

Hm.

Read the rest on Ao3

[shalom-iamcominghome]

My first chanukiah! This was in my shul's small judaica for sale collection, and I think it's vintage. I was told many of the objects have been in the display cabinets since the 1960s, and since I can find no evidence of this chanukiah online, I'm inclined to believe it. If so, this is older than my dad is!

[ghostryders]

if he has no fans i’m dead

[noandpickles]

My list of demands for the next mass effect game:

1. LET US FUCK A KROGAN

2. he/him asari companion

thank you