#false white gospel

[idontknowknit]

How evangelical leader Jim Wallis uses the Bible to expose the ‘False White Gospel’ | CNN

[jadenvargen]

free online james baldwin stories, essays, videos, and other resources

**edit

James baldwin online archive with his articles and photo archives.

---NOVELS---

Giovanni's room"When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened - while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy. This book introduces love's fascinating possibilities and extremities."

Go Tell It On The Mountain"(...)Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves."

+bonus: film adaptation on youtube. (if you’re a giancarlo esposito fan, you’ll be delighted to see him in an early preacher role)

Another Country and Going to Meet the Man Another country: "James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit." Going to meet the Man: " collection of eight short stories by American writer James Baldwin. The book, dedicated "for Beauford Delaney", covers many topics related to anti-Black racism in American society, as well as African-American–Jewish relations, childhood, the creative process, criminal justice, drug addiction, family relationships, jazz, lynching, sexuality, and white supremacy."

Just Above My Head"Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work. Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land."

If Beale Street Could Talk"Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche."

also has a film adaptation by moonlight's barry jenkins

Tell Me How Long the Train's been gone At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. 

---ESSAYS---

Baldwin essay collection. Including most famously: notes of a native son, nobody knows my name, the fire next time, no name in the street, the devil finds work- baldwin on film

--DOCUMENTARIES--

Take this hammer, a tour of san Francisco.

Meeting the man

--DEBATES:--

Debate with Malcolm x, 1963 ( on integration, the nation of islam, and other topics. )

Debate with William Buckley, 1965. ( historic debate in america. )

Heavily moderated debate with Malcolm x, Charles Eric Lincoln, and Samuel Schyle 1961. (Primarily Malcolm X's debate on behalf of the nation of islam, with Baldwin giving occassional inputs.)

----

apart from themes obvious in the book's descriptions, a general heads up for themes of incest and sexual assault throughout his works.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Pavlovitz at The Beautiful Mess:

Wake up, White Liberals, Progressives, and Moderates. It's morning in America. A lot happened while we were sleeping. This is not the nation we thought existed back on January 20th of 2009: likely the last time many of us were fully awake. Back then, we basked in the warm glow of the arrival of a Black President and we grew comfortable, nestling down into a complacency that only the blind spots of privilege and false information provide. The joy of that moment, and the recent civil and human rights wins became a slow-acting emotional sedative that slowly squeezed out the urgency from us; one that gradually dulled our senses.

The visible victories numbed our minds into imagining we had arrived together at Dr. King’s glorious mountaintop. If we had taken the time to ask vulnerable, oppressed people, they'd have warned us not to fall asleep. Believing that the aspirational "we shall overcomes" that once rang out were now a fixed and unchangeable present, we settled cozily into that place where the heart rate slows and the limbs and eyelids grow heavy—and where without realizing it, slumber suddenly overtakes you: One blink awake, the next blink asleep. And for eight years we began to sleepwalk through the world, physically here and moving through daylight but not fully present, not totally seeing—caught between the actual and the unreal world, between the true nightmare and the imagined dream. Yes, we still talked and marched and campaigned and worked, but we did so slightly sedated in the haze of bad stories, willful ignorance, and wishful thinking. Meanwhile, the bigots woke up.

Shaken violently from sleep on that same January morning in 2009 by the reality of what decades of fear and terrible theology taught them was the absolute worst place they could find themselves—they began to mount a fierce counterattack. They infiltrated local politics and school boards and state election positions. They created news outlets and social media platforms designed to filter out everything except that which would fully trigger terror within the hearts of their intended targets and would-be allies: fantastical stories of a pervasive and coordinated Gay Agenda coming to convert their children; of violent, heavily armed, brown-skinned drug gangs overrunning our borders; of godless, abortion-mad progressives having indiscriminate sex without fear or care; of Muslim terrorist hordes infiltrating our neighborhoods and bodegas; of America-hating Democrats coming for their jobs and flags and prayers and guns. And we were still sleepwalking...

They leveraged thousands of Christian pulpits, where every seven days they'd wildly stoke the fires of people's phobias and fears, weaponize the Scriptures against gays and migrants and Muslims, pervert the expansive Gospel of Jesus into rabid nationalism—and sermon by sermon, enlist them all into service as passionate soldiers in the Army of the straight, white, American, male Lord.

And we were still sleepwalking... Then, to inculcate the terror fully, they propped up a sideshow carnival barker as their chosen one; a barren, empty husk of a man with no discernible moral convictions beyond wealth accumulation—who they could use as a flesh and blood avatar to embody and perpetuate themselves. They fashioned a vile, blustery orange idol to rally the fearful and the angry and the callous hearts around; one who would daily dig into the stinking muck to find a deeper bottom—and in the sleep-induced state we were in we thought it was a joke. We laughed ourselves back into a dreamworld where everything would be fine and where decency would prevail and where the system would work; so much so that one hundred million of us slept all the way through an election cycle. And here we are, a hair’s breadth from fascism.

John Pavlovitz says it best in regards to White Liberals, Progressives, and Moderates of all stripes: stay awake and don’t sleepwalk like what happened during Obama’s term.

[presidentcircles-assistant]

redraw of one of my favorite lines from le chat du rabbin that i think fits these two very well

og under the cut + explanation

“Je lui demande de me montrer une image de Dieu. Il me dit que Dieu, c’est une parole.”

R. Line justifies her neglect and disdain towards Trey, her own son, by using the Gospel of Three Dimensions, claiming that the Holy Sphere purposefully guided evolution to give Women larger brains than the Isosceles of the village. Women are inherently better, and are above the Isosceles: this is the structure set in stone. Trey, suffering daily under this dogma, questions their religion and the existence of the Holy Sphere. If the Sphere was real, he would have already saved them from the conditions of poverty and suffering their villages are put into. Because of R. Line's overbearing nature and refusal to accept any other point of view other than her own, Trey does not believe that the Third Dimension or an afterlife exist. R. Line is content with sending her son to his own death, under reassurance that their next life in a higher dimension is all that matters.

umm now some very choppy explanation of symbolism in this bc it's hard to put into words:

-The background is yellow to show the idea of the Sphere, specifically R. Line's ideal of the Sun as a holy object that is intertwined with the Holy Sphere: Only R. Line's beliefs are what matter, and are extremely overbearing and searing. R. Line is outlined in yellow, as well as the pupil of her eye being yellow to show this ideal is the lens she views the world through. Trey does not conform to the idea of a Holy Sphere, and has no yellow on him, but he is surrounded by it because it is forced onto him.

-Also relating to their pupil colors: In white, Trey is seeking out an answer grounded in reality and truth. In yellow, R. Line makes up her own answers, and justifies them through saying they are only what the Sphere would want. Similarly to this: Trey has a very solid outline because he wants direct answers that make logical sense and can be proven. R. Line's outline is blurry/indistinct because she is willing to lead her life using blind faith. Trey's limbs are fading because his limbs are the body part that have the most semblance to his mother (very angular + have spikes on the shoulders), and no matter what he does, he is still his mother's son. + it also shows how he does not have much time left before his death

-The black holes on the bottom represent the cross-sections of a Sphere, and the Sun in the back represents R. Line's pendant. These are not concepts that can be translated correctly into 2-Dimensions, and stick out as something that is really not true. These concepts are shadows displayed on a wall in an attempt to mimic the real thing, hence them being black and solid. It is an attempt for them to project the Sphere into their lives, but in the end, it is all false. The idea that R. Line dedicates herself to, an all-powerful and omnipotent Sphere that will bring salvation, is false. But she whole-heartedly believes in them, and willingly allows them to consume her life. It is also why she is fully black: Her life is only a vessel for her belief in the Sphere, and she has no real emotional connection to this plane of existence. This is also why blood is draining into the most prominent cross-section: She allows so much death and suffering, ruins the lives of all that get close to her, watches her son's death without lifting a finger to prevent it. All in the Sphere's name.

[impossibleprincess35]

Since you're an American, what are your thoughts on the comparisons of the Duchess and the Death Watch to the election? I read one of your stories and you compare them to alt-right politics in the U.S. Thx!

Heyoooooo, thanks for the ask! I'm going to go TL;DR, so please forgive me and feel free to wish you'd never asked. :)

So, I've never been a Trump voter. Never. It's been a major point of contention with close family and friends, and in the 8 years since his first campaign, it has been eye opening watching people blatantly fall for fascism in the guise of security and strength.

And so, during the pandemic, dealing with so much misinformation and seeing so many people subject others to danger to make a point about their "freedom," when I rewatched "The Clone Wars," the Mandalore storylines hit so much harder.

A lot of times, when people are hating on the Satine character and blaming her for Mandalore's fall, what I see is a lack of acknowledgement that Death Watch was so hell-bent on getting their way that they had to stage incidents to make her look weak and unfit as a ruler. They weren't starving. They weren't exiled from their system. They got a moon. They had political representation with a governor. They had resources. But instead of using everything at their disposal to do better and to evolve as a people, they used it to stage bombings, attacks, and incidents that only hurt their own people and undermined their own system.

But what Death Watch did so well was they spun a narrative that is so false that even FANS believe it.

Like, we're supposed to see that they're domestic terrorists.

But people are out here like, "Fuck Satine, she's the worst."

Oh, okay.

As an American, I've seen two viable, suitable female candidates who have lost to Donald Trump, a piece of shit grifter, a convicted felon, an impeached dirtbag of a human being, and BOTH of these women have lost.

The bar is so high for them, and it's so low for Trump.

And I see that with Satine Kryze and Pre Vizsla.

The damning theories about Satine committing genocide on her people and white-washing them of their history and culture are assumptions made from information given to us on the show by Almec, who turns out to be as corrupt as Pre Vizsla and Tal Merrik, and inferred from the animation choices made due to budget constraints; but those things are held over Satine's head and her reputation as though they are gospel. As though she herself confirmed them.

Meanwhile, Pre Vizsla is out here running an entire terrorist group that intends to destabilize Mandalore's peaceful government just to reassert themselves as strong warriors. He has shown us who he is. He shows us every time we see him on screen after his reveal as the leader of Death Watch. He commits himself to it. He has gaggles of lackeys behind him putting him up on a pedestal, enabling him.

But Satine's always the villain, and always to blame; nevermind the fact that she has proven herself to be a resilient leader who put her people above all else, including her own desires, and she fights to keep them out of the fray between the Republic and the Separatists. More than anything else, their stability and their independence is her top priority.

And I guess, for me, I see strength in Satine's diplomacy, strength in her kindness, strength in her restraint; so when I see people who only acknowledge strength in name calling, in divisiveness, in threats of violence, like Pre Vizsla and Death Watch, I'm instantly reminded of the crowd of American politics who believe that we must bully our way around the world.

The bar for women, especially women of color, is set so high that it's unattainable; but the bar for men is so low it's in hell.

And as an American who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, and who was genuinely thrilled to imagine a Harris/Walz administration, I've found myself annoyed by the remarks about her that I've read. The claims that she's not tough. That she couldn't hold her own with a room of world leaders. Because I don't see that. And I'm heartbroken to see that the popular vote wanted brute force and displays of bully behavior instead of a steady, calm hand to bring us together as a nation.

Worst of all, I fear the very possible outcome that, much like Mandalore, Americans are sacrificing their liberties for what they believe is security (ie. the xenophobic hate and the border talking points, lower grocery prices, etc.), but like Ben Franklin said, they'll lose both and deserve neither.

And in Mandalore's case, the people were scammed into believing that Satine failed them, when really, the attack on Sundari was an inside job - and when the flames of fear were stoked, the people turned on Satine, on peace, for the safety they believed Death Watch was going to bring them.

And then their asses got glassed by the Empire.

I look at what's going on around me, and I'm disappointed because I'm a dumb optimistic bitch who believed Americans were better than this. And there's a lot of blame to go around, but the vibe is off and things do not feel right. My gut tells me that the game was rigged - that Madam VP Harris was meant to fail from the word go, because the right aligned themselves to win at all costs, even at the costs of their own nation.

But Jyn Erso said it best: Rebellions are built on hope.

So, hopefully we don't get glassed..?

Jesus, how do I even end this post?

I'm sorry. I know you're wishing you'd never asked. <3

[akittyab]

TW: Religion, Bigotry, Transphobia Your Christ is a false god invented by two millennia of imperial co-opting of religion. The Christ that I follow is the one who fought for the marginalized, who fed the hungry, who included the eunuch, who taught that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am proud to live my life as a transgender lesbian woman who has accepted Christ into her life. I am proud to proclaim that my faith demands radical love, and to fight against oppression and racism and inequality in the name of God. The Christ I know flipped money tables at temples, and was crucified by Rome for fear of political unrest and insurrection of those Rome would keep marginalized and oppressed. The Christ I follow would not stand for the status quo, He would not bless billionaires, and He would certainly not stand idly by while powerful men relentlessly persecuted and crucified people for loving someone of the same gender, for aligning their mind, body, and gender expression, for living as their beautiful authentic selves. The gospel story and the message of our faith IS NOT and CAN NOT be one that demands that people accept their oppression, that the hungry and homeless suffer needlessly in the wealthiest nation in history, or that the comfortable live unafflicted and comfortable while the scourges of racism, bigotry, liberalism, capitalism, and white supremacy rain down destruction and floods of infinite material harm. Our faith does not permit us to defend systems of destruction. Our faith does not permit us to allow the wealthy and powerful to set the world on fire for short term profit. Our faith does not permit you to demand that gay and trans people live the lie of rigid white cisheteronormative conformity. Our faith does not permit us to accept the liberal lie that law = morality. Our faith does not permit conservative or reactionary political positions, period, because our faith is at its core a Radical faith of liberation, justice, and redemption. The internal mechanisms of our faith, the principles laid out in every section of God's sacred word, are that of progress, rationalism, liberation, justice, resistance against earthly forces, radical opposition to inequality and inequity; Our faith is fundamentally a love for a God who came down to earth in the person of Christ Jesus, to experience human nature, and to show us an exemplary life of liberation and compassion to aspire to live. https://www.threads.net/@akittyab/post/DE2rY8xvJ15?xmt=AQGzcxvxfO27eM9lDEjK2YA14CE3omsK8w43QMHpnwE1rw

[momentsbeforemass]

Love and doubt

Every age has its mistakes.

One of the big mistakes of our age? Black and white thinking. The false assumption that something, or someone, has to be either all one thing or all the other. As if there were only two, mutually exclusive options. And nothing else was even possible.

Sometimes it’s easy to spot. Like in toxic workplaces. And toxic families.

Either you’re either on the good list. And can do no wrong. Or you’re on the bad list. And can do no right.

What’s harder to spot is when you and I internalize that false assumption. And assume that we can only be one thing or the other.

One of the common ways this plays out in our thinking? With doubt. The notion that if we have any questions, any doubt at all, then we can’t believe in something. And therefore, must totally reject it.

The idea that we could love something, or someone, and still have doubts?

We don’t know what to do with that. We can say the words. But the idea? It is so foreign to us, that it just doesn’t stick.

Which is why we struggle to understand Mary Magdalene’s actions in today’s Gospel. She sees Jesus, she talks to Jesus, but she doesn’t recognize Jesus. Not at first.

This makes no sense to us. How could someone who loves Jesus not recognize Jesus?

If you’ve ever wanted to see how bizarre speculation about stuff in the Bible can get, today’s Gospel is an absolute goldmine. And it’s all because of our black and white thinking.

If you’re not locked into black and white thinking, the truth of the matter is actually pretty simple. And something that we all do, but don’t admit to ourselves that we do.

Mary Magdalene loved and doubted.

The truth is, Mary is just like us. We might like to pretend that we’re all one thing and not the other. But none of us really are that way. All of us are a mixed bag.

This was common knowledge in the early centuries of the Church. Speaking about Mary Magdalene, Pope Gregory the Great put it this way,

“Because she loved and doubted, she saw Him and did not recognize Him. Her doubt prevented her from knowing Him, and her love revealed Him to her.”

Nowhere does it say that Jesus removed all of Mary Magdalene’s doubts. Or that she had perfect faith. Mary Magdalene loved and doubted.

You want to know why, in the end, Mary Magdalene was able to recognize Jesus?

Because she didn’t let her doubts run away with her. She didn’t fall for the nonsense that one drop of doubt somehow cancels an ocean of love.

Mary Magdalene kept on loving, even though she doubted. And in the end, it was that love, in the face of doubt, that carried her to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene’s lesson for us is something that you and I cannot hear enough in this age of black and white thinking.

You can love and doubt.

God won’t love you any less.

It’s okay to doubt. But don’t let it keep you from loving God.

Today’s Readings

[cedric-k-rossignol]

'Floire et Blancheflor' - Medieval French inspiration for Undertaker & Cloudia (Part 1)

Part 2

Alright, back on my Medieval French Literature Shit. Splitting into parts since my Rossignol/nightingale last name theory post got stupid long, and there is a lot in this story to unpack.

Floire et Blancheflor is a romance originating from late 12th century France. It is one of the most popular romance stories from roughly 1200-1350 , and was translated into several different languages during that time. The story varies slightly based on the culture of the translation, but it revolves around the forbidden romance between the son of a pagan/saracen/Muslim king, Floire ("who belongs to the flower"), and the daughter of a Christian noblewoman, Blancheflor ("white flower").

Within the story, the lovers are represented with roses and lilies. Roses are strongly associated with the Phantomhive family, and white lilies are strongly associated with Undertaker.

Part 1 - Happy Birthday You Crazy Kids

In Floire et Blancheflor, the two lovers are born on the same day – Palm Sunday, known as 'Dimanche des Rameaux' in France. Within the text of this story, the day is referred to as 'Le jour de la Pasque florie' which translates literally as 'the day of flowery Easter'.

Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. 

Cloudia was born on Monday April 5th, 1830.  In the year 1830, Palm Sunday fell on April 4th.  

Honestly this makes no sense to me, since putting Cloudia's birthdate as the number '4' (in the fourth month of the year, no less) would work well with theme of the number '4' within the Phantomhive family and the bad luck the number brings in Japanese culture. It's odd because since Palm Sunday fits so well, the decision to have her birthday fall on April 5th as opposed to April 4th must have been deliberate...  

Her birthdate instead falls on 'Holy Monday', which seems pretty unimportant in the grand scheme that is 'Holy Week'.

According to the gospels, on this day Jesus Christ cursed the fig tree (Matthew 21:18–22, Mark 11:20–26), cleansed the temple, and responded to the questioning of his authority (Matthew 21:23–27).  

On the cleansing of the temple -

"a good deal of money was stored at the temple, where it could be loaned by the wealthy to the poor who were in danger of losing their land to debt. The Temple establishment therefore co-operated with the aristocracy in the exploitation of the poor." "the importance of the episode is signaled by the fact that within a week of this incident, Jesus is dead. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that this is the event that functioned as the 'trigger' for Jesus' death." "Jesus was not attempting to cleanse the Temple of any corruption. Instead, it was a radical protest against the institution of animal sacrifice, which gave people a false sense of transactional forgiveness compared to repentance."

However, Cedric's birth date March 25th would have also fallen on Holy Monday in the year 1331. If you assume that to be his birth year, and take Undertaker's reaper serial number 136649 to mean he died on January 28th, 1366, this would have made him 34 years old when he took his own life, which is the same age his son Vincent Phantomhive would be when murdered in 1885. 1331 also neatly works with the pattern of the number '13' (31 being its mirror) and '4' (1+3 & 1+3 = 44) appearing in his and the Phantomhives' lives.

There might be some connection to be made with Undertaker's rebellion against reaper HQ/his dislike of Queen Victoria & the 'queen's coins', but none of this seems particularly relevant to Undertaker or Cloudia as far as I can tell...

EDIT 01/10/25 - I think I now understand why Yana chose Holy Monday as the date of their births. I will detail this in a future theory, but it relates back to a certain French King and to the novel Ivanhoe.

(Sunday means 'day of the sun', whereas Monday means 'day of the moon'. Monday in French is 'Lundi' which comes from the French word for the moon, 'Lune'. Monday in Breton is 'Dilun'. In Japanese, Monday is also derived from the word moon. The moon/Monday might hold symbolism with Undertaker and Cloudia - most vividly, the imagery of the midnight tea party (where Undertaker is drawn as if he is holding the moon up in the sky) and the scene where R!Ciel faints come to mind.)

It should be noted there is precedence for an association between the Undertaker and Easter, as the Campania Arc takes place over Holy Week. The ship departs on Holy Wednesday, the Aurora Society's meeting and introduction of the bizarre dolls on Good Friday, and the confrontation with Undertaker and the sinking of the ship on Holy Saturday.

Something else to note for Palm Sunday - the custom of blessing 'palms' on this day originated in the middle ages in France.

In most Christian rites, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other, native trees), representing the palm branches that the crowd scattered before Christ as he rode into Jerusalem. These palms are sometimes woven into crosses. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to the substitution of branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew.  

In France, branches of boxwood or laurels (or olive branches, in Provence) are used in place of palm branches. "Many people visit cemeteries after the Mass and place blessed branches on the graves of loved ones as a sign of peace and hope for resurrection."  

Laurel branches/leaves decorate the edges of Cloudia's mourning locket. 

Next up, an empty tomb covered with golden roses and lilies, and a man literally tossing himself to the lions out of grief.

[tomorrowusa]

Jim Wallis is an anti-racist Protestant theologian. He thinks that Trump's Bible grift is just one of the Orange One's religious issues.

Donald Trump has gone from using the Bible as a prop to turning our Holy Scriptures into a commodity. Words no longer suffice for the things he says and does with the most common word for his personal, political, and presidential behavior being unprecedented. But I have some better words—religious words. I and many other faith leaders are willing to accuse Donald Trump of two more things. The first is idolatry—false worship. The White Christian Nationalism that Trump proclaims, directly names the problem. First, the most inclusive and welcoming message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is made white by the marketer-in-chief of racial grievance. Second, the word Christian is distorted beyond recognition. Service, sacrifice, and love are replaced with control and domination with Trump’s religious disciples unapologetically aiming for control in their “Seven Mountain Strategy”—with right-wing Christians ruling government, business, media, education, family, arts/entertainment, and, of course, religion. And in direct contradiction to Jesus' instruction to his followers to make disciples in every nation, Trump’s faith will be nationalism, not just positively loving your own country, but asserting the power of one nation over others. [ ... ] The second word is heresy, which means drawing Christians and others away from Christ. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement deny the truest and deepest teaching of Jesus in places like his Sermon on the Mount. Trump’s worship of wealth and utter disregard for the poorest and most vulnerable brings the judgment of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel Chapter 25, “As you have done to the least of these you have done to me.” And the life of lies that Donald Trump has led and deliberately spread to the damage of our nation completely contradicts Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John: “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

Here's the burn.

To invoke God, Mr. Trump, in the making and selling of your Bible is a very dangerous thing—not only for the soul of the nation but also for yours. You once said that you never have felt the need to ask God for forgiveness in your life. You might want to reconsider that now.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Baptist preacher here. If you are interested in my thoughts on mocking God...well, I can probably offer some more interesting reading suggestions than anything I will say. [.... ] But here goes.

1. People do not need to defend God. People do often feel the need to defend the religious practices they have centered - and the ways they have chosen to behave because of what they believe to be true about God. But that is not the same thing as defending God. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about what precisely the accuser is defending.

2. Treating an Italian painting of white Jesus as sacrosanct is most certainly honoring something that is not God. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about what exactly the accuser is honoring.

3. A depiction of Jesus welcoming table guests that others shun is Biblical. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about which Gospels the accuser is reading.

4. "Mocking God" is a mean-spirited critique. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about the intention of the accuser.

But more than any of this: the fact that American Christians so wildly missed the celebration of the Greek gods is stunningly and embarrassingly a result of the anti-intellectual tragedy into which the far right has invited evangelical Christians.

Listen. There is no shame in not already knowing something. It is ok to not readily recognize the Feast of DIONYSOS (Dionysus). I have to look up how to spell it every time I write it.

But the Greek gods are at the heart of the history of the Olympics.

And the opening Ceremony in Paris was about things deeply rooted in French culture and in Olympic history.

Artwork from the Louvre was highlighted.

And though there are depictions of the last supper in the Louvre, the particular painting in question is not at the Louvre because it is in a church in Italy. It has nothing to do with France-or the Olympics and it would have been wildly off topic.

It makes much more sense for the bawdy scene in question to be a depiction of the Feast of DIONYSOS (Dionysus).

I hope you will stop spending energy being angry about the opening ceremony mocking God.

And.

There are things that dishonor God.

Policies that make it harder for children to eat dishonor God.

Policies that strip dignity and self-determination from those whose realities you do not understand dishonor God.

The dismantling of public education dishonors God.

Racial injustice dishonors God.

Centering heteronormative relationships dishonors God.

Championing women who are able to birth live children as virtuous or honorable dishonors God.

Using tricky words to herald a society where freedoms and safety-nets are taken away in the name of some false nobility of suffering dishonors God.

Lying dishonors God.

Cheating on your partner dishonors God.

Destroying ecosystems dishonors God.

Filling the oceans with plastic dishonors God.

Hoarding wealth dishonors God.

Choose, then, whom you will serve.

[Mary Elizabeth Hanchey - Preacher, Author]

[charadrxxmxrr]

“you know, some people proclaim that white chocolate is a false chocolate, as it does not bear some of the most famous qualities of the noble milk and dark chocolates. They believe that because white chocolate does not contain cocoa, it is merely a false god preaching a false gospel.”

These people are morons.”

[artist-issues]

Hello! Hope you're having a splendid day~♡

I saw your post about Halloween coming, and how it was a favorite holiday of yours, and it prompted me to ask you a question;

My best friend (who has been Christian for his entire life) recently stopped celebrating Halloween because he feels it has pagan and demonic connotations. I respect his stance, but it does sadden me because having a large theme for Halloween was always our yearly tradition.

So, my question is this: as you are a Christian who loves Halloween, what would you say to Christians who feel celebrating it is against the Word of God? Thank you for your time! 🥰

Hi! You're very kind to ask me; I’m not an expert, and it’s important that we note that this is a grey area: the Bible, as far as I know, does not command that we celebrate or don’t celebrate Halloween. So what that means is, it doesn’t really matter what I think; it matters what your personal conviction about this is after talking with God about it and studying the principals He is black-and-white on in Scripture.

I could be wrong about Halloween. Your friend could be right. It’s an area the Bible doesn’t lay out specific instructions on (that I know of. If someone knows a place in the Bible where it is a thing please reblog and add to the discussion.) So don’t take anything I say too seriously.

Here’s a post where I do ramble on in depth, where someone asked me about this once.

But basically my idea is this:

1

All the seasons of the year tell a story, symbolically, that looks a lot like the story of God in history. Spring = Bright beginnings and the promise of beautiful life; Summer = Settling into the new normal, growing/making choices; Autumn = the consequences (good or bad) of those choices, either harvest or decay; Winter = Dark, cold, quiet, deathlike—except for the celebration of the end of that season, which is a gift humans don’t deserve and cannot cause for themselves….and back into Spring = rebirth.

So if all the seasons tell a story, Autumn is the darkest hour. It’s Marlin thinking Nemo is dead in the dentist’s office. It’s the dad dying and the family hiding in the basement from the monsters in A Quiet Place. It’s Little Red Riding Hood getting swallowed by the wolf. But I like that because it’s specifically when the monsters appear to triumph, and they think they’ve won, and the protagonist finally takes a good hard look at his own life—-it’s that “darkest hour” moment—when the monsters are usually weakest. Because they think they’ve won or they’ll win, and the story isn’t over yet, the protagonist is about to finally “get it” in a way they couldn’t have if they hadn’t gone through the “darkest hour.” So I observe Halloween and I get that sense, symbolically, from it. And I think earlier generations of Christians did, too.

2

Biblically, Paul said to have no partnership with demons. In the context, he meant that Christians shouldn’t get close to anything that might have the appearance of allying with demons…because then it would be allying with demons. Here’s how: if an unbeliever thinks that’s what you’re doing, the result for them is the same as if you were: they assume Christians are hypocritical. Serving “gods,” like everybody else, instead of the one God. And that is one more obstacle in the way of that person trusting Christ. So indirectly, because you’re just thinking about you and the places you’re “free” to go and do in Christ, you actually hindered the Gospel just as much as if you’d abandoned it and started worshipping false gods.

So your friend can have a point. If an unbelieving world can look at your Halloween party or costume or favorite movie, and go, “I don’t know much about Christianity, but I do know it normally doesn’t line up with that sexy-witch’s costume she’s wearing and the song about black sorcery she’s screaming along to—I guess she’s not serious about her religion, I guess it’s just religion to her, doesn’t really affect everything she does,” etc., then there’s a problem. It’s hurting your testimony. It looks like your allegiances are with whatever fun you feel free to have, never mind the connotations…instead of your allegiances being to Christ and Good, first and foremost.

But. If you’re careful, and you’re careful to connect everything you enjoy about Halloween back to the Truth…well, your non-believing friends might find the way you “celebrate” to be cringey all of a sudden, but who cares, as long as your allegiance is clear?

Personally, I like the monsters, not because they’re cool and I have a celebratory penchant for gore, but because they symbolize the fact that evil exists. And evil is miserable, destroys things, and is defeatable. Not to mention, in the story of the Bible, we are the monsters. Then Christ sacrifices and makes us a new creation. And I like it when those facts are made clear.

I just have to work hard to communicate that to any unbeliever who will listen about all this, when Halloween comes around. I want to do what the Christians did for the pagan winter-celebration in Rome: I want to take those natural God-given human impulses, like fear and noticing darkness, which have been twisted—and I want to un-twist them. I want to give them their proper context. I want to fix Halloween and make it do what Christmas does, in its proper context. I want to make Halloween point to the Truth.

3

I mean just think about it for two seconds. A werewolf is a man who’s transformed into a beast every month. A beast. Something that can’t reason, can’t control itself, just moves and breathes and lives to crate destruction and pain; that’s its nature. It can’t help it. And it comes from inside the man, who wants nothing more than to be rid of it, who’s terrified of himself and what he can do to others…but there’s nothing he can do. Because it is him. He can’t stop himself.

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Romans 7:21-24

But often in the old, classic monster stories it’s something pure, with an element of sacrifice, that finally fixes the monster problem. Like how the next verse says: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Really, truly, I love Halloween because I see the seeds here of a story that could point back to truth.

I’m the monster. I’m the scary, evil thing that can’t be overcome, that can’t stop doing what it does best—bringing death and darkness to the forefront of everything around me. The world’s all rotting, cursed, going through the motions of life but in reality, undead. That’s all the truth, and the victims are the ones who pretend it’s not all that bad. Who shut their eyes to the dark, scary stuff. But the ones who recognize it, who see the “darkest hour” for what it is, get to ride that darkest hour like Jack Sparrow riding into port on a sinking ship—the bad news is just your ticket to looking for, and finding, the Good News. Without a problem, there is no joy in a solution. Without conflict, there’s no story.

I’m the monster, the twisted being with the double-life, who doesn’t want to be the way they are, but can’t help it…but the monster’s powerless by the end of the story. What seemed so terrifying is actually not all-powerful, and won’t last.

So yeah, my plan is, dress up like a monster, but that makeup comes off, and THEN I get to eat candy, because yay, it’s off. Just like my life. In a way.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

It was inevitable that Republicans would go after Dolly Parton. Under the leadership of Donald "Make America Great Again" Trump, Republicans have grown to loathe most everything they used to hold in high regard. Forget patriotism — nowadays, Trump rallies are replete with claims that the United States is a "s__thole." The Super Bowl is now derided as an "election interference psyop." Once-beloved Budweiser beer has become a hate object. The same conservative forces who used to pretend they were defending American icons like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head from imaginary "cancelation" are now mostly in the business of canceling anything and everything that Americans might enjoy. 

"There’s Nothing Loving About Dolly Parton’s False Gospel," the wet blankets at The Federalist recently declared. The much-derided essay from Ericka Andersen castigates the beloved singer-songwriter for "condoning immoral sexual behavior," by which Andersen means being gay or queer. Andersen doesn't directly come out and claim Parton is lying about being a Christian, but gets close with terms like "secularized spiritual leader" and "false gospel."  The faux-theology is a paper-thin cover for what is really a political attack. It's not just that Andersen resents that Parton offers innocuous statements of love and acceptance of LGBTQ people, sentiments shared by most Americans. As with the attacks on the NFL, Taylor Swift, and the "Barbie" movie, it's about encouraging paranoia in the Republican base. The message, from Trump down through the right-wing media, is that white conservative Christians are under attack from every corner of society. As New York Times writer Jamelle Bouie explained on Bluesky, this allows conservatives to "see themselves as involved in revolutionary action that justifies anything under the sun." Including lying, committing crimes, and, as we saw on Jan. 6, violence. 

The invocation of religious language isn't surprising. This tactic is borrowed directly from the world of fundamentalist Christianity. For decades, far-right Christian pastors have used a similar strategy to alienate their congregations from the outside world, leaving pastors with total control of their flock's lives. Believers are routinely threatened with hell for even thinking about whatever pop culture is trendy.  In the 80s, of course, this was the notorious "Satanic panic," where everything from daycare centers to popular rock albums to Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games was said to be a gateway directly to demonic possession. In the 90s, fundamentalists declared that Pokémon "teaches children how to enter into the world of witchcraft." For the past couple of decades, Christian fundamentalists have been freaking out over the "Harry Potter" series, which only seems to have quieted a bit as the author JK Rowling has so loudly championed the far-right opposition to trans rights. Lately, the biggest target for hyperventilating accusations of demonic possession is, of course, Taylor Swift, as well as most other big pop stars. If it might create a chance for young people to bond with those outside of the church, it gets demonized.  Separating people from any connection to the outside world is an effective tool for control, which is why everyone from abusive husbands to cult leaders uses it. As the GOP morphs into the cult of Donald Trump, then, it's not surprising that they've also grown fond of telling their followers to shun any interests outside of Trump rallies and MAGA media. After all, even a casual conversation about football with a dreaded liberal might be a reminder that Democrats are normal people and not the "evil" and "sick" people who need eradication, as Trump regularly claims. 

[...] Parton's "love they neighbor" view is downright banal to most people, but it does run directly against the "hate and fear your neighbor" message of MAGA. It's especially unsettling to Republicans, as Andersen explicitly writes, because it's a direct allusion to what was recently a common Christian message: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." As New York Times writer Elizabeth Spiers argued on Bluesky, the Trump base now openly embraces "a bastardized version of Christianity that’s reverse engineered from their biases," rejecting compassion in favor of "permission to judge people they don’t like and punish them for deviations from conservative norms." Russell Moore, who was once a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention but got pushed out for, among other things, being anti-racist, agrees. He has spoken publicly about how Christian ministers can no longer preach about the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus famously blessed the meek, the peacemakers, and the merciful. If ministers try to teach this scripture, Moore said congregants will revolt, calling it "weak." The relentless cruelty of Trumpism is their true faith. 

Andersen's attack on Parton is part of a larger trend where the GOP is becoming an arm of the once-fringe Christian nationalist movement. As Paul Rosenberg has explained at Salon, these are folks who believe their rigid version of Christianity must "exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions." To justify stripping freedom of religion away and imposing theocracy on Americans, Christian nationalists, including Trump, claim to be acting in self-defense. They make false accusations that they are somehow "canceled" by the "woke mob," and thus the only way to restore their "rights" is to take rights away from everyone else.

Andersen employs this dishonest tactic by claiming "the culture is on a constant witch hunt for those who would call homosexuality sinful." Never mind that LGBTQ people have suffered imprisonment, violence, and discrimination. Ignore the fact that, if conservatives had their way, queer people would lose their right to marry, would be denied health care, be fired from their jobs, and be put in jail for having consensual sex. She wants readers to believe the real victims are homophobes, because people accurately call them bigots. And that all those terrible things they want to do to LGBTQ are justified, because they feel "witch hunted" by having people disagree with them.

Amanda Marcotte wrote a good Salon piece nailing the hypocrisy of the Christian Right's attacks on pop culture icons such as Taylor Swift and Dolly Parton while simultaneously whining about being "victims" of "cancel culture."

[angelthefirst1]

The four horsemen of Revelation.

White horse rides...

And, Rick gets taken into the sky and is next seen again in the Millennium.

Revelation 6.1

The 7 seals on the scroll 📜

The Lamb (Jesus) opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer.

The white horse 🐎 represents a false peace that the antichrist rides in on. He makes a false 7-year (Revelation) peace agreement with Israel (Jacob/Daryl)

Antichist try's to destroy Jacob's ladder (bridge to God) during the time of Jacob's trouble.

Rick is Beth, and symbolically, the seal on the scroll 📜 being opened for the white horse was used to advertise DD2.

1st seal opened on the scroll 📜 , white horse, rider with a bow...

The red (scarlet) horse rides 🐎

‭Revelation 6:3-4

When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” [4] Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.

The red horse 🐎 represents WAR, and the antichrist taking peace from the earth 🌎

The black horse 🐎 rides...

‭Revelation 6:5-6

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. [6] Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

The black horse represents famine and food shortages, but the rich (oil and wine) won't be affected.

Buttons the black horse is eating and then gets eaten.

At Alexandria (revived Roman empire that the antichrist rises from), we see rationing of food around the same time we see the black horse ride. 🐎

The pale GREEN horse 🐎 rides...

‭Revelation 6:7-8

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” [8] I looked, and there before me was a pale green horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Nelly was Beth's (house of) Greene horse 🐎

The name Nelly is a female form of Daniel, which is from the Hebrew name Daniyyel, meaning "God is my judge"

Nelly (Daniel's 70th week) that Daryl went looking for Sofia on.

Daryl on Nelly went looking for Sofia. Sofia, with her the days of Noah rainbow 🌈 t-shirt, came out of the ark/barn dead (death and Hades)

Matthew 24.37

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man (Christ/Beth)

Noah wore this t-shirt... a depiction of Noah gathering one male and one female of every animal to put onto the Ark. The stalk represents a baby, meaning the animal line will continue.

The music box of 510 went into Noah's Ark/barn and played the gospel good news after the rain stopped. 🌈

The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end. ♾️

[heathersdesk]

2 Nephi 5

So y'all now know where I stand on Nephi being an unreliable narrator. In one of my previous posts, I talked about this in reference to his treatment of his family and his leadership. I tackled the racism superficially, so let's go ahead and choke slam it the rest of the way.

20 Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me, saying that: Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence. 21 And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

2 Nephi 5:20-21

Has this passage been used historically to enable racism in the Church, including the justification for the racial priesthood restriction? Yes. Absolutely. Curse of Cain. Curse of Ham. Less valiant in the presence. Slavery being perpetuated into eternity. The whole shebang. This isn't the origin, as early pro-slavery church leaders pursued biblical justifications for slavery like everyone else. What this verse did was present the opportunity for Saints so inclined to create their own Mormon flavored versions of those justifications.

How does Come Follow Me approach these attitudes and the racism that perpetuated them?

What was the curse that came upon the Lamanites? In Nephi’s day the curse of the Lamanites was that they were “cut off from [the Lord’s] presence … because of their iniquity” (2 Nephi 5:20–21). This meant that the Spirit of the Lord was withdrawn from their lives. When Lamanites later embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ, “the curse of God did no more follow them” (Alma 23:18).

The Book of Mormon also states that a mark of dark skin came upon the Lamanites after the Nephites separated from them. The nature and appearance of this mark are not fully understood. The mark initially distinguished the Lamanites from the Nephites. Later, as the Nephites and Lamanites each went through periods of wickedness and righteousness, the mark became irrelevant.

Prophets affirm in our day that dark skin is not a sign of divine disfavor or cursing. President Russell M. Nelson declared: “I assure you that your standing before God is not determined by the color of your skin. Favor or disfavor with God is dependent upon your devotion to God and His commandments and not the color of your skin” (“Let God Prevail,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2020, 94).

As Nephi taught, the Lord “denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; … all are alike unto God” (2 Nephi 26:33).

I've heard theories that the skins, rather than talking about the complexions of people, refers to the clothing skins they wore, or some kind of mark they would put on their faces such as tattoos or body art. I've also heard people lean into the notion that this was meant to be metaphorical, centering the images in the text of flint or scales in their eyes. What the church is attempting to teach now in Come Follow Me is that we don't know what is meant here, but it's NOT complexion. I don't find any of these compelling and I want to talk about why.

So we don't know what it means? But we know it's not racist? So which is it? You can't have it both ways like that. So let's be honest!

We know it's not intended to be racist because the Church tried that for over a century, and it became obvious it was ungodly, abusive, false. We are willing to admit now that such attitudes contradict Scripture and the nature of God because our community existed in the ridiculous position of maintaining racist policies in the face of those scriptural contradictions that condemned us. THAT'S how we know the Lamanite "curse" is not supposed to signify complexion skin color.

We paid dearly for that lesson in how many people were denied the fullness of God and his blessings, so let's not diminish that history so we don't have to repeat it. Especially since the Church exists in cultures and societies around the world who are currently attempting to conceal this kind of history so they can go on repeating it.

Besides being disingenuous with what our experience as a community has been, my issue here is that these attitudes deserve more complex and sophisticated dismantling than this. Especially because with these justifications of alternate curses being proposed, the crucial lesson here is going unlearned.

It is counter to the nature of God and the order of heaven to punish the innocent. Curses that expand beyond the necessary bounds of punishing the perpetrator(s) are inherently unjust, regardless of the nature of the curse. We don't believe that children are punished for the sins of their parents. Period. That's what the scriptures teach. We have an entire Article of Faith dedicated to that principle. God does not curse anyone for sins they didn't commit. People do that. God does not.

The racial priesthood restriction became our Original Sin, with more steps. It was nothing short of hypocrisy, perpetuated by prophets and apostles who had every reason to know better, but didn't. It was where the leadership of our church, in the attempt to appear smart and clever, copied the homework from the rest of Christianity when they became obsessed with scientific racism and eugenics, and it took us WAY too long to admit the mistake. And in many ways, our community STILL can't openly talk about it or admit to it. Which is how we end up with weak sauce explanations like the one given in Come Follow Me for 2 Nephi 5.

I'm not afraid to say that prophets and apostles are capable of teaching false doctrine. They are imperfect human beings who are susceptible to making these kinds of mistakes and leading people astray. This is a reality we must be prepared to face as believers in community with one another.

If we can't see and condemn these failures in someone like Nephi, how can we hope to see and recognize them in someone like Brigham Young, J. Reuben Clark, or Bruce R. McConkie?

Note that Come Follow Me quotes 2 Nephi 26. These are some of my favorite verses in all of scripture. Let's realize together that Nephi had to grow into this revolutionary vision of a God who embraces all people without prejudice. By the time Nephi reaches the maturity to say that "all are alike unto God," the perpetuation of his prejudice and the attending destruction in the conflicts of his people were already set into motion. He spent his remaining years finally teaching the truth of respect and inclusion his younger self didn't know how to believe in.

At the exact moment he finally envisions the love of God, the curse he describes in 2 Nephi 5 had already taken root into the cultures of two groups who would go on hating each other until the bitter end. The prejudice Nephi taught became the defining obstacle for the Nephites and Lamanites, shaping the beliefs who came afterwards, who continue to appeal to and describe this curse throughout the rest of the narrative. Nephi created this curse, at least in part, and every generation after him found ways to perpetuate and reinforce it.

The Book of Mormon was written for our day. And it's hard to describe this curse and NOT think of racism because it is very much like a curse in our modern day. This prejudicial hatred is a destructive force in our society. It's perpetuated by people in power who seek their own personal gains by feeding into those conflicts. And like any curse, it doesn't have to come from God to have the worst kind of power imaginable. All it takes for such a curse to survive is for the people who are impacted by it to never challenge their relationship to it in any meaningful way. Like cancer, it spreads and worsens by going unacknowledged and untreated.