Author: eejoseph

It ought to render you sleepless

eejoseph, , , ,

It does not occur to all the supremely endowed colonial and religious movements that it is a crime and utterly immoral to occupy land in God’s name, disenfranchise any part of the population, slander foreigners,  allow the abuse of  children, bully a superpower to fund terrorism, to flip the terrorist label over onto people who resist an illegal occupation and a crime to use a veto to shield criminals from accountability at the United Nations.

Conveniently there’s no 11th commandment that outlaws racism and bigotry

Being strictly textual, the United States and Israel can do whatever works to affirm their right to kneel on the necks of citizens and loudly proclaim the right to affirm themselves as law and order reformers.  What a load of hogwash!  That Israel has violated the rules of war and occupation in plain sight for seven decades does not give people pause is not surprising.  Perhaps people are pausing now that Israel is having to face the music over its superior defence systems, open discrimination,  corrupt leadership, and excessive sectarianism.  There may well be a political party for every territorial and theological interest.  The Holy Land is one of the last places one would expect to find violations of both human rights and humanitarian conventions. What would Moses say, if anything?

God’s law is not shelter from philanthropy and the pursuit of justice

Listen carefully and you will hear certain groups placing themselves beyond the reach of international law as if there was no single human race, no single planet of which we are caretakers.  We Christians can be charged with pie-in-the-sky fantasies but you will not find us denying our humanity, because in the final verdict of the divine tribunal every person relies on divine mercy, and many religious people will be decisively silenced by the conscientious conduct of non-religious people getting God’s approval. Justice for religious people will always be tainted by tribalism and self-interest.

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

John 5:45

Gratefully our passions are in check when we see opportunites to look down our noses at our fellow-citizens. We are not interested in indicting, condemning and destroying anyone. We are certain that Christ and Moses part ways in this arena. Injustice can be disguised as righteous indignation but God is neither mocked nor deceived,

Vanish the model role for high school environment

eejoseph,

Describe something you learned in high school.

My high school education is as strange as it comes.   I was not aware of any impression from the teachers that contributed to my learning or character.  The  functional and essential lessons for life did not come from the context of math, science and the humanities in the classroom, but rather from a single figure demonstrating that young people needed to be true to themselves and the community to which they belonged.

Stand up the struggle for social justice

The power and diversity of languages and the combination of music with sober reflection touched me more deeply than anything else.  It seems now that I took with me the idea that the best use of anything I learned was going to need friends and teamwork.  As a result, my greatest joys come from the lasting friendships,  the  music, and the courage to protest anything, anything at all.

Creation is no parallel to salvation

eejoseph

When the narrative of Genesis becomes a tool for putting law on the same reflection platform as grace, we see how unreasonable Bible interpretation has become.   How quickly people can step outside the circle of love to despise their neighbours’ food, to judge and condemn the very things of which they are guilty! It does not matter which part of the Mosaic law one holds up as Christian value there is impoverishment and juvenile emptiness in the outcomes. As surely as humankind would not proceed without a female component so the love of God could not proceed without the sending of the Saviour.

No eternal life rises from God’s creation

The meditation on creation slips quickly into unprofitable comparisons to Adam and Eve. The elephant in the room is the thin line between pride in one’s capacity to pass where Adam failed and agreement with God that a flaming sword blocks the way to immortality. This is especially true when one commits to hundreds of commands from God compared to the single prohibition Adam had to deal with.

Who wants a do-over of creation?

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

(Genesis 1:31, NASB)

Creation is a starting point. The conditions are not going be duplicated. The outcomes of creation are pretty devastating. The evaluation goes quickly downhill from very good, to not good, to expulsion from Eden, to destruction by a flood.

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:18, NASB