of course, probably lots of stuff was said in the name of Jesus that pissed Jesus off.
For example, here's what 1 Protestant Pastor from Macon, GA had to say:
"African Americans are exceptions to the common brotherhood of man and are sensual and stupid, lazy, improvident, and vicious... an ignorant, degraded, indolent people... who could never be equal with the white man. The inferiority of the negroes was designed by their creator."
WHAT?!?
yeah, go ahead and blurt some expletives. i'm guessing God is right there with ya.
i barely brought myself to write the above excerpt from the book and the hundreds more like it i have in front of me would make you sick to your stomach... and again, i believe God would be nauseated right there with ya.
And this isn't a singular example of Pastors using the Bible to preach that not only was slavery right, but an incomprehensible view of the color of one's skin making one "better" or "less than".
so, it boggles my mind (as i'm sure it does yours) that a Pastor wrote this book & thousands more were preaching and teaching this stuff as biblical doctrine.
it makes me so angry that i can barely continue to put sentences together.
so, let's move on to the real point of my post before i have an anuerysm. (seriously as i write this my heart rate is going crazy and i'm all worked up.)
we all know that this Pastor and those like him are so wrong, in so many ways, on so many (every) point that we wouldn't even know where to begin to address all the jacked up problems. so, we won't even waste our time.
& that's not why i'm writing.
here's the point: it boggles my mind that Pastors were saying this stuff and were convinced this was what the Bible taught/God said. and that was just 150 years ago. (and really the same "theology" continued into the 1960s... and unfortunately, probably even today.) i'm sure this boggles your mind too.
the humbling question is what will boggle the mind of Pastors 150 from now about what i write/say/teach in the same way that this boggles my mind now?
i resolve to not be so arrogant & think that won't happen.
i'm trying to be humble enough to hold most everything in an open hand. because an entire culture was duped & deceived into thinking something we see as incomprehensible was actually God-honoring. they were somehow blinded to it.
(other examples of this same sort of thing could go on and on - the Crusades, executing heretics, etc...)
who are we to think we're not blindly doing something like this right now? what if we're participating in, defending, even preaching as biblical and God-honoring something that will soon be obvious to everyone as totally anti-God (like racism).
the older i get, i'm becoming more and more EXTREMELY cautious of anyone without this kind of attitude.
(other examples of this same sort of thing could go on and on - the Crusades, executing heretics, etc...)
who are we to think we're not blindly doing something like this right now? what if we're participating in, defending, even preaching as biblical and God-honoring something that will soon be obvious to everyone as totally anti-God (like racism).
I’ll go ahead and say that 25% of the stuff I say & attempt to write/teach/preach even from the Bible is straight up wrong. and I can’t even tell you which 25% it is. [of course, if I could tell you that I just wouldn’t say it in the first place.]
and 25% is a pretty conservative estimate.
Just sayin.
the older i get, i'm becoming more and more EXTREMELY cautious of anyone without this kind of attitude.
***Here's the really big Question i would LOVE to know the answer to = what, specifically, will cause someone to be repulsed with what i said in 150 years? What will cause them to be repulsed by what you said?
Mr. Pastor, what did you say in church yesterday that will be oh so obvious to a future generation that it's gut-wrenchingly wrong?
ouch.
that should hurt.
that should be a big of a slap in the face and a wake up call.
if it's not... if we can read this and just think "oh, i would never believe and promote something that awful."
if we find ourselves saying something like that... uh oh.
Mr. Pastor, what did you say in church yesterday that will be oh so obvious to a future generation that it's gut-wrenchingly wrong?
ouch.
that should hurt.
that should be a big of a slap in the face and a wake up call.
if it's not... if we can read this and just think "oh, i would never believe and promote something that awful."
if we find ourselves saying something like that... uh oh.
that's the kind of arrogance that will get us into big trouble.
that's the kind of arrogance that will cause us to miss all the abolitionists shouting "God created everyone EQUAL. what you're saying is SO jacked up. you're WRONG!"
So, Mr. Pastor Ebenezer from 100 years ago… I’m hatin on you knowing that I will probably be hated on 1 day too.
i just pray that what i'm jacked up about is not about something as horrid as what you were jacked up about.
(ok, that probly wasn't a very fun post to read. i'll be sure to post something light & fun tomorrow.)
