GOP Gospel: Judgement
Mar. 24th, 2021 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinDay 30 of my Lent project. For background, please read this.
A reading from the Gospel according to the GOP:
Matthew 7:1-5
"Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but you do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye', while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye."
The funny thing about this one is that Paul basically encourages us to do exactly what I've described in the Republican version – I am too lazy to dig up the exact verse from all his long-winded letters right now (Googling 'paul judgment' is ... not helpful) but it's something like a self-correcting network where members call out other members and so generally keep the congregation in step. That's a teaching that led to all sorts of weirdness in Puritan years, and the Puritan tradition is one of the ancestors to modern American fundamentalism. It's hard to see how that meshes with Jesus' encouragement to sort out your own hangups before you meddle with others', and frankly it leaves the door wide open to abusive ministry.
Many Evangelicals quote Paul as if he were Jesus, especially when they want to be homophobic and misogynist, because Jesus didn't really go there. Paul was not Jesus, though; he was an ordinary man who had his own personality and cultural hangups, and was trying to come to grips with the counterintuitive perspective shift of his conversion experience, just like the rest of us. In signal-boosting Paul's intolerance, his proponents conveniently overlook his letter to the Romans, in which he explicitly and repeatedly tells people off for judging one another. Even Paul can make a distinction between admonition and condemnation, one that escapes far too many. If Paul, the self-righteous former Pharisee, can appreciate that being Christian is incompatible with being judgey (despite his own failures in that), then so should we all.
A reading from the Gospel according to the GOP:
"When you judge, judge from a place anchored firmly on God's law, for we are all judged by the same divine yardstick against these immutable commandments. Should you see a neighbour transgress, call them out on their transgression, and punish the wrongdoers according to your justice, for God relies upon you to maintain his discipline upon earth."
Matthew 7:1-5
"Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but you do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye', while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye."
The funny thing about this one is that Paul basically encourages us to do exactly what I've described in the Republican version – I am too lazy to dig up the exact verse from all his long-winded letters right now (Googling 'paul judgment' is ... not helpful) but it's something like a self-correcting network where members call out other members and so generally keep the congregation in step. That's a teaching that led to all sorts of weirdness in Puritan years, and the Puritan tradition is one of the ancestors to modern American fundamentalism. It's hard to see how that meshes with Jesus' encouragement to sort out your own hangups before you meddle with others', and frankly it leaves the door wide open to abusive ministry.
Many Evangelicals quote Paul as if he were Jesus, especially when they want to be homophobic and misogynist, because Jesus didn't really go there. Paul was not Jesus, though; he was an ordinary man who had his own personality and cultural hangups, and was trying to come to grips with the counterintuitive perspective shift of his conversion experience, just like the rest of us. In signal-boosting Paul's intolerance, his proponents conveniently overlook his letter to the Romans, in which he explicitly and repeatedly tells people off for judging one another. Even Paul can make a distinction between admonition and condemnation, one that escapes far too many. If Paul, the self-righteous former Pharisee, can appreciate that being Christian is incompatible with being judgey (despite his own failures in that), then so should we all.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-24 10:12 pm (UTC)I'm very much a lapsed Catholic, but I'm amused that I still have this vague recollection of Paul being judgmental and someone who made me roll my eyes (even as his teachings are the foundation for so much "church as a religion" stuff).
no subject
Date: 2021-03-25 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-25 09:50 pm (UTC)