Leviticus
Biblical roots of justice
The founding story in the Bible tells of a diverse group of freedom fighters who have been on the march since the burdens of Egyptian slavery and scarcity got to be too much, since leaders like Moses, Aaron, Miriam, and many others—named and unnamed—came forward to say, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” And God sent plagues and pandemics that only hardened the heart of the ruling authorities, who doubled down on misery, dispossession, and militarization.
This Thanksgiving presents some of the most striking contradictions I can remember: The story of the first Thanksgiving, particularly as taught and internalized among many white Americans, is an optimistic story of radical welcome and hospitality. But what that simplistic story painfully leaves out is how quickly Native welcome turned to European conquest, colonization and, yes, the near genocide of America’s Indigenous people.
Take off your shoes.
No, I really mean it. Right now. Stop what you’re doing. Put down your phone, turn away from your computer screen. Loosen your laces, step out of your sandals, and free your feet from wherever they are currently confined.
Shoes off? Ok, now keep reading.
Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.
Safety is defined in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus as abiding in God’s sense of justice —“not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” Justice is love and love is behaving out of fairness to all — even those we see as a risk. We cannot expect to be in safety unless we treat others as we wish them to treat us.
I first heard about the Strange Fire controversy when my Twitter feed started tweeting up a storm on Monday. The drama centered on a confrontation between two conservative mega church pastors, John MacArthur and Mark Driscoll. Most of my Twitter friends are theological liberals, and we liberals love it when our conservative brethren get in fights.
Woo-hoo! A scandal!
This scandal, like most scandals, was overblown. Driscoll says that MacArthur and his people were “gracious that they let me on campus at all.” What was Driscoll doing “on campus?” He crashed MacArthur’s conference on the Holy Spirit called Strange Fire to meet with people and hand out free copies of his upcoming book, A Call to Resurgence, which has a chapter on the Holy Spirit. Conference officials told Driscoll he had to stop, and so he did. Driscoll’s books ended up in the hands of conference officials. The drama between the two has to do with whether Driscoll gave the books as a gift to the conference or if conference officials confiscated them.
Like all scandals, the drama distracts us from what really matters, which is the conference theme. The work of the Holy Spirit is vitally important for Christians, yet the Holy Spirit is usually treated like the ugly stepchild of Christian doctrine. (No offense to ugly stepchildren.) I think MacArthur radically misunderstands the Holy Spirit. The conference website provides an overview of its mission, which will help me explain his misunderstanding:
The weeks leading up to the Jewish High Holy Days are supposed to be marked by self-questioning: What failings must I atone for, and to whom must I apologize?
A group of artists, writers and animators are hoping a cartoon goat may help.
They call it the eScapegoat, and it’s supposed to approximate the original scapegoat, described in Leviticus as an important player in the atonement ritual of the ancient Israelites, who symbolically placed their sins upon the animal and sent it into the wilderness.
"God helps those who help themselves," is, unfortunately for Mr. Carney, NOT in the Bible.Rather it's an oft-quoted aphorism that sounds like it should be in the Bible but isn't. A "phantom scripture," if you will.
I know that there are many of you that are engaging, debating, learning, and wrestling with the issue known to most as immigration reform or known to others as, "What the Arizona?" And these debates and discussion will continue with more and more incidents like
A popular argument amongst political conservatives goes like this: while they grant that Scripture requires concern and care for the poor and marginalized, that concern is one to be addressed by in
Today is Blog Action Day 2009, an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day.
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.