Attwood Among the Christoids
I too wound up starting this blog through posting a comment on Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" (www.juancole.com). Juan's blog is a great read, but to my mind he wants to blame Bush and his buds for everything wrong with American behavior. American mass murder, especially since World War 2, didn't start with Bush. Consistent American identification with dictators over the past 60 years, a history acknowledged by Bush himself in his speech on Middle East democracy, didn't start with Bush either.
As a biblical Christian, I don't expect the empires of the earth to behave other than what the Bible tells us to expect, so I don't expect imperial America to think or act differently from other empires of this world, especially its acknowledged ancesors - Greece, Rome, and the genocidal European civilization that arose from Rome. But I intend to remind those who apply the name of Jesus to themselves that John the apostle defines the faith as follows: Those who kill with the sword must be killed with the sword, and those who lead into captivity must be led into captivity (Revelation 13:10). Since to know these truths is the "faith and perseverance of the saints," it follows that those who rely on slaughter and slavery cannot possibly persevere in the faith of Jesus, even if they do shout "Lord, Lord," with the best of them as they blow off what he says. And it happens, not coincidentally, that American Christianity is entangled from its beginning with the genocide and slavery in which the American empire was founded, and which it has held to ever since - just as the Bible shows the kingdom of Samaria clinging to the end to the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat its founder.
Receiving the mark of the beast is simply to be transformed by the religion of antichrist - to count on the sword, depleted uranium, and 500 pound bombs on civilian populations to keep us safe, and to count on American-sponsored puppet governments to keep the gooks and ragheads in line to feed American luxury so that we can be "free" - just as their overseers kept the niggers in line back in the day.
So long as our comfort is in killing, as it was for the Puritans who butchered the Indians so they could steal their land and thereby "live" through their blood, we may know jive religion, but we will never know the real life of Jesus. So long as we're "free" by oppressing others, like Thomas Jefferson and his friends who wrote eloquent words on liberty while their slaves were kept under the lash, we will never know the liberty that Jesus offers the poor through the truth (John 8:31-32).
Thus to receive the mark of the beast is damnation because it prevents us from ever knowing the perseverance and faith of the saints, which depends on knowing the futility of killing and enslaving others. Indeed, as Jesus said, the way is broad and easy that leads to destruction, and lots of people go that way; and the way is tight and narrow that leads to life, and few they are that find it.
It's not subtle or complicated - it's just the true saying: "What goes around comes around" - but how many "Christians" miss it.
As a biblical Christian, I don't expect the empires of the earth to behave other than what the Bible tells us to expect, so I don't expect imperial America to think or act differently from other empires of this world, especially its acknowledged ancesors - Greece, Rome, and the genocidal European civilization that arose from Rome. But I intend to remind those who apply the name of Jesus to themselves that John the apostle defines the faith as follows: Those who kill with the sword must be killed with the sword, and those who lead into captivity must be led into captivity (Revelation 13:10). Since to know these truths is the "faith and perseverance of the saints," it follows that those who rely on slaughter and slavery cannot possibly persevere in the faith of Jesus, even if they do shout "Lord, Lord," with the best of them as they blow off what he says. And it happens, not coincidentally, that American Christianity is entangled from its beginning with the genocide and slavery in which the American empire was founded, and which it has held to ever since - just as the Bible shows the kingdom of Samaria clinging to the end to the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat its founder.
Receiving the mark of the beast is simply to be transformed by the religion of antichrist - to count on the sword, depleted uranium, and 500 pound bombs on civilian populations to keep us safe, and to count on American-sponsored puppet governments to keep the gooks and ragheads in line to feed American luxury so that we can be "free" - just as their overseers kept the niggers in line back in the day.
So long as our comfort is in killing, as it was for the Puritans who butchered the Indians so they could steal their land and thereby "live" through their blood, we may know jive religion, but we will never know the real life of Jesus. So long as we're "free" by oppressing others, like Thomas Jefferson and his friends who wrote eloquent words on liberty while their slaves were kept under the lash, we will never know the liberty that Jesus offers the poor through the truth (John 8:31-32).
Thus to receive the mark of the beast is damnation because it prevents us from ever knowing the perseverance and faith of the saints, which depends on knowing the futility of killing and enslaving others. Indeed, as Jesus said, the way is broad and easy that leads to destruction, and lots of people go that way; and the way is tight and narrow that leads to life, and few they are that find it.
It's not subtle or complicated - it's just the true saying: "What goes around comes around" - but how many "Christians" miss it.
posted by Peter Attwood at 2/18/2006 06:43:00 PM
1 Comments:
I suspect that you are a big fan of Thomas Paine. He did not own slaves.
He spoke of the need to abolish slavery. He donated the large profits that he made from his books to support revolutions in the US, England and France. He opposed the state executions of the king an queen of France.
As for that last one I think that he was being a bit to kind. My understanding of history is that Marie Antwonette was conspiring with foreign powers to destroy the French Republic. Of course the main reason that I oppose the death penalty is becasue we so often execute people innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. But then general rules often have exceptions. The king and queen as long as they were alive could also serve as a useful excuse for Austria, Prussia, and England to invade France. Their very existence in those days created a danger for the Republic.
TP was certainly no fan of the Bible but he was not an Atheist as many have branded him. I think that it was important to brand TP as an Atheist especially after 1850 because one can see in Paine's writitngs an clear support for the Capitalist Social Welfare State. Had Paine been born 4 decades later it is possible that he would have been a Supporter of Marx. That is of course speculation.
curt
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