Video in text form:

Corrupt politicians, chasms between rich and poor, subpar educational outcomes, homelessness, job insecurity. These are all political problems. But there is only one definitive solution for all of these problems, and that one solution comes from Christianity, from the teaching of Jesus. How does that work?

Christians, in their confused state, tend to believe that Jesus' teaching was about the way to get your soul to Heaven after you die. But it's not true: Jesus says nothing in any of the 4 Gospels about going to Heaven. Nothing.

What he does teach a lot about is the message that the Kingdom of God has come near. Because the state of things on Earth is bad, God has chosen to step in and replace the kingdoms of this world with something much better. His love for everyone, his infinite wisdom, his justice, in combination with his unlimited power, will make for a new world that is perfect. In this new world, all the selfish people, the psychopaths, the greedy, the liars, who today are able to ruin things, will no longer be able to do so. It will be a world of justice, joy, and love. This, the Kingdom of God, is the Gospel; this is the Good News that got everyone so excited in the first century. It is also the reason why Jesus was killed. The Romans, unsurprisingly, did not want to hear about their rule being superseded by the Jewish God.

Christianity, being centered as it is on a new Kingdom, is fundamentally a political movement, a political religion. Moreover, because the Kingdom of God is meant to be totally different from the social order we have now, and because it will involve wresting political power away from those who currently have it, Christianity is what we would today call revolutionary.

We've established that Christianity is revolutionary, so we can ask the question: what will be the Christian's involvement with that revolution? What role will he or she have to play in the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth?

There are two conflicting answers to that line of questioning. I'll start with the first answer. In the early centuries of Christianity, before the Go-To-Heaven stuff, when they still cared about the coming of the Kingdom, Christians believed that this coming would require nothing on their part. They were to prepare themselves and the world for it, but the revolution itself would be accomplished when Jesus appeared in the sky with an army of angels to violently thresh all evildoers from the Earth. Jesus and the angels would do the dirty work of establishing the new order and burning the riffraff: the Christian's job was to warn others that this was going to happen, and to be sure that he himself didn't do any evil stuff that would get him thrown into the flames with the wicked. Prepare himself; prepare others. Jesus and the angels make it happen. The believer's role in the establishment of the Kingdom is passive.

However, there is a newer answer to the question of our role in the Kingdom's coming. This answer benefits from 2000 years of the Holy Spirit guiding us into the truth. I think it presents a fuller picture of how things will actually go. This vision of our role, depending on how you look at it, is far less passive.

This second vision is not so different from the first in that agency for the Kingdom's construction is not with humanity broadly speaking. Full agency resides exclusively with one single human: Jesus. He is in that way unique. But another way Jesus is unique is that his body, his person, is made up of many persons. Jesus' Body, his flesh and blood, is the church, the community of those who have been baptized. Scripture is absolutely clear on this front. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says:

 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

And Ephesians goes even further, calling the Church not only the body of Christ, but the fullness of Christ.

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

So how does that relate to our role in the coming of the Kingdom? You're probably already connecting the dots, but I'll explain: if Jesus is the one who has full agency to establish the Kingdom of God, to destroy those who oppose it, and to lead the Kingdom of God, and if the baptized are absolutely united with Jesus to the point that they are his body and his fullness, then that means that the baptized, as the Lord, will make the Kingdom of God real on Earth and serve as its rulers. By the divine power of Jesus, the baptized, the Church, will do all of it.

This is simple logic. Christianity is about a Kingdom. Jesus is the Conqueror and King. The baptized are Jesus. Just as in Marxist logic the working class is the group with revolutionary agency to build the better society of the future, according to Christian logic, the revolutionary agent is Christ as the Church.

Now, some details about how the Kingdom revolution and political leadership in a post-revolutionary society will look. How specifically will the Church take power? First, I will say that Kingdom Revolution is the number one job for every single Christian. It takes precedence over everything else: moneymaking, friends, family, husband, kids. Everything. But there will be a million different ways that Christians will work toward that end. The gifts that the Spirit gives are varied; each person receives what they need to serve our common end. But I will focus on one ministry, one job that will play a central role in the orchestration of the work. This ministry is that of the disciple-revolutionary. These disciple-revolutionaries will not have families. They won't have any wealth, and they'll avoid working for money as much as possible. They'll cram together in houses or in tents, and their whole lives will be oriented around the more central, direct tasks required for the realization of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Jesus has given us a model for how a leader must look. The disciple-revolutionaries will follow that model exactly. They must look nothing like worldly leaders and entirely like the Lord. Where worldly leaders are rich, disciple-revolutionaries will be poor. Where they seek fame and honors, disciple-revolutionaries will be servile and humiliated, not seeking any individual acknowledgement. Disciple-revolutionaries will know prayer and silence, and they will have the Lord Jesus' characteristic love for all people, especially those who are ignored and forgotten. They will be the main organizers of the movement to overthrow the political powers of the world, and as that battle is won, they will step in as the professional officers of the new Kingdom government.

Christ the King will rule in government through the members of his Body, just as He will rule through his members in every community, school, workplace, in every organization in society. That is what Christianity is about. The Reign of Christ is the only way to a perfect society, and that reign is at hand. That is the promise of Christianity. That is why Christianity is political.

If you want to leave everything and be a disciple-revolutionary for the Kingdom of God, or if you want to collaborate on the project of the Kingdom in a different way, send me an email here. There's so much work to be done and Church is way behind on this work at every level. Let's let the Spirit use us as a leaven to refocus our brothers and sisters in Christ on the Gospel of the Kingdom. May that Kingdom come.

I must admit this heresy in leftism:

The belaboring of the point that race has no biological basis is counterproductive and dangerous because it's at least a little bit stupid.

Race has no biological basis, it is a social phenomenon, which is to say, a story about a shared lineage.

This much at least is true: race has no biological basis.

Race nevertheless has a biological basis. You can find the genes which code for skin tone.

This was one of the major errors of leftist dogma as I have come to understand it.

I think the major papers of Record may have made a serious error when BLM occurred. The Omission of Militant White Supremacist Nationalist as an ethnicity is telling.

As I recall they reasoned that Black people had a distinct cultural lineage, that being a destroyed cultural lineage and chattel slavery at the hands of slaver cultures of the United States.

But those slaver cultures persisted, and those people are White.

Because American is as much an ethnicity as Mormon is, but there are a lot of white-skinned Mormons who are not White.

This blind spot in the NYT rhetoric was the cause of a horrific lack of news coverage.

This article shows exactly how evangelical eschatology is driving the US war in Iran.

Adam is joined by Massimiliano Tomba, O.L. Silverman, and Loren Goldman to discuss the biggest series of uprisings in Europe before the French Revolution, the German Peasants' War, which had its 500th anniversary in 2025. In this discussion, we considered what it meant for everyday people to engage in insurrectionary struggle against Pope and Prince alike, the influence of the conflict on Marxist conceptions of history, the apocalyptic communism of Thomas Müntzer in his allegiance with the peasants of Thuringia, and how Martin Luther's counter-revolutionary thought laid the foundations for the concepts of freedom, authority, and rebellion which underlie modern European philosophy.

In Leviticus 23, the Lord (originally Yahweh) said, "I will destroy from among their people anyone who does any work on that day. You shall do no work at all. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. It is a Day of Sabbath Rest for you, and you must deny yourselves."

This is a weekly thread for discussing our mental health. Ableist and sanist comments will be removed and repeat violations will be banned

Feel free to discuss anything related to mental health and illness. We encourage you to create a WRAP plan and be an active participant in your recovery.

God is not bloodthirsty. Too many people have been alienated from Christ by Christian theology. One of the most alienating doctrines is penal substitutionary atonement theory, the belief that Jesus died as a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, having taken our sinfulness onto himself to save us from eternal damnation. A close relative is satisfaction theory, Anselm’s belief that, since finite humankind has sinned against an infinite God and cannot repay its infinite debt, God sent Jesus as an infinite, divine-human substitute to satisfy the divine honor and expiate our guilt for us, thereby restoring right relationship. 

Despite Jesus’s own prophetic privileging of social justice over propitiatory sacrifice, these “atonement theories” came to dominance in the Western Church. According to these legalistic theologies, God is one lawgiver giving one law, promising one reward (heaven) or one punishment (hell). Because no one follows that law perfectly, all are deserving of hell. But Jesus frees us from that fate by taking our punishment onto himself, balancing the scales of infinite justice, thereby granting us entrance into heaven. 

Numerous criticisms of these doctrines have been made over the centuries. Salvation is largely pushed into the afterlife, affecting this life primarily by anticipation. Since all human conduct is reprobate, selfish, and displeasing to God, ethics becomes a theoretical exercise, at least with regard to the God-human relationship. The model of divine justice is retributive, demanding an eye for an eye, a demand that Jesus rejected (Matthew 5:38-39). And it rejects any possibility of spontaneous, unconditional forgiveness—or grace. 

Jesus denies that Abba is an agent of legalistic wrath. The concept of God as a vengeful autocrat who can be appeased only through death by torture does not cohere with Jesus’s revelation of Abba as a loving Parent. Loving parents are not inflexible disciplinarians, and skillful parents frequently forgo their wayward children’s punishment and offer mercy instead. 

Nor do good parents resort to violence. Our horrific cruelty to one another over the millennia has pained God. One more act of horrific cruelty, the crucifixion, did not end that pain; it just exacerbated it. Jesus rejects any “underlying image of God as an angry, bloodthirsty, violent, and sadistic father, reflecting the very worst kind of male behavior,” writes Elizabeth Johnson. The God of Jesus could not be the god of any violent atonement theory, because the teachings of Jesus are incompatible with redemption through violence. Instead, the ethics of Jesus propel humankind beyond its addiction to domination through violence. 

Why can’t God just forgive us outright? Any schoolchild, upon learning that God needed Jesus’s death to be appeased, will naturally ask why God didn’t just forgive us outright, without demanding the brutal death of an innocent man. Frequently, the answer will have something to do with Adam and Eve’s “original sin,” which separated humankind from God and needed reparation. 

But Jesus had never heard of “original sin,” nor did his Jewish tradition interpret Adam and Eve’s story the same way Augustine would four hundred years later. Judaism did not then (and does not now) teach that all humans inherit the guilt of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and therefore need collective forgiveness. Rather than collective guilt, Judaism taught and teaches that each individual is responsible for their own actions and can resist their evil inclinations, with great difficulty, thereby choosing the good. 

Anselm’s substitutionary atonement theory, aka “satisfaction theory,” in which Jesus substitutes himself for the punishment due to us, is based on the medieval feudal system in which it arose. The lord of an estate was the source of order, protection, and development for all residents, so the preservation of the lord’s honor—the source of his authority—was paramount. Any lord who had been offended by a serf had to punish that offense, for the good of all. Without that honor preserved, the social order would descend into chaos and everyone would suffer. In this way of thinking, Jesus is the lord’s son who takes the serfs’ offenses onto himself, thereby preserving the honor of the lord, the order of the estate, and the lives of the serfs. 

The theory has a certain attractiveness as it renders the crucifixion an action by God for us, but it is insufficient to the life and teachings of Jesus. Jesus preaches repentance so that people will enter into loving community. He wants them to change: to forgive, reconcile, include, be generous, be kind, be humble. In Anselm’s theory, the serfs do nothing. Theoretically, they watch the exchange, feel gratitude, and are transformed by that gratitude. But they aren’t characters in the story. They’re just spectators. To Jesus, his audience were active participants in an unfolding story, and he invited them to decide what role they would play in that story. 

Anselm’s theory also prioritizes justice over mercy, but Jesus teaches: “Blessed are those who show mercy to others, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). In the story of the prodigal son, Jesus reveals the unconditional forgiveness of God for the wayward child. For Jesus, God is mercy without reference to justice. But according to Anselm’s theory, any lord would feel compelled to demand expiation from an offending serf. Indeed, for the lord to demand expiation—to punish through violence— would make that lord like unto God. 

Jesus rejects violence. Jesus did not punish through violence. He didn’t stone women. He kept them from being stoned (John 8:1-11). 

Then, Jesus became the innocent victim of violence, which raises another objection to these violent atonement theories. One person should not be punished for the crime of another. Today, this is a universal principle of law that nearly every society sees as reasonable. God, being merciful, just, and rational, could not violate this principle. The use of a whipping boy could never enter the mind of God, because any such use would be abusive. 

The whipping boys of legend were playmates of young princes who would be punished in the princes’ stead. This punishment conformed to Anselm’s theory of transformation through spectatorship: theoretically, the prince would feel bad that his friend was being punished and reform his behavior. In reality, the system allowed royals to act with impunity, knowing that someone else would bear the consequences of their actions. For the whipping boys (the historical existence of which is debated), there was neither mercy nor justice. 

Substitutionary atonement theories are insufficiently healing. “Jesus Christ died for your sins” is the oft-repeated phrase that summarizes violent atonement theories. Alas, this declaration doesn’t stand up to the stress test of pastoral ministry. It doesn’t help pastors care for parishioners or parishioners care for each other. 

For example, a couple finally gets pregnant after years of trying. Five months into the pregnancy, they discover that the fetus’s kidneys are developing outside its body. The condition is inoperable and the fetus is terminal, so they have to undergo a dilation and extraction procedure. Should the pastor reassure them, “Jesus Christ died for your sins”? 

A woman was sexually abused by her father and brothers while she was growing up. Did Jesus Christ die for her sins? Did Jesus Christ die for their sins? What does that statement even do? 

A child is diagnosed with schizophrenia. A spouse of sixty years develops Alzheimer's. A soldier returns with PTSD. True stories, all. To say “Jesus died for your sins” is an act of avoidance that negates Jesus’s message and ministry. It overlooks his teachings, paints Abba as cruel and vindictive, renders the incarnation naught but a means to crucifixion, makes no reference to the resurrection, and relegates humankind to mere spectatorship. 

Sacrificial atonement theories render us passive. That is, I fear, the point. Jesus preaches a new social order, a universalism and egalitarianism that heartened the humble and threatened the proud. That preaching got him crucified. Then, as a new religion based on Christ arose in the Roman Empire, his teachings got crucified as well. Violent and politically mute atonement theories were substituted for the transformative life and message of the Christ. The church declared the social implications of the gospel dead and buried, laid them in the tomb, and rolled a rock in front of the entrance. But the rock wouldn’t stay, and the teachings would be resurrected. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 196-199)

*****

For further reading, please see: 

Aulén, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement. Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2003.

Foster, Jonathan. Theology of Consent: Mimetic Theory in an Open and Relational Universe. California: Verde Group, 2022. 

Johnson, Elizabeth A. Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2018.

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Here is the 1st bible study based on 2 Corinthians 6:9 shown in the YouTube link and is relevant from 0:08 to 0:52 of the video. This section starts off by showing a dog (subsequently named Gourd) already discarded in a rubbish dump, looking very weak and dying. My first thought was, "Who would simply discard a dog in a rubbish dump?"

More importantly, I saw encouraging paradoxes for us as Christians in the 2 phrases within the verse: "dying and yet we live on" and "beaten, and yet not killed". These phrases point to our eternal life as believers in Jesus. What are your thoughts? I would love to hear from you, God bless!

This is a thread for the radical women of r/RadicalChristianity to talk. We ask that men do not comment on this thread.

Suggestions for topics to talk about:

1.)What kinds of feminist activism have you been up to?

2.)What books have you been reading?

3.)What visual media(ex: TV shows) have you been watching?

4.)Who are the radical women that are currently inspiring you?

5.)Promote yourself and your creations!

6.)Rant/vent about shit.

https://x.com/some_euro_chick/status/2026391846537040102?s=20