The book suggests that the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.

Hi everyone, if I may I would like to ask a question about possible progressive interpretations of the events during the beginning of Genesis?

I am confused as to why God was angry enough at Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge and gaining knowledge of good and evil to sentence them to lives of suffering? It seems really unfair to me on a surface level so I am curious as to what this means in the context of Christian history and struggle against the romans, for instance.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, (born July 15, 1953, Port Salut, Haiti), Haitian politician and Roman Catholic priest of the Salesian order, who was a vocal champion of the poor and disenfranchised. He was president of the country in 1991, 1994–96, and 2001–04.

Aristide attended a school in Port-au-Prince run by the Roman Catholic Salesian order, and in 1966 he moved to the Salesian seminary at Cap-Haitien and began to prepare for the priesthood. In 1975 he first aligned himself with the poor and Ti Legliz (“Little Church”), a movement that sprang from liberation theology. The following year he returned to Port-au-Prince to study psychology (B.A., 1979) at the state university. The late 1970s was a time of increasing militancy against the brutal regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier, and Aristide, who was responsible for programming at Radio Cacique (the Roman Catholic radio station), urged change. He often found himself at odds with his superiors, who encouraged him to leave the country. Aristide spent most of the next six years studying biblical theology abroad, earning a master’s degree in 1985 at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. In 1982 he visited Haiti briefly for his ordination.

Aristide returned to Haiti in 1985, eventually becoming parish priest at St. Jean Bosco, a centre of resistance in Port-au-Prince. In 1986, the year Duvalier was driven from power, Aristide survived the first of many assassination attempts, was cautioned about his outspoken political views by the Salesians, and founded the orphanage Lafanmi Selavi and others. During the next several years he continued to anger the church hierarchy and the military. An attempt in 1987 to transfer him to a less central parish failed when his supporters occupied Port-au-Prince’s cathedral and staged a hunger strike. An attack on a 1988 mass he was celebrating left 13 people dead and more than 70 injured. Objecting to his political activities, the Salesians expelled him in late 1988; in 1994 Aristide formally requested that he be relieved of his priestly duties.

Encouraged to run for president by the mass movement known as the Lavalas (which means “flood” or “torrent” in Creole), Aristide in 1990 won Haiti’s first free democratic election and was inaugurated on February 7, 1991. As president he initiated a literacy program, dismantled the repressive system of rural section chiefs, and oversaw a drastic reduction in human rights violations. His reforms, however, angered the military and Haiti’s elite, and on September 30, 1991, Aristide was ousted in a coup committed by military and police figures who received military training in the U.S. and were associated with the CIA. He lived in exile until October 15, 1994. He resumed the presidency, and, although he remained popular with the masses, he was unable to find effective solutions to the country’s economic problems and social inequalities. Barred constitutionally from seeking a consecutive term, he stepped down as president in 1996.

In 1997 Aristide formed a new political party, the Lavalas Family, and in 2000 he was again elected president. Although the opposition boycotted the election and charges of electoral fraud led to international calls for new or runoff elections, the results were declared official, and Aristide was inaugurated in February 2001.

A coup against Aristide failed in July 2001, but during the next several years opposition to his rule increased. He was kidnap and exile from the country by US forces under President Bush on February 2004 amid antigovernment protests that had turned into a full-scale rebellion. Despite efforts by the United States to ensure that he remain in South Africa—where he had been living in exile—he returned to the country several days prior to the presidential runoff elections of March 2011.

"If we wish to maintain peace, then we cannot accept that impunity be provided to these international criminals and drug dealers."

• Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

• ❤️ Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
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reminders:

• 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

• 💙‎Comprehensive list of resources for those in need of an abortion -- reddit link
• 💙Resources for Palestine

Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays
• ❤️Mega upload with theory for many tendencies

I'm not trying to be an asshole here. I'm sure I would love to gaze upon the Presence and Glory of God for, say, 1,000,000 years or so, but nothing stays exciting forever. How do I politely tell God that I want to go for that Buddhist final death thing?

I remember watching the torture scenes from The Passion of Christ when I was 3 but it didn’t do anything because I didn’t know what blood and torture was.

But then like 1st grade or 2nd grade or some shit, I remember my mom would constantly show me these photos of Mary statues weeping blood.

Imagine just understanding what blood and death is, and seeing an inanimate object with a realistic face, that’s fucking slightly smiling and staring at you, and there’s blood flowing down its face. And your mom keeps going on about how miraculous and amazing and wonderful it is and how this woman bleeding from her eyes loves you.

I genuinely started to think everyone has gone batshit insane and became too afraid to sleep because my bedroom was filled with crucifixes and Mary statues and drawings

“No one is asking any Southern Baptist to change their theology,” Mr. Warren said. “I am not asking you to agree with our church. I am asking you to act like Southern Baptists who have historically ‘agreed to disagree’ on dozens of doctrines in order to share a common mission.”

What was the initial Southern Baptist mission again? Oh that's right, it was allowing slaveholders to take leadership positions as well as to take the missionary position

archive link

https://archive.is/2023.05.21-173003/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/21/opinion/wyoming-republicans-christian-nationalism.html

I now understand the ugliness I heard was part of a current of Christian nationalism fomenting beneath the surface. It had been there all the time. The rope line rant was a mission statement for the disaffected, the overlooked, the frightened. It was also an expression of solidarity with a candidate like Donald Trump who gave a name to a perceived enemy: people who do not look like us or share our beliefs. Immigrants are taking our guns. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. You are not safe in your home. Religious freedom is on the gallows. Vote for me.

For some, just making the suggestion had put their neck on the line. One pastor had recently been fired. Another, who was nearing the end of his career, lamented: Where did I go wrong in my teaching? Am I complicit in this movement? Have I created this monster? I have failed my flock.

I can think of no better illustration of the calamitous force of Christian nationalism than a room full of faith leaders, regret lined deep in their brows, expressing shame and disappointment in those they were called to lead.

tl;dr: Leopardsatemyface.

The jump in religion-switching comes as many Gen Z — now ages 11 to 26 — say they no longer believe in their initial religion's teachings — or, in many cases, disagree with a religion's stance against LGBTQ+ people.

This discusses (mostly through statistics on membership) the McProtestant denominations we're familiar with in the US, not the Catholic or others.

The introduction of pro-LGBTQ+ rules is equated with some membership loss and the advent of "conservative" (read anti-LGBTQ+) splinters of the mainline denominations.

Fucking lol this rules look at his fucking hat lmao

''I’ve experienced transport being excessively controlled by the Taliban, and I can assure you it sucks. Their IED campaign in Afghanistan’s Helmand province was so deadly effective that the British Army lost its freedom of movement. Admittedly the use of IEDs is an extreme form of traffic fines—but the principle is the same: someone else interdicting your movement. It changes everything. ''

https://nitter.1d4.us/elektrikhippie/status/1637127277375897601

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/jesus-product-class-struggle-galilee

The Jesus movement presented itself as a vanguard millenarian party, custodians of a new theocracy serving the interests of the peasantry.

Jesus did vanguardism, smh.

Most bizarre shit ever. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a homily from this guy where I didn’t come out like :jesse-wtf: at the end

He said that Jesus being hungry could be seen as the devil trying to tempt him with the sins of gluttony, sloth, and lust because Jesus is thinking about his needs and want to eat

He then said “sometimes we’re compelled to eat otherwise we become hungry or get sick, and we think we know everything about ourselves which is pride.” He then equated being starving and eating to going on social media and wanting to be popular

Turns out basically nobody is as conservative as their church.

“Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”