#and I was like 'bestie no book in the bible is written by jesus/God '

[papirouge]

Christians downplaying the biblical prescriptions explicited by Paul are such a big fat red flag 🚩

[letmebecandid]

Lookin’ good

Every night before our kids go to bed, we read The Jesus Storybook Bible. Well, more accurately, we tell them to wash their hands after dinner DON’T PUT SPAGHETTI ON THE WALLS, go upstairs and put their clothes in the hamper. Then we tell them about five times to brush their teeth with ever increasing volume until we have to raise our voice and say MOSES IF I HAVE TO TELL YOU ONE MORE TIME TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH SO HELP ME ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET IT!” And then he cries, and then Eden laughs at him for crying, and then he screams and says “STOP LAUGHING AT ME EDEN , IT’S NOT FUNNY!” and she whispers that it is, in fact, very funny.

But then after all that we read the bible like perfect angels.

If you’ve never read the Jesus Storybook Bible, it’s stories from the Bible, written for kids to understand not just the details and the why of the story, but also how those stories fit into the bigger picture. Each story points towards Jesus in some way—even ones from the old testament. One of my favorite stories in the book is the story of Leah called The Girl Noone Wanted. If you don’t know the story of Leah and Rachel from the bible, let me break it down for you:

Rachel is the beautiful sister. She was probably a fashion blogger. Dudes buy her drinks. She gets a blowout once a week with her besties. Loves frappuccinos with skim milk. And Rachel has a sister named Leah. I can’t remember if Leah is older or younger, but she’s very different from Rachel. She has naturally frizzy hair and still uses scrunchies (that she made herself in home ec). She wears old jeans, but not in an ironic way. Her instagram is private and she doesn’t take selfies. She hates makeup.

One day this bro, Jacob (who probably had a 4-door Jeep droptop and popped his collar) sees Rachel and tells her dad, “Yo, dude, she mad fine. I’ll work for you for like EVER if you let me marry her.” And so her dad agreed. Jacob worked for Rachel’s dad for 7 years and then they got married.

The day after the wedding (and subsequent consummation), Jacob realized that he accidentally married Leah instead of Rachel. So everyone was kinda pissed at the dad because he apparently married off his less attractive daughter on purpose (remember, her face was probably covered during the wedding and such). But Jacob worked another 7 years to win the hand of Rachel. Jacob must have really looooooooved her personality. Also, I guess you could apparently marry multiple women back in the day? IDK, the bible doesn’t always make sense to me TBCH... 

The interesting thing, though, and what sticks with me is that Leah is described as being so loved by God. He saw her heart and delighted in how precious it was. She was so loved, in fact, that God promised her that the lineage of Jesus would come from her and her descendants. 

The first few times I read that story, I got choked up ugly cried. What would it be like to have been Leah, knowing that not only did nobody really want you, but your dad pawns you off on some dude who really wanted your sister. And then that guy is mad at your dad. BECAUSE THEY ALL THINK YOU’RE UGLY. I have my fair share of self-esteem issues but that is some next level shit. But God loved her so much that he gave her a promise that superseded all the other praise or recognition she might have received if she was beautiful on the outside. THE CONTENT OF YOUR HEART MATTERS PEOPLE. I’m yelling this at myself too.

I’ve had an evolving theory for some time that someone’s level of attractiveness (or lack thereof) is directly related to how much attention they get. Sure, not exactly a new theory, but I have spent a good part of my adult life knowing this. When I have been of a normal size (think Zach Galifianakis in Hangover), people have noticed me more, talked to me more and engaged with me as an equal.

Unfortunately, almost all of my life I have been overweight, obese or (my favorite, almost gag-worthy description that my doctor likes to throw around as though I’m not even in the room with him) morbidly obese. At my largest, I was over 300 pounds which is roughly 50% larger than a baby elephant, for reference. So I was big. Really big. I couldn’t shop at Old Navy, never mind Gap or Banana Republic. My wedding ring had a muffin top. It was a whole thing.

I felt embarrassed, isolated, and invisible. People didn’t want to look at me and I could feel some people looking through me. Sure I had friends who loved me. And they would say things like “Shane, you are a really beautiful person and so funny!” which is best friend code for No, I don’t want to see your beach vacation pictures.

As lonely as it felt, I started to become comfortable with being invisible. People didn’t want to talk to me, so I didn’t have to engage. I pulled away a little more. I wasn’t seen as someone valuable with something to offer, or at least not as much as more fit/attractive people around me. This gave me more time to eat. At the time, I called that a win-win. I was jaded and angry; I didn’t want to risk being known anymore. Also, Chick-fil-A tastes good when you eat it.

I’ve since lost a fair bit of weight and am now proud of the way I look, but I still see myself as Dr. Goldman saw me. I occasionally catch a quick glimpse of a guy as I’m walking down the street and think dang brotha, looking good before I realize that it’s me I just saw. I am admittedly having a very difficult time owning my identity now that I am not fat. Which is funny because I used to accuse people of being vain and only looking at the exterior. But I only looked at my exterior to define me. Now my exterior is changing and sometimes I feel good about myself, but other times I realize that I am as thin and shallow as Jacob. Looking only on the outside without taking a moment to think about the state of my own heart. 

[ramrodd]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aIQ-qAojjo)

COMMENTARY:

Bruce, you know I love you and there are areas of disconnect between you and I in regards to Jesus. If Mike Mulvaney didn't exist, this may not be as pertinent in your ministry as you should now. This is what the overwhealming majority of white Evangelicals voted for. In the mind of someone as intimately, and appropriately, linked to over a generation of white Christian high school students,. You and James White seem to share the same opinion of recent presidential history. James White avoided a principled stand either for Clinton or Trump, but went Independent, instead. This was morally insufficient. It was like Martin Luther King refusing to ride with the Freedom. 

I just want to make myself clear. I owe you a great deal, just in providing the intellectual rock against which to clarify my thinking with or without Mike Mulvaney in the mix. What I realized just this last week from one of your lectures was that I employ process theology, but not like anything you understand as "PROCESS theology", if you get my point. For me, Epitemology IS PROCESS theology" as Kurt Lewin defines "PROCESS". If you don't agree with his definition, or don't understand it, or refuse to accept it as the definition I employ when I say "PROCESS theology", communication pretty well fails.

 "PROCESS theology" is natural law.  Wicca is almost entirely natural law and the only thing missing is what Jesus does. How does that work? What is the content He brings to the table that focuses SOMETHING SPIRITUAL outside Himself and His patient/target. The Holy Spirit is one SOMETHING SPIRITUAL, but it appears from something I learned from N.T.Wright's course on Romans was that Paul believe EVIL was SOMETHING PHYSICAL. I think Paul is correct about there being SOMETHING PHYSICAL and I think Jesus uses that in His miracle work and the pericopes in Mark about the two step miracle with the blind man who saw trees and the man who never could hear and needed oral surgery to repair his palate in some way, What He does with all the spitting and clapping and what not is setting up the "PROCESS theology, not unlike putting the paddles on before commanding "CLEAR!" and then "WHAM" something happens, Well, I think He pulls the trigger somehow on a jolt of this SOMETHING PHYSICAL, which I associate with the Spirit of God that God unleashed to create an ecology perfect for sustaining life in various ways until The ONE finally stumbled upon Homo Sapien, where The ONE completes the CREATION STORY with the Cross and it is now up to us. 

The difference between PROCESS and CONTENT is the difference with the actual chewing motion and whatever is being chewed, The Bible is intellectual chewing gun in the process of reading.  The Gospel of Mark captures all the PROCESS Jesus uses to squirt a little Spirit of God. This is the LIVING SPIRIT I thing Paul observes as evil. The LIVING SPIRIT is blood thirsty and undomesticated. It was the LIVING SPIRIT sent to kill Moses. It shows up everywhere blood is connected with malevolent ritual, that being rituals carried out to envoke a collective emotional response. However, the Spirit of God also comes to Messiah sing-alongs and probably the Muslim ritual, praying as a renewable resource. All prayers and meditation is a renewable resource. It is PROCESS theology for method and hope. Hope is not a Method, but METHOD without Hope tends to generate Idolotry and Fascism.   

 And this is possibly the biggest difference between Mark and the other Synoptics, but the most in common with John, Their processes. In terms of PROCESS, Romans and Luke/Acts need to be understood in brace: they are pulling the same load. Matthew is written for a larger process associated with Islam and 19, but is based on the PROCESS in Mark which surfaced the CONTENT that Matthew connects with contemporary Jewish theology cited in both Hewbrew and Greek texts. 

 One of the things I have been fascinated since 1990 is the PROCESS employed to put Mark together from a Roman centurion's point of view.  If the Gospel of Mark was missing Mark 16:9 - 20, it would be the final report from Cornelius, a centurion in Caesarea during the reign of Caligula, "Little Boots" as you are wont to say, beating it into your student's conscousness in a gentle way that engages an exemplary model of classroom teaching in any educational system currently employed. This looks like a nice, white Christian charter school in Seattle. I didn't understand teachers or education until I got into college, so I look back at my high school teachers in a bit of wonder, because, in spite of being an ESTP, I now have a Masters in Organization Development and have a sketch book for a Ph.D. dissertation that I'll email you. 

 Kurt Lewin is very important to me. Reading his Kriegslandshaft the first time was like being back, sitting on a muddy trail in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. He is writting with the authority of experience which I share with him and virtually all combat vets. It's a been there, done that kind of thing. We weren't just sharing a walk with someone you know and like in a National Park somewhere. 

We were walking throught the Valley of the Shadow of Death in response to Romans 11:22 in a military manner and it's an eternal experience: it’s a justification by compliance. The centurion in Matthew, Luke and Acts 10 recognized that in response to authority in Jesus and didn't need an operational manual to do His magic. And he, that centurion, described it in Mark and when both the odd ending of Mark and somewhere in John it is mentioned that there were many more pericopes they could have added from their intelligence dossier on Jesus, but they winnowed out the sort of repition you get in the Hadiths and then  narrowed it down to essentials beginning with the Cross and working backwards and now we have the report to the Praetorium Guard and, when John Mark added the last editors note, it became the Gospel we now call Mark. Dan Wallace says somewhere that we have Christian manuscripts that reach almost a mile high. Look how tall a complete stack of the most reliable Hadith stands and that wasn't winnowed but it is narrowly focused on Mohammad, My guess is that the Q source was the original authograph and they had a stack of loose leaf spy reports from that period over a mile high to draw from, And they winnowen out and narrowed down to the Gospel of Mark. And sent it up the chain of command, 

That's where Matthew starts, but Matthew (and it is, in fact, the very same publican Levi from Mark) has a different mission, where his PROCESS is to arrange CONTENT to make sense to contemporary Jews. Judaizing isn't an issue: it's the point. 

But in terms of process THEOLOGY, The One has another PROCESS beginnig to flower around an unexpected PROPHET, Malala Yousafzai, It has to do with Sura 74:30 "Above it is 19" and Sura Maryham 19:1 - 33 aimed directly at Mary, Mother of Jesus as Co-Redemptrix. This is part of The One's SPIRITUAL process, that has been Khadiji's legacy for Muslim women unrealized until recently and the message is Come to JESUS just the way you are and come through the Co-Redemptrix and throught the gates of the 19th Amendment and that's what process THEOLOGY has revealed to me. Jesus uses a SPIRITUAL process to accomplish His miracles and it's like "USE THE FORCE, LUKE". But a cost of this knowledge will be to reveal the total moral fraud of the so-called budget Mike Dulvaney is presenting.  

A place I part company with Besty DeVos is PROCESS: she believes her Creationist version of Jesus is the reason she is so rich, but it is the PROCESS of AmWay's networking marking that brings in the bucks. It is all natural law. 

How do I know? The bible told me so. 

 Let me say this: President Trump may actually be engaged in a historic civics lesson courtsey of Trump University but Mike Mulvaney just pushes it beyond the realm of possibilty. If, on his 100th day, President Trump announces his Making America Great Agin American First Infrastructure Restoration Act  and signs it for delivery to Congress, then gets up, goes to a barber chair in the middle of the Oval Office and gets his head shaved bald and promises keep it bald until America puts a Children's Hospital on the moon by 2025, and says "By the way, the last 99 days? it was all in quotation marks", then I'll become a believer.