{"id":19406,"date":"2020-10-15T10:20:16","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19406"},"modified":"2020-10-15T10:20:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T14:20:16","slug":"what-do-we-do-with-evil-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19406","title":{"rendered":"What Do We Do with Evil?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U7u2ZGonyuQ\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jesus\u2019 Social Program<\/strong><br>Thursday, \u202fOctober 15, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus does not directly attack the religious and institutional sin systems of his time until his final action against the money changers in the temple (see Matthew 21:12\u201313; Mark 11:15\u201317; Luke 19:45\u201346). Because of this, Jesus\u2019 primary social justice critique and action are often a disappointment to most radicals and social activists. Jesus\u2019 social program, as far as I can see, is a&nbsp;<em>quiet refusal to participate in almost all external power structures or domination systems<\/em>. His primary action is a very simple lifestyle, which kept him from being constantly co-opted by those very structures, which I (and Paul) would call the \u201csin system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus seems to have avoided the monetary system as much as possible by using \u201ca common purse\u201d (John 12:6; 13:29). His three-year ministry, in effect, offers&nbsp;<em>free healing and healthcare&nbsp;<\/em>for any who want them. He consistently treats women with a dignity and equality that is almost unknown in an entirely patriarchal culture. At the end of his life, he surrenders to the punitive systems of both empire and religion by letting them judge, torture, and murder him. He is finally a full victim of the systems that he refused to worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus knew the destructive power of what Walter Wink wisely called the \u201cdomination system.\u201d [2] These systems usually wield power over the poor, the defenseless, and the outsider in every culture. When he does take on the temple system directly (Mark 11:15\u201318), Jesus is killed within a week. Contrary to history\u2019s interpretation of Jesus\u2019 practice,&nbsp;<em>he did not concentrate on personal, \u201cflesh\u201d sins nearly as much as the sins of \u201cthe world\u201d and \u201cthe devil,\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;but few of us were taught to see him that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, Jesus is always&nbsp;<em>forgiving individual sinners<\/em>, which was a problem for the righteous from the beginning (Luke 7:34). In contrast, I do not once see him \u201cforgiving\u201d the sins of systems and empires. Instead, he just makes them show themselves (Mark 5:8) and name themselves (Mark 5:9)\u2014as did Desmond Tutu in South Africa and Martin Luther King, Jr. in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Significantly, Jesus says \u201cWoe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!\u201d (Matthew 11:21) and \u201cAlas for you [cultures of the] lawyers, scribes, and Pharisees\u201d (most of Matthew 23 and Luke 11:37\u201254). He didn\u2019t warn Bill from Bethsaida, Cathy from Chorazin, or Simon the Pharisee, with whom he engages and eats (Luke 7:36\u201347). He laments over \u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem\u201d (Luke 13:34\u201235) instead of attacking Jerry from Jerusalem. Today we would call that making an \u201cunfair generalization\u201d; but if what I am saying here has any truth to it, maybe it is a much more truthful and fair diagnosis of the problem. It is Bethsaida and Jerusalem that should fear judgment more than Bill and Jerry! It is \u201cCapernaum\u201d that is to be cast into hell (Matthew 11:23), not necessarily Corey from Capernaum. How did we miss that? It is crucial in our understanding of evil as being, first of all, a social agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"310\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-15-at-10.16.00-AM-500x310.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19407\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-15-at-10.16.00-AM-500x310.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-15-at-10.16.00-AM-300x186.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-15-at-10.16.00-AM-768x477.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-15-at-10.16.00-AM.png 1998w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus\u2019 Social ProgramThursday, \u202fOctober 15, 2020 Jesus does not directly attack the religious and institutional sin systems of his time until his final action against the money changers in the temple (see Matthew 21:12\u201313; Mark 11:15\u201317; Luke 19:45\u201346). Because of this, Jesus\u2019 primary social justice critique and action are often a disappointment to most radicals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19408,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions\/19408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}