I have to admit, the more I read the Bible, the more I come to the conclusion of political Progressivism. God seems genuinely to loathe human stagnation whether political or economic, meaningless yet comfy inherited traditions, the institution of kingship, and inequality generally. >Nearly all Old Testament heroes are youngest sons, Abel, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, David, Solomon, to name a few. All somehow manage to be better than the eldest in spite of the material advantages of being eldest in the ancient world. >Kings were a mistake according to God, and to Samuel the prophet. All the greatest villains; Pharoh, Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, are kings. >Subordination of women to men (or inequality at all) was the product of the first sin; God decrees it, yet finds it objectionable as can be seen in the case of Lamech who uses God's decree as a means to exploit women, or in the dysfunctional dynamics of Abraham's family. >The Prophets spend their whole writing career bashing idolatry and meaningless ritualism, and saying (to paraphrase) that God would kill it all with fire and magnets. >Jesus singles out priests for the most serious condemnation.
*Note; I don't mean left-wing or right-wing here, and I also don't mean to say that I think modern progressives are really terribly progressive. Sexual liberation isn't really the essence of progress, just a phase that we're quickly growing out of because it's been 50 years since the 60's and we've been there and done that. Also there's nothing progressive about communism, socialism or other forms of legislated poverty.
New Testament was progressive as shit when Jesus was railing against the Pharisees not so much now. Koran was progressive as shit when it united the Arabian penisula not so much now. The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice and at this point Christianity is just holding onto the past.
Sebastian Watson
The world destiny, according to the bible, is socialist-Utopian-monarchism. The humans will live on socialist paradise nested in an ultimately hierarchical order (monarchism ) but power is placed absolutely outside the grasp of any human to achieve or challenge, it being the privilege of God only. So it is socialist and Utopian in the same way fully automated luxury communism is except God replaces the AI.
Aiden Lewis
I've heard that saying before, but it strikes me as overly optimistic, unless you believe that humanity justly deserves oblivion.
Carter Ward
Christianity was the Marxism of the ancient world
Ryder Jackson
Some black dude said it. Didn't turn out well for him
Bentley Foster
Progressive Christians can be just as cringe as the people they mock.
I mean if it wasn't true then Nietzsche couldn't accuse Christianity of "slave morality" and that socialism would emerge in part out of Christian moralism and republicanism.
Nathaniel Perry
>I am a retard who doesn't know what progressive means yet that won't stop me from making a shit thread about prog jesus Keep them coming user
Ethan Lee
Yeah but who cares about Nietzsche
Lincoln Lopez
OP here, I have to say, that's a rather pleb-tier argument. The only reason to say that the arc of history bends towards justice is the Bible itself, which claims God will come to judge the living and the dead and will rule over us ever thereafter, there's nothing in nature which you can appeal to that says justice is a guarantee.
Also on a side note, but just to prove that you're an illiterate redditor; the Koran may or may not be progressive, but it's the Hadith which legally and morally inform the practice of Islam and Sharia. Being such a normie that you think that the Koran is the key to understanding Islamic religion just proves that you haven't read a book and don't know what the hell you're talking about. You deserve a taste of a shoe for such a stupid, worthless comment.
Ok then wiseass, what does "progressive" mean? I thought it meant the view that political reform is vital to human prosperity, like it says everywhere.
Hunter Wood
You're shitting me right? Are you claiming that all of Christian theology and practice is contained in the Bible? And yet people routinely say they follow the Bible to mean they are Christian.
Jack Allen
>Are you claiming that all of Christian theology and practice is contained in the Bible? Yes. Even the decorations of a Church take inspiration primarily from the Jerusalem Temple as it is described in 1st Kings.
Ryder Edwards
Take inspiration is the important phrase. I'm sure all the ragheads writing the Hadiths said the same thing. See the Torah and the Talmud for the jews.
Levi Gray
Even something so seemingly unremarkable as the Hail Mary prayer, is a combination of the Archangel Gabriel's Greeting to Mary and Elizabeth's greeting to Mary in Luke 1 in the New Testament. Therefore I conclude that there is nothing Christians believe in theory, or do in the practice of their faith, which is not directly Biblical. This is so, unless the Bible is silent.
The Koran however, is just a recitation (Koran means recitation) of the Prophet Mo's nice (or at least kinda alright) poetry. If you actually want to learn about the Prophet Mohamed, his life and deeds and teachings, you must consult the Hadith. Hadith means something like table talk in Arabic, but Hadith are actually interested mainly in the application of Koranic verses, to legal questions. The Hadith are why Islam is so screwed up; the whole religion is actually about creating binding legal norms based on poetry, written by a man who was clinically insane. But it's ok because the Hadith are written by people who didn't have any firsthand knowledge of the man, and just compiled secondhand reports. But only some Hadith are legally binding, others are not. Which Hadith are legally important is also not transparent. So it's a clusterfuck
Cooper Butler
Torah and Talmud is actually pretty normal all things considered. In Judaism, Torah is the law (it means instruction) and Talmud means interpretation. So in a lot of ways Torah and Talmud is a lot like modern statute law and modern judicial opinion, except applied to Biblical law. So you're still illiterate, but there you go, some things never change.
Jason James
This is a cope Catholicism is the exact same way. What is the sola scriptura break between Protestants and Catholicism about if not this? A single book written hundreds to thousands of years ago does not contain enough information to guide someones entire life without interpretation.
Henry Hernandez
Rofl how is >Torah is the law (it means instruction) and Talmud means interpretation. So in a lot of ways Torah and Talmud is a lot like modern statute law and modern judicial opinion, except applied to Biblical law different from >Hadith are actually interested mainly in the application of Koranic verses, to legal questions
Noah Jones
Eh, Christianity created a moral outlook that stressed inclusion of those usually treated as afterthoughts in ancient society (the lame, diseased, those in massive debt) but didn't do much to actually change material conditions for its followers, at least in the early church. Because Jesus as remembered in the canonical gospels resists direct political action, its difficult to parse out a decent political theory from the New Testament alone. Sure, Jesus has progressive tendencies but his outlook is ultimately concerned with bringing about a new Kingdom on Earth that would be so unlike any current living situation we can imagine, its useless to condense it into a political program Not that many theologians haven't tried to do just that.
Concerning Jesus and Progressivism, I think Graeber summed it up best in his book on Debt. Basically, Christianity's (and Judaism) biggest political impact in the ancient world was the practice of Jubilee, the forgiving of all debt every seven years. This forgiveness allowed people to go on with their lives without being de facto enslaved to whoever was lucky enough to have land. Christianity devised a moral system that made its followers imagine themselves as the most powerless people in society and try to enact change based on that vulnerability. Yet, in doing so, it didn't offer a program to change the material situation of those unfortunate enough to be that low in ancient society. At a certain point, Jubilee became irrelevant (many scholars have noted it almost certainly didn't happen every seven years even when it was in practice) but Christian morals remained. You can argue those morals inspire a progressive political theory but that doesn't change the fact that Jesus and Paul especially had very little to say about direct political action. Mostly cause they saw their mission as fundamentally different and set apart from what constituted 'politics' of their day
Isaiah Ward
The Bible is replete with instructions to “visit orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27) and to protect the environment that God has entrusted to us (Genesis 1:28). Insofar as Progressive Christianity is a movement that seeks to emphasize and honor these principles, it certainly lines up with Scripture. However, there are some aspects of Progressive Christianity that contradict a biblical worldview. In general, members of this movement do not ascribe to the biblical doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, and, again, in general, do not believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God. Progressive Christianity also tends to emphasize what is known as “collective salvation” over the biblical concept of personal salvation. The Bible is clear that God redeems those individuals who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and rescues them from an eternity of being separated from Him in torment. Collective salvation, by contrast, emphasizes the restoration of whole cultures and societies to what progressive Christians believe is the correct socioeconomic structure, namely, Marxism. Marxism, in turn, is a theory of economics and politics developed by an atheist (Karl Marx) from unbiblical assumptions.
In this sense, then, the views of many progressive Christians do not fit with biblical principles. In the end, however, discretion is needed in evaluating a particular claim or belief in terms of Scripture; the whole spectrum of beliefs identified by the term “Progressive Christianity” is too broad to permit an unequivocal conclusion as to whether or not it can be labeled unbiblical. As with all uncertain issues, the Christian would do well to compare each claim of those in the Progressive Christianity movement with Scripture, asking God for the wisdom to discern truth from error. He has promised wisdom to all who seek it (James 1:5).
Evan Rogers
>Ok then wiseass, what does "progressive" mean? I thought it meant the view that political reform is vital to human prosperity, like it says everywhere. No it doesn't, progressivism doesn't just mean progression towards an ideal that one deems worthy or desirable. By that logic creating a white ethnostate would be progressive. The term refers to reformations of a liberal kind, and today in particular to a type of left wing egalitarian politics.
Jose Lopez
>God would kill it all with fire and magnets >magnets What did he mean by this?
>The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice This is a very simplistic view of history.
Logan Cox
Jesus railing against the Pharisees is not progressive only if you read that passage through an antisemitic lens, which makes no sense since Jesus and the Apostles saw themselves as proper, orthodox Jews. The separation of Christianity from Judaism starts with St. Peter, decades after the death of Jesus Christ (and it was extremely controversial among the other Apostles)
Julian Garcia
>I-i believe in historical progress, and that there is a motion in history to greater reasonableness, or peace, o-or prosperity, or freedom!
That's literally Christian escatology, stop conflating it with reddit shit. Although our human society is flawed, the Bible implies a substantial progress through the eventual Day of Judgement and Resurrection of the Bodies
Jordan Nelson
The bible is vehemently reddit
Jacob Wood
this post is retarded and you should feel ashamed
Parker Gray
Ok I'll grant this is true
>How is a centralized legal code different from second-hand accounts of a person's life? There's a huge difference, it might not seem like much from a Yea Forums perspective, but from a legal perspective, the fact that only some Hadith are Sunnah (legally binding) is scary just in regards to transparency, because it means that the law is essentially random. What's worse is that Mohamed was a pretty evil guy, so if he's the moral standard, your screwed. The Old Testament laws by contrast undermine slavery, while Islam endorses it.
Thanks, progressive seems to mean a lot of different things
Yes, but there seems to be a connection between the prophetic desire for justice and equality under God, and the kind of world we live in today. They just knew that even the best political structures would always fail unless people strove to follow the moral covenant. The founding fathers agreed with this assessment when they said that their system of government only worked for a religious people.
There was also the 19th century progressive movement, which was both right and left wing.
Charles Lewis
It doesn't: >But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Jonathan Brooks
>progress Is there anything more bluepilled than believing in progress? This is the Kali Yuga, and how far we’ve fallen from the ideal.
The protestants are at it again, people. There are a lot of things included in Christian tradition that might or might not be backed in scripture. Tradition predates the Bible.
