I've always said that early christians were practicing Anarchists. The irony is Christians love to lionize the early church, but getting them to practice that is completely impossible.
They won't commit class suicide even when Jesus asks them to
Matthew 19
21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was very rich.
23 Jesus then said to his disciples, “I assure you: it will be very hard for rich people to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
the gospel of mark (haven't gotten around to reading the others yet) gives me a lot of impressions of a jewish proto-nationalist struggle against rome, but then mystified and distorted by 1. people from outside the context misinterpreting stuff and 2. the empire itself adopting and coopting the movement (or the movement selling out)
There's a neat sorta process of
"jesus inspired to preach (which, in historical context is equivilant to agitation)"
"jesus starts preaching literally about the corruption of judean society and the temple"
"jesus gets his ass beat by locals for telling them they're sinful"
"jesus starts preaching in parables so he doesn't get his ass beat"
"jesus builds movement and explains things literally to the apostles, but continues parableing in his preaching"
"jesus does mutual aid, healing people of physical and mental ailments (not curing imo, but alleviating symptoms (psychologically or literally with oil))"
"jesus confronts the demon legion (which is many)"
"jesus goes to jerusalem, intending to agitate more and die as a matyr to incite rebellion"
"jesus's followers abandon him and it all falls apart"
30 year break until the actual attempted revolution
"some guy remembers jesus's ideas (sees visions) and thinks "the rebellion would work if the whole roman empire rose up instead of just judea""
"starts spreading faith to non-jews"
which leads varying religious/cultural ideas being taken literally, misinterpreted and morphed until apocalypse means "the literal end of existence" instead of "the collapse of the existing social order" and jesus is turned into literally god, when in all likelihood he was preaching more or less what isiah or jeremiah did
until apocalypse means "the literal end of existence" instead of "the collapse of the existing social order"
The literal Greek translation is just "disclosure," "uncovering," or "revelation" [of something previously hidden]. It's very likely that it was meant in the sense you said--a revelation of the rot at the heart of society. Early millenarian Christians always predicting the apocalypse has a lot of parallels with Q-Anon weirdos constantly predicting The Storm. It's basically the same idea.
I grew up in an evangelical household. The argument I've gotten in return is that they weren't "forced", people have to offer in charity, welfare is evil because it forces it.
So instead we design a society that rewards shitty greed and self centered actions. I'm sure God loves it.
Makes me really thankful I was raised with christianity that was more in line with this thinking than most strains of christianity. Shit like prosperity gospel is unironic heresy
now convince christians of this
I've always said that early christians were practicing Anarchists. The irony is Christians love to lionize the early church, but getting them to practice that is completely impossible.
Guess why
They won't commit class suicide even when Jesus asks them to
Matthew 19
21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was very rich.
23 Jesus then said to his disciples, “I assure you: it will be very hard for rich people to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Jesus also gives instructions for agitation:
the gospel of mark (haven't gotten around to reading the others yet) gives me a lot of impressions of a jewish proto-nationalist struggle against rome, but then mystified and distorted by 1. people from outside the context misinterpreting stuff and 2. the empire itself adopting and coopting the movement (or the movement selling out)
There's a neat sorta process of
"jesus inspired to preach (which, in historical context is equivilant to agitation)"
"jesus starts preaching literally about the corruption of judean society and the temple"
"jesus gets his ass beat by locals for telling them they're sinful"
"jesus starts preaching in parables so he doesn't get his ass beat"
"jesus builds movement and explains things literally to the apostles, but continues parableing in his preaching"
"jesus does mutual aid, healing people of physical and mental ailments (not curing imo, but alleviating symptoms (psychologically or literally with oil))"
"jesus confronts the demon legion (which is many)"
"jesus goes to jerusalem, intending to agitate more and die as a matyr to incite rebellion"
"jesus's followers abandon him and it all falls apart"
30 year break until the actual attempted revolution
"some guy remembers jesus's ideas (sees visions) and thinks "the rebellion would work if the whole roman empire rose up instead of just judea""
"starts spreading faith to non-jews"
which leads varying religious/cultural ideas being taken literally, misinterpreted and morphed until apocalypse means "the literal end of existence" instead of "the collapse of the existing social order" and jesus is turned into literally god, when in all likelihood he was preaching more or less what isiah or jeremiah did
The literal Greek translation is just "disclosure," "uncovering," or "revelation" [of something previously hidden]. It's very likely that it was meant in the sense you said--a revelation of the rot at the heart of society. Early millenarian Christians always predicting the apocalypse has a lot of parallels with Q-Anon weirdos constantly predicting The Storm. It's basically the same idea.
Not the first time the early church got lion-ized
I grew up in an evangelical household. The argument I've gotten in return is that they weren't "forced", people have to offer in charity, welfare is evil because it forces it.
So instead we design a society that rewards shitty greed and self centered actions. I'm sure God loves it.
Unforced until God strikes you dead for being a selfish capitalist.
Makes me really thankful I was raised with christianity that was more in line with this thinking than most strains of christianity. Shit like prosperity gospel is unironic heresy