Paul's vice list in 1 Corinthians 6 includes the greedy and the swindlers right alongside the sexually immoral. Funny how churches built entire denominations around policing sex and never once split over someone's stock portfolio. Selective outrage is its own kind of theology.
Arsenokoitai has a known use in the sixth century where a man is prescribed penance for committing it with his wife. If it meant "homosexual," that sentence makes no sense. But hey, lets not let the actual evidence get in the way of a useful condemnation!
1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, the one read at every wedding, was written in the middle of an argument about whether Christians can eat meat sacrificed to idols. Love is patient and kind because someone at church was being a jerk about pork. Context ruins nothing and improves everything.
The church needs to be for both mystics and activists; contemplatives and organizers.
"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Paul isn't anti-intellectual. He's anti-smug. Theology that makes you more certain and less kind has failed on its own terms. If your doctrine doesn't make you gentler toward the people it affects, you don't understand it yet.
There’s a fairly straight line to draw between “hit children to get them to behave”
to “bomb a nation to set them free”
to “burn in hell forever to satisfy a ‘just’ god.”
The promise of fundamentalism is certainty. Black and white answers to everything. That's why people sign up. But certainty quickly becomes a chain, and the only way out is through doubt. Freedom lives on the other side of "I don't know," which is why so few churches are willing to go there.
Most of us do Christianity like I write with a pen after twenty years of typing—white-knuckling it, shoulders at our ears.
In John 17, Jesus doesn't pray that we'd try harder. He prays we'd be pulled into the very life of God. Sanctification isn't climbing a ladder.
www.parrott.ink/loosen-your-...
New Post: Being Held
https://www.parrott.ink/being-held/
Is growing to a larger size of church simply more likely to require relying on coercion, authoritarianism, and control?
We don't demand weekly attendance or tithing. We have shared values, sure. But the rest is... messy.
Turns out, messy doesn't scale well.
www.parrott.ink/not-supposed...
The truth matters more than approval, and justice matters more than comfort.
Sometimes the message that wins converts is the wrong message.
Palatability can come at the cost of virtue.
Making everyone feel okay about the conversation means nobody actually changes.
www.parrott.ink/the-value-an...
Two thirds of Americans are not Trump voters
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/a-lot-of-p...
If a pastor has ever used the Bible to tell you that being a good Christian means staying in an abusive relationship, or that questioning harmful treatment makes you "unforgiving" or "bitter"—they were wrong.
Biblical enemy-love is never about enabling greater harm.
www.parrott.ink/saving-enemy...
Follow your temptations!
In which I compare the speeches of Goebbels and Stephen Miller.
Same dehumanization: "You are nothing"
Same civilizational claims: "Our ancestors built everything"
Same "awakened dragon" metaphors
Same martyrdom-to-escalation patterns
www.parrott.ink/comparing-go...
You, Jesus, are you not also a mother?
Are you not the mother who, like a hen
gathers her chickens under her wings?
Truly, Lord, you are a mother.
For longing to bear sons into life, you tasted of death
and by dying you begot them.
So you, Lord God, are the great mother
—St. Anselm of Canterbury
I really loved The Weep duology by K. Eason (@svartjagr.bsky.social) and I'm super upset that there's not any more of it!
Thanks to Christian Nationalism, we have a form of Christianity that has hollowed out the gospel, scooped out its heart, and put on its husk like a skinwalker. It calls empathy sin. It blames the poor for poverty. It treats immigrants like invaders.
www.parrott.ink/when-rome-we...
Roman philosophy said the poor deserved their poverty.
Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor."
Rome said foreigners were threats.
Jesus said, "Welcome the stranger."
Rome said empathy was weakness.
Jesus wept.
The ethics of Rome are back in style—the poor get what they deserve, foreigners are dangerous, the sick and infirm are a burden on society—wearing a Jesus name tag.
If I, a native-born citizen, were to move into a neighborhood of immigrants, I would be statistically more likely to commit a crime than my immigrant neighbors.
Meritocracy is a lie. The poor don't deserve to be poor; the rich don't deserve to be rich.
But, equally a lie, is that we solely the product of capricious fate.
www.parrott.ink/we-keep-swin...
Christlike theology cancels records of people’s debt.
Christlike theology disarms the rulers and authorities.
Christlike theology exposes the world’s oppressive powers to public disgrace.
Making salvation depend on how certain you feel about your beliefs is psychologically traumatizing. It assumes God is controlling and domineering rather than loving.
You're very kind, thank you!
According to 1 Timothy, the aim of instruction is love. Biblical instruction should lead to three things:
Love
A good conscience
A sincere faith
This means:
If it leads to hate, violence, or cruelty rather than love, throw it out—that's the biblical thing to do.
I've been told by congregants many reasons why another church had denied them Communion:
Divorce
Being LGBTQ+
Disagreement on some theological point
It fills me with something close to righteous anger. Jesus's act of hospitality turned into a membership card.
www.parrott.ink/the-longest-...
I'm too old to have a PTA board meeting *start* at 9 PM.
I’m a DC resident. The thing to understand about what’s happening is that folks like me (white American with a regular income) will likely not be affected
But if you’re Black, poor, homeless, or an immigrant, you’re screwed. It’s a retrenchment of Jim Crow
Folks like me have some decisions to make
