Trying to make sense of the storming of the Capitol building. What leads to this? Why were people claiming Jesus? Or the Confederacy?
Sound and music from Storyblocks
If you prefer reading, the script I used is below.
NATHANIEL
This isn't the video I was planning on
making this week. I'm still working on
that one. But in light of recent
events, this seemed like a good topic.
One of the easiest things for
Americans to miss about the Bible is
its communal nature. It was written by
people in community for people in
community. It can be hard to see
sometimes because it was so assumed at
the time, it'd be like telling fish
about the need for water. But you can
see it in communal sacrifices and
laws, in Moses and others forming
community and identity, in prophets
addressing the community as a whole,
and in the people understanding
communal punishment.
To understand what I mean by communal
vs non-communal think of it like a
child in a family. The child has just
learned about the idea of freedom and
has not stopped letting his parents
know about it.
Every time a parent says no, the kid
says something like, "It's a free
country I can do what I want," or
"Stop oppressing me." The parents will
usually just role their eyes because
they understand intuitively, this
child isn't a slave, but their actions
affect others in their community, in
this case that community is their
family.
This might be intuitive at first, but
historically it has been advantageous
for certain people and groups of
people to ignore the communal nature
of the Biblical text and the Christian
tradition. If you can ignore the
community, Biblical morality can be
watered down to practically just being
nice. If you're nice or loving when
you interact it doesn't matter what
the greater affect of your actions
have on the community. Some examples
in American history: If your nice, it
doesn't matter that you own black
people as property. If you nice, it
doesn't matter that your land was
stolen from native people.
If your nice, it doesn't matter that
your wealth was made by exploiting
your workers.
And unfortunately, the stories and
heresy that allowed for the
confederacy, manifest destiny, and the
robber barons is still alive and well.
The day I'm recording this is January
9th, 2021. Last Wednesday the United
States capitol building was stormed by
a mob. They claimed they were
defending freedom, but they meant the
childish kind of freedom. Some even
wore costumes or carried a confederate
flag.
Sure, one might say they truly
believed the conspiracy theories about
the election, and I'm guessing they
did. But they don't believe because of
the evidence. They need the so called
evidence as an excuse to keep
believing their non-communal heresy
and childish view of freedom.
I could go on for a long time about
powerful people tricking the less
powerful to give away even more in the
name of freedom.
I mean tax cuts are community resource
cuts. Or how the white supremacy story
ties in, like how "State's Rights" was
the cry of the Confederacy for a
reason. But I'll leave you with this:
The heresy of the non-communal (also
sometimes known as rugged
individualism, among other things) is
both non-biblical and impractical, and
I hope we can take the good of that
phase, but grow beyond it, like our
metaphoric child growing into an
adult.
On the other hand the child could
declare its freedom and kill his
parents. That wouldn't mean the child
was any smarter or stronger than his
parents, and it certainly would not
leave him better off.
I'm still working on the first video
explaining a post-evangelical gospel
narrative. It might take me a couple
more weeks, so there might not be a
video next week. We'll see. But if
you're interested be sure to
subscribe. Cheers.
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