Course Overview
Zoom Link
Video & Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Video & Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Video & Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Video & Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Video & Questions for Reflection and Discussion
The biblical figure of Cain in Genesis 4 became the first plantation owner. Cain murdered his brother and damaged his own relationship with the land, but defied God and built a city, enmeshing his son to produce for him and protect him, producing a culture of violence, lies, and scapegoating. We observe colonial Virginia as an example of Plantation Capitalism. Trigger warning: This video contains an image from Darnell Frazier's video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on, and murdering, George Floyd. We define Jesus’ Jubilee Economy from passages like Leviticus 25.
We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Plantations vs. Planet, and Producers vs. Consumers — the first 2 of the 12 relationships we will cover. And: Why do we take a public good, common good approach to Christian faith and public policy? Because Jesus’ teaching & story require us to be concerned about other-harm. He carries forward Israel’s wisdom impacting Gentiles in uplifting the poor and oppressed (we look at 5 examples). Thus, Scripture leads us to a common good, public good paradigm; see this brief debate on X/Twitter.
Christian faith had set up certain laws in Europe that abolished chattel slavery, thwarted the worst of labor exploitation, and persistently tried to limit finance and banks. The colonies were a legal gray zone, where people could get away with exploitation and theft that they couldn't get away with back in Europe. European colonizers treated the North American colonies as a safe place to practice their heresies. We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Enslavers vs. the Enslaved, Thieves vs. Victims, Lenders vs. Debtors, Employers vs. Workers, Poor Workers vs. Even Poorer Workers — 5 of the 12 relationships we cover.
We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Men vs. Women on Sex and Childbearing. Please be advised that these are mature topics. We discuss rape during the time of slavery. Enslaved Black women were raped, forced to bear children, and then often separated from them. Meanwhile the sexual purity of White women was seen as the property of White men. But God’s vision was to hold up marriage as holy, and Jewish law recognized that wives had a right to protection from marital rape and a right to sexual fulfillment, whereas husbands do not.
We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Men vs. Women on Sex and Childbearing. Please be advised that these are mature topics. We continue from part 1 on the discussion of marital rape, and discuss sexual abuse of women in the military, police, the arts, housing, and hierarchical organizations. We argue against the notion of hierarchy in the husband-wife relationship promoted by some Christians. We explore insights from the biblical story of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13, and the Book of Samuel as a tragic reversal of the Book of Genesis.
Jesus asserted his claim on all creation and all people. So he extended the relational vision of God for human flourishing, where human health and land health, along with human rights and labor rights took clear priority over the rights of capital and the ability of elites to use money to make more money. How does Walmart and Amazon do in our evaluation? As we study that, we talk about how capital rights have been dominant, how banks financialized Black bodies, how rich Whites consolidated wealth against poor Whites and Blacks. We spotlight how disinvestment from public life, and other people’s children, represents the form of exploitation. So do worker injuries, wage theft, tipping, and externalities. But biblical patterns uphold labor over capital, and one policy we get behind is The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.
Like with the British East India Company, the corporation was developed by colonial governments as a legal mechanism for investors to exploit people and the planet in colonies and other countries. These profiteers hired private security, shaped US gun culture, and even formed public policing to serve their limited interests, not the public good. We are still trying to regulate violence in all its forms. Why is this a matter of concern for Christians? Because US Christians inherit from British Christians a very misleading translation of Exodus 22:2 - 3 popular in 18th century England. It directly influenced the "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws in the U.S. Because even though Jewish law rejects judicial torture, US prosecutors use plea bargaining, which is -- at least in its current form -- psychological torture that accelerates the efficiency of the police-prison state and its violence. Because John the Baptist and Jesus in Luke ch.3, v.14 told Roman soldiers to stop using their coercive power to extort and exploit even colonized peoples -- much less formal citizens -- and serve a public purpose. We are still trying to make regulated, legal violence serve the public, common good.
CNBC business news host Jim Cramer called Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union, "Marxist and Communist!" Why? What does he hope to achieve? Not accuracy! Cramer wants to produce knee jerk fear in his audience, like how the plantation elite manipulate people to side with their agenda of how they can keep economic and political power. We show why Christian American Exceptionalism contributes to why Christians believe they are entitled to more wealth and power than other people, resulting in White evangelicals siding with the Confederacy, against Reconstruction, with the fascist coup against FDR and the New Deal, and with McCarthy’s accusations. It’s not at all a new pattern or weakness. Confront the history and present reality of White Evangelicals siding with racial fascism.
White evangelicals jumped on the fascism train through the emotion of disgust and, especially, the issue of abortion. By joining the Reagan coalition, white evangelical Republicans took leadership of the anti-abortion movement from Catholic Democrats. But by joining Reagan's anti-communist coalition and "Southern strategy" to peel off white Southern segregationists from the Democratic Party to the GOP, they moved abortion policy from a social welfare issue to a criminal justice issue. They also asserted that if you have sex and get pregnant before you're ready, you should have a child as a consequence, and face economic hardship as a punishment. So they agreed with Reagan to dismantle the New Deal with its pro-labor, anti-poverty, democracy of small businesses vision. They supported a "you're on your own" libertarian economics. Catholics and evangelicals also used abortion as an issue to stave off their fears of science and stay culturally relevant. So they tied their politics of disgust to their fears of science. Which is why they have such a hard time reassessing their views of the fetus when the science of embryology shows us that God does not ensoul the fetus from conception. Early on, probably. Conception? No.
In this video, we explain Biblical passages that impact our interpretation of the fetus: Exodus 21:22 - 25 and Psalm 139. We touch on the difference between the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of Exodus 21. We highlight how the early Christians approached the science of their day as a helpful and necessary ally, and how the Latin West and the Greek East came to different conclusions about the fetus because they followed different scientific opinions. We appeal to Christians today to treat embryology as a friend and ally in our attempt to know and honor the unborn fetus, and not respond to abortion policy with disgust and fear. Confront the history and present reality of white evangelicals siding with racial fascism.
White evangelicals jumped on the fascism train by being trained to respond to fear. In movie theaters, a projector projects an image onto a screen to elicit emotions. In society, plantation elites project their fears to get other people to fear the same things. Much of evangelical theology trains people to respond to fear. When people believe that God's justice is retributive, and that Jesus absorbed divine retributive justice as taking the penalty for them (penal substitution), they are being trained to fear God for threatening them with torture, trauma, and separation. It's as if the Bible said, "Perfect love casts out fear, but you have to feel fear first!" Moreover, people who believe in US Christian nationalism also feel fear that God will judge, penalize, or punish the US for deviating from American exceptionalism, or the supposedly Christian heritage of the US, or having too many non-Christian neighbors. The theory of divine retributive justice and the notion of Christian nationalism are both wrong. But much damage has been done, and continues to be done, by training evangelicals to be so fearful. We survey many fears which white American evangelicals, especially, have felt in recent years: fear of "communism"; fear of "the end of the world"; fear of being "left behind"; fear of Muslim attacks after 9/11; fear that Barack Obama was the antichrist; fear of racial or sexual minorities. How would Jesus have us respond to these fears?
TBD based on interest. Currently our focus is on the U.S. housing market, applying what we have learned in previous weeks.
