@ayjay And I'm glad you did. I've been Rod-friendly since Crunchy Cons, but his catastrophism has been getting to me. What you said helped clarify things. (And I’ve pinned your tagged “metaphysical capitalism” articles for reading.)
@ayjay I loved this post. Thanks for writing about Rod's book and his way of communicating, which can sometimes detract from his content (IMHO). I appreciated your discussion of Marsh's The Beloved Community as well. Just having you interact with both authors and their approaches was a breath of fresh air.
@ayjay I just don't get this siege mentality at all. The biggest danger to faithful Christianity in the modern age is usually Christians. Christians giving Christianity a bad name by being hateful, selfish, or careless. Christians who proclaim to love God but not neighbor. Christians putting Mammon or Mars or political party before Christ. I appreciate your points about learning from oppressed groups, but the modern church is not oppressed in most of the world. We're often doing this to ourselves from places of power and privilege.
@bix I guess Middle Eastern Christians (not just my fellow Orthodox) suffered a major "loss of privilege" following the Iraq invasion. But that's just the umpteenth reason that for me to flee "privilege" language.
@bix The conversation started with American Christians, but @toddgrotenhuis broadened it with “the modern church is not oppressed in most of the world.” I felt the same cringing sensation at that as, apparently, did @JMaxB .
@ReaderJohn @bix I guess even on the oppressed angle, I'd say that in many of the times and places where the church has been oppressed, that's where we some of the most faithful expressions of the church. Naturally, I don't want it to be oppressed, but it's yet another reason I find the siege mentality from powerful and privileged Christians to be so strange.
@toddgrotenhuis I’ll go even beyond that: when the church gets power and privilege, it all-too-often often starts acting a lot more like Caesar and a lot less like Christ
@toddgrotenhuis Your original claim included that “the modern church is not oppressed in most of the world.” That Romans 8:28-29 remains true does not mean that oppression isn't oppressive.