“If you are a follower of Jesus, a middle eastern man living in an occupied country who was crucified by the global military superpower of his day, and the leader of the global military superpower of your day, in celebrating victory and occupation of a middle eastern country, quotes hymns in the military victory speech about Jesus, if you are a Christian, this should make you nervous.
The Bible is a story of people living on the underside of military super powers.The Bible comes to us from a small minority of peoples, who are conquered peoples.So when you read this story, and you read this book, as a citizen of the most powerful empire this world has ever seen, you may miss some of it’s central ideas. Because when it says some trust in chariots but we trust in God and you have 42.8 percent of the worlds weapons, You’re the one with the chariots.
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My interest is in how we understand the story of the scriptures, and in some way separate the cross and the flag, just long enough to make sure that we haven’t bought into somethings that are the very type of things that Jesus came to set us free from.”
2 comments:
a fascinating snippet (could've guessed it was RB a mile off), but i feel as a contextless quote it's confusing in terms of what Rob Bell thinks christ expects of individuals and what christ expects of governments or societies.
democracy as a system of government is inseparably dependent upon the threat of violence. did christ come to set us free from our trust in chariots? yes. but the simple existence or use of chariots does not necessarily condemn one to "trust in" them.
true, the bible is a story of people living on the underside of military super powers, but at other times it is also the story of the super power itself, (righteously) murdering women and children. how do i reconcile that with this quote? bonhoeffer couldn't.
source for the 42.8% stat? please?
i would've left it at the first paragraph...
were Roman Christians automatically "the ones with the chariots" as well, or was first priority given to their Christian citizenship? The sweeping condemnation seems poorly executed.
The last paragraph is keen, but the basis on which it was formed seemed faulty. If that was the intended destination, another route may have been more accurate.
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