Starter Pack for Christian Socialists

"Because of this God gave them up to dishonorable affections, for even their females changed the natural use into that against nature; and in like manner also the males having left the natural use of the female, burned in their longing toward one another; males with males working shame, and the repayment of their error that was fit, in themselves receiving."

This is one of the of the more famous clobber passages used to justify homophobia. I came across something that I think may shed light on Paul's meaning here.

According to the Roman Jurist Florentinus writing in the second century:

"Freedom is one’s natural power of doing what one pleases, save insofar as it is ruled out either by coercion or law. Slavery is a product of the ius gentium, whereby someone against nature is made subject to the ownership of another."

So far as the chronology is concerned Paul is probably writing before Florentinus so I don't think he's referencing this directly but it seems conceivable to me that this concept may have existed in Roman understanding before Florentinus' articulation of it.

Being the "bottom" in a sexual relationship was generally understood in Roman society to be denote inferiority. As Senecca the Elder put it:

"Unchastity [sexual submission] is a crime in the freeborn, a necessity for the slave, and a duty for the freedman."

Paul's meaning by "contrary to nature" here may be in reference to the involuntary nature of the act being performed on other men. And crucially this would imply that the "natural use of the female" means their freely chosen and willing participation rather than that women are the proper recipient of the penetrative sex acts of men.

Disclaimer: I am not a historian or an expert in Greek so I would not take my word for this. I just read a rather eclectic set of materials from around the early history of Christianity for fun and putting these together I think makes interesting food for thought.

This is a weekly thread for discussing our mental health. Ableist and sanist comments will be removed and repeat violations will be banned

Feel free to discuss anything related to mental health and illness. We encourage you to create a WRAP plan and be an active participant in your recovery.

Figured I’d cross-post here. Got a super helpful resource from one commenter who has a blog full of book reviews.

Any specific recs anyone has in this sub, maybe focusing on Biblical reading companions or interpretations? Thanks in advance!

https://youtu.be/fM_gxhNUczQ

Here is a bible-focused allegory based on the real-life story of 2 orphaned tigers who grew up together, then separated and eventually re-united. Annotated with relevant bible verses, the allegory communicates the reality of God's amazing love. Be blessed watching the video and feel free to share your thoughts, praise God!

hello comrades

curious about thoughts and experiences related belonging to/participating in multiple religious traditions. For myself, i am a practicing Catholic who has been interested in Zen Buddhism and where the two traditions meet

When they attack you because of you not being a Catholic or Orthodox or because you do not have a degree . Remember the Pharisees thought Peter and John were uneducated. While we are not Peter or John it does not mean we dont know what we are talking about.

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I'm an Episcopal priest who has always found comfort and defiant hope in Pearl Jam's "Ten." Since it is the album's feast day, I wrote a reflection about its spiritual themes and latchkey prayers from Gen X, asking the question: Is a 90s mosh pit the perfect metaphor for Christian community?

What do you think?

American musician, singer-songwriter, actress, environmentalist, education activist, working class legend, Christian universalist, LGBTQ+ advocate, and gay icon Dolly Parton, whom many people knew as Saint Dolly or Our Lady of the Holler, has gone home to be with the Lord.

As Adam Dupuis wrote yesterday in the gay men's magazine Instinct: "For LGBTQ+ fans, Dolly was always more than a country music superstar. She was a safe space wrapped in sequins. A woman whose music, humor, kindness, and unapologetic larger-than-life personality made generations of queer people feel seen, welcomed, and celebrated."

Her 1991 album Eagle When She Flies included a song called "Family" where she acknowled that some families have gay members: "Some are preachers, some are gay. Some are addicts, drunks and strays. But not a one is turned away when it's family." In 2005, she also wrote the song "Travelin' Thru" for Transamerica, a film about a trans woman who goes on a road trip with her long-lost son.

Parton famously supported marriage equality. In 2014, before same-sex marriage was even legal, she said, "I think everyone should be with who they love. I don’t want to be controversial or stir up a bunch of trouble but people are going to love who they are going to love. I think gay couples should be allowed to marry. They should suffer just like us heterosexuals. Ha ha ha!"

She similarly stood for transgender equality, too. In 2023, after a series of anti-trans measures came into law in her home state of Tennessee, Parton stated: "I just want everybody to be treated good. [...] I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge. And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things and I know how real they are. I know how important this is to them. That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me. If there’s something to be judged, that is God’s business. But we are all God’s children and how we are is who we are." She also denounced North Carolina's anti-transgender 'bathroom bill' in 2016: "I think everybody should be treated with respect. I don’t judge people. I try not to get too caught up in all the controversy of things. I hope that everybody gets a chance to be who and what they are."

In 2012, she addressed rumours that she was secretly a lesbian, saying "I’m not gay. If I was gay, I would have come out of the closet just a-flying." In 2016, she told The New York Times, "I have a huge gay following, and I’m proud of them. Sometimes some of them look more like me than I do."

Parton is frequently impersonated by drag performers, something she enjoyed: "I have always had a big gay following and I’ve always had drag queens dressing up like me all through the years. Sometimes when I’m in concert, especially when I’m in London, I have all these Dollys out in the crowd. I just get a kick out of seeing myself out there in the crowd."

In 2021, Parton herself sang a drag queen version of her song "Jolene". In a 2012 interview, she also revealed that she once entered a drag queen look-alike contest and lost: "They had a bunch of Chers and Dollys that year, so I just over-exaggerated -- made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything. [...] All these beautiful drag queens had worked for weeks and months getting their clothes. So I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy. And I got the least applause, but I was just dying laughing inside. I say it’s a good thing I was a girl or I’d be a drag queen."

She is considered a saint by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who canonized her as the "patron saint of relentless glamor". She has also been recognized by others as the patron saint of Tennessee, Nashville, Appalachia, country music, birthing mothers, blondeness, Christmas, sequins, libraries, reading, literacy, kindness, equality, vulnerability, versatility, queer allyship, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Rest in peace, Saint Dolly

"If you're the fine Christian you think you are, why are you judging people? That's God's job. We're not God. We're not judges. We're supposed to love one another."

Good morning r/RadicalChristianity. I am planning on making some updates to the sub’s sidebar and rules, and I would like to make some other changes to the sub and I would love to get y’all’s input before I make any changes to the sub. If you have any suggestions or think you have better ideas, please share them! My goal is to reduce the amount of trolling and bad faith posts, improve discussion quality, and to provide a safe space for radicals with marginalized identities.

Here are my ideas:

1. **Update the subreddit description and sidebar to clarify that this is a leftist Christian sub devoted to discussion of radical politics, theology, and philosophy.** I don’t know about you all but I’m tired of reactionary Christians coming here thinking that their pro-capitalist and/or fascist takes are welcome here. I think if the sub’s description and sidebar were clearer, that maybe we wouldn’t have so many confused reactionary Christians spewing their bullshit here. As the recent poll I made about the sub’s political leanings show, the vast majority of the sub is some flavor of leftist, with more than half of us are some flavor of *revolutionary* leftist. The sub’s description and sidebar should reflect that.

2. **Disable and remove Automod while restricting posts to approved users only.** I think this is a good idea because 1)Automod eats a lot of comments that are fine while ignoring comments that are reactionary as all hell, and 2)there are a lot of trolls that have posted in this sub that wouldn’t have if posting was only allowed for approved posters who have proven to make excellent contributions to the discourse.

3. **Remove u/SyntheticSilence and u/Theomancer from the mod list while adding 3-4 mods.** Neither u/SyntheticSilence or u/Theomancer are active in this sub, the former hasn’t been active on Reddit for almost 3 years, and the latter, while active on Reddit, hasn’t posted in this sub for years now, so I think both should be removed. We also desperately need more mods, as three of the mods are only semi-active here, and while I am active here and do the vast majority of the modding here, it would be much easier on my stress levels if there was a few more mods to help out. This is a fairly large sub and it’s hard to keep up with maintaining this space while also having a fairly busy life. If any of you have suggestions for who should be a mod or if you would like to volunteer please speak up. The only real requirements is that you are a radical Christian and that you are at least semi-active in the sub.

4. **Update the rules to clarify what kind of content is allowed here and to foster a safe space for marginalized people.** I’m not entirely sure of the exact changes needed, but I think explicit rules banning oppressive language(ex: misogyny), pro-capitalist rhetoric, and reactionary ideologies(ex: TERFism) while having a rule or two for respectful discussion would go a long way in improving this sub’s overall discourse and would actually make this sub a safe space for marginalized people.

What do you all think? Am I on the right track? Please give me your input. God bless you all, comrades.

This is a thread for the radical women of r/RadicalChristianity to talk. We ask that men do not comment on this thread.

Suggestions for topics to talk about:

1.)What kinds of feminist activism have you been up to?

2.)What books have you been reading?

3.)What visual media(ex: TV shows) have you been watching?

4.)Who are the radical women that are currently inspiring you?

5.)Promote yourself and your creations!

6.)Rant/vent about shit.

The Bible in Living English was translated by the linguist Steven T. Byington who also happened to be an American anarchist.

Byington translated the Bible in his spare time, often on the train during his commute into Boston. My understanding is his work lacks a conservative or institutional bias as he didn’t have a committee or publisher to answer to. As such he was free to render the text the way he saw fit.

I’d mention it that Byington was a Congregationalist and not affiliated with the Watchtower or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since he did his translation without the oversight of a committee, and had translated anarchic works prior, he couldn’t get a publisher to pick up his work.

After Byington’s death the Watchtower purchased the rights and printed thousands of copies back in the 70’s due to Byington’s use of the term Jehovah for the divine name in the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s currently out of print but you can find used copies readily available online.

You can read his work here

I am sad at what " religion " has done to so many people in the name of Jesus. So many believe they are on the narrow road yet do not understand they are still at the cross roads. They cant even or refuse to learn His word. They don't even really know the Gospel let alone the rest of scripture. They love what their denomination tells them to love and hate what their denomination tells them to hate. The Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic Church are all guilty of lead millions and millions astray trying to prove their way is the right way; instead of just following scripture and Jesus.

Just doing exactly what the NT says instead of wanting to add to it to make a name for themselves.

for peaceful dreams