From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, and singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost: Alleluia, Alleluia!

brief reminder, as All Saints' comes up, that the Reformed tradition *does* in fact teach the "communion of the saints" and a continuing (not disjunctured!) relationship between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant 🙏🙏🙏

In certain areas, modern American conservative Christianity is unrecognisable from what it was even 20 years ago.

A lot of the intellectual leaders of the movement are weirdo bro Calvinists but the average Trumpian Evangelical is a lackadaisical Arminian at best who thinks good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. Most of their politics is protecting and rewarding good people and punishing bad ones.

And also the influence of this or that pastor or theologian is generally wildly overstated. I genuinely view the religious right as mostly a bottom up movement of religious consumers who will simply ignore a lot of the doctrines and indeed the moral teachings of their formal structures.

I honestly think most Christian nationalists are just not particularly theological white evangelicals that think the platform of the Republican Party is the will of god. They are terrifying because that platform is terrifying.

ain't no rule against being a puppygirl in the bible (but basically this. anything basically not outright against evangelicalism tenets gets assimilated)

People overall like a church that tells them their lifestyle is already fine the way it is & God thinks they are actually the most special, as it happens. This is no great mystery. The Bible even says this would be the case & that people are like this.

I have *thoughts* here, but the largest one has nothing to do with "conservative vs. progressive" but with "independent vs. catholic" - I agree w/ Young that the fundamentalists have been fighting a "salt the earth" strategy in terms of messaging and the mainline has only had sheepish responses, BUT

James F. McGrath (ReligionProf)@religionprof.bsky.social · 4d ago

Kevin Young writes, "Progressive churches are not dying because of progressive theology; they are being sabotaged by evangelicalism." Do you agree? kevinyoung.substack.com/p/requiem-fo...

a reflection from last week's Bible Study on Acts 5, complete with an Indiana Jones reference:

The Holy of Holies is the Poor

A Reflection from Acts 5

poetinbabylon.substack.com

Genuinely don’t know which is worse - having your mother tell the New York Times she can’t be bothered to describe you in three words without the app she’s advertising… or being the twin sister she didn’t even mention.

honestly, I think of all those places Jake's listing here as "casual dining near malls," but The Cheesecake Factory is often "casual dining IN a mall (but not the food court)," and, thus, I've never eaten there my entire life

Jake@jakeofonline.bsky.social · 5d ago

I've honestly never been to The Cheesecake Factory. Mentally it sits in the same sort of category of "mall-adjacent casual dining" like Red Robin, California Pizza Kitchen, Red Lobster, Outback Steakhouse, etc. but I have no idea what it's actually like.

are Wilfrid J. and Daniel J. Harringtons related??? (Catholic Biblical scholars)

for tomorrow's Gospel, I'm reflecting on Qs 4 and 5 of the Heidelberg Catechism (like a good Reformed pastor should)

I'm very troubled tonight by the realization that pretty much every single member of the main cast of DUNE PART THREE is (precisely) 30 years old.

Wow, we’re so different. I’ve never fired a Rocket-Propelled Grenade, let alone five varieties such as you have. Impressive

first five RPGs played: 1. 3/3.5e D&D; 2. a whackadoo homebrew Pokémon RPG my brother and I wrote; 3. an AWESOME homebrew XCOM-themed RPG my buddy Ketih wrote; 4. 5e D&D (I guess!); 5. 4e Legend of the Five Rings

Jacob T. Levy@jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 6d ago

My first five RPGs played: 1. AD&D (1e) 2. Basic/ Masters/ Companion D&D, red box and sequels 3) Paranoia 4) Champions 5)... might jump all the way ahead to D&D 3e

Wher ys the horse and the rydere? Wher ys the horne that was blowinge? Wher ys the brighte cuppe, the friendes gift? Wher yn the worlde ys Carmen Sandiego?

I take after George MacDonald here; any pain that comes in purification is not punitive but rather the natural difficulty of unmaking the false self and facing the stark truth of your life. No pain is withheld which leads to reconciliation, no pain is inflicted in useless revenge.

I've had occasion to imagine what that would look like as a universalist. I can, in fact, imagine some of the founding fathers rebuking guys like Ramaswamy - for idolizing them rather than loving others - as grim messengers sent to them in the outer dark - and only after their own difficult penance.

"Nevertheless—and this is crucial—Christians also believed that those intervening heavens, in the wake of Christ’s conquest of the hostile powers reigning over them and governing the world below, will no longer be barriers between God’s heaven and the world of the Age to come.

Our enemies do not fear God

Brent S. Scarecrow-ta 🎃@brentsirota.bsky.social · last wk.

The American civil religion is getting really fucking weird.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.... No, in all these things we are more than Founding Fathers through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor Framers,

they should rename the great lakes but instead of for trump reasons it should be seasonal halloween themes. 'lake eerie' for example. idk about the others i'll leave that to the rest of you

I'm sorry man, but thanks to Jesus, I will not being seeing (most of) the Founding Fathers of this country in the afterlife. (or, if I'm feeling a little nicer, not for a "long time" until after their purgation)

Philip Bump@pbump.com · last wk.

Even if this were viable as a concept (that there's an afterlife; that it allows conversations with others; that enslavers are going the same place as you), who cares? Oh, are you mad at me, Ben Franklin? Tough shit.

holy smokes, conan strikes up a chat with a random lady on the subway and she immediately starts riffing on his level, no problem.

on the one hand, there have been MANY times I've been grateful for Christianity Today's willingness (in recent years) to create conversations across the fundamentalist & liberal wings of its own movement (and the Church more generally) on the other hand... this is the magazine Billy Graham founded

mitchell atencio (he·him·his)@mitchellatencio.com · last wk.

what CT is becoming is a genuine and stark loss for all of us. thankful for the many honest voices in here.

Jesus's WHOLE DEAL is to resist the religious urge to divide the world into evil and non-evil people. He teaches that all y'all are capable of doing evil, and then he rescues us from that condition. It is literally the whole thing.

This is a thing the Scriptures teach us. Cain is not evil; he does something evil. Joseph's brothers are not evil; they do evil. And on and on and on. That's original sin - not sex, not something we need to feel guilty about, just the fact that we are all capable of doing evil, and we will do it.