Tread with caution

In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the people of Dan was seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them. 2 So the people of Dan sent five able men from the whole number of their tribe, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to explore it. And they said to them, “Go and explore the land.” And they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there. 3 When they were by the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. And they turned aside and said to him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?” 4 And he said to them, “This is how Micah dealt with me: he has hired me, and I have become his priest.” 5 And they said to him, “Inquire of God, please, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed.” 6 And the priest said to them, “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the Lord.”

7 Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, how they lived in security, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking[a] nothing that is in the earth and possessing wealth, and how they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone. 8 And when they came to their brothers at Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers said to them, “What do you report?” 9 They said, “Arise, and let us go up against them, for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. And will you do nothing? Do not be slow to go, to enter in and possess the land. 10 As soon as you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people. The land is spacious, for God has given it into your hands, a place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth.”

11 So 600 men of the tribe of Dan, armed with weapons of war, set out from Zorah and Eshtaol, 12 and went up and encamped at Kiriath-jearim in Judah. On this account that place is called Mahaneh-dan[b] to this day; behold, it is west of Kiriath-jearim. 13 And they passed on from there to the hill country of Ephraim, and came to the house of Micah.

14 Then the five men who had gone to scout out the country of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that in these houses there are an ephod, household gods, a carved image, and a metal image? Now therefore consider what you will do.” 15 And they turned aside there and came to the house of the young Levite, at the home of Micah, and asked him about his welfare. 16 Now the 600 men of the Danites, armed with their weapons of war, stood by the entrance of the gate. 17 And the five men who had gone to scout out the land went up and entered and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, and the metal image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the 600 men armed with weapons of war. 18 And when these went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, and the metal image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?” 19 And they said to him, “Keep quiet; put your hand on your mouth and come with us and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?” 20 And the priest's heart was glad. He took the ephod and the household gods and the carved image and went along with the people.

21 So they turned and departed, putting the little ones and the livestock and the goods in front of them. 22 When they had gone a distance from the home of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah's house were called out, and they overtook the people of Dan. 23 And they shouted to the people of Dan, who turned around and said to Micah, “What is the matter with you, that you come with such a company?” 24 And he said, “You take my gods that I made and the priest, and go away, and what have I left? How then do you ask me, ‘What is the matter with you?’” 25 And the people of Dan said to him, “Do not let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall upon you, and you lose your life with the lives of your household.” 26 Then the people of Dan went their way. And when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his home.

27 But the people of Dan took what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, and they came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire.

28 And there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley that belongs to Beth-rehob. Then they rebuilt the city and lived in it.

29 And they named the city Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor, who was born to Israel; but the name of the city was Laish at the first. 30 And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses,[c] and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. 31 So they set up Micah's carved image that he made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.

Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa earlier this week, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) issued a bold statement naming the reality of apartheid in Israel, demanding the end of Israel’s occupation and the lifting of the unlawful blockade of Gaza, and calling on states and churches “to impose consequences for violations of international law, including targeted sanctions, divestment, and arms embargoes.”

The statement acknowledges the WCC’s commitment to “inter-religious dialogue and cooperation”—a nod to its Jewish partners, many of whom can be expected to condemn the statement. “However,” the text reads, “the unbearable suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza, and the escalating violence and oppression in the West Bank and in Jerusalem compel the global fellowship of churches to speak with clarity, urgency, and commitment to the principles of justice under international law and ethics.”

And what they say in their absence

Are you Christian?

Dear God, l commit all our plans, dreams and aspirations into hands. These are only products of our thoughts,what we truly want is what you want for us because we know that is what will truly be best us In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen

Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly canceled plans to attend the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican due to concerns over a possible arrest linked to a pending warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to Israeli media outlet Ynet.

The decision followed behind-the-scenes inquiries made by the occupation government with both Italian and Vatican officials to assess whether Netanyahu could enter the country without facing detention. However, responses from both parties were reportedly ambiguous, and it remained unclear whether they would comply with the ICC's warrant should Netanyahu set foot on their soil.

I thought this looked interesting - and have found CAC’s events and reflections insightful. The event description includes this: “Together, we’ll courageously imagine a spirituality rooted in love and spacious enough for the complexity of our world today. Christianity has been shaped by empire and by mystics, by resistance and renewal—so what can it become now through us?”

By this I don't mean the morality of creating such a lifeform, but how your faith would inform the meaning, implications, and ethical ramifications of existing alongside such a being.

I think such a thing is a fascinating question, but when works of fiction featuring such beings incorporate Christianity at all, they tend to either 1) have the creature be a mindless monster that must be killed as an example of Why Man Shouldn't Play God, or 2) have Christians as villains who wrongly believe #1. I'm hoping to hear a different perspective, and I figured this would be the place to ask.

It’s weird having a yankee Pope, but he seems to have spent a lot of his time in Latin America and chose to speak in Spanish…so there is that.

I’ve also seen a lot of talk that suggest his taking the name Leo signifies his desire to highlight Catholic Social Teaching as it pertains to capitalism and the problems of our modern world such as his predecessor and most recent namesake did.

I’ve also seen a lot of MAGA people losing their mind and Steve Bannon in an interview saying he’d be a dark horse pick but potentially one of the worst because woke (lol).

Personally, I hope he continues the focus on God’s mercy Francis’s papacy had and continues the Church down the synodal path he set it on.
I hope he continues to advocate for the Palestinian people.
And a bit more selfishly, I hope he doesn’t reverse Francis’s position on the blessing of same sex couples and trans people being allowed to be God parents and baptized.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Idk how to feel about it.

I feel like Francis did a lot to rekindle my faith, but it is still so dim. Now my feed is filled with so many outside voices reporting and politicking and it seems this whole thing will almost be a referendum on his Papacy.

Idk

Significantly absent in the long obituaries for Pope Francis in both the New York Times and the Washington Post were mentions of his deep concern for the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. In Francis’s last public message on Easter Sunday, just hours before he died, he had called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” there.

The obits also failed to note that Pope Francis had personally telephoned the Holy Family Church in Gaza just about every evening since Israel invaded the territory in October 2023 — including the Saturday night before Easter. The church’s pastor, Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, remembered: “He said he was praying for us, he blessed us, and he thanked us for our prayers.” Other church members said that the Pope “would make sure to speak not only to the priest but to everyone else in the room.”

Pope Francis’s concern for Gaza and Palestine did not start in October 2023. Rev. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian theologian and Lutheran pastor, told Democracy Now:

I think no Palestinian will ever forget when Pope Francis, in 2014, stopped his car, went down, stepped down and prayed at the separation wall separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem — a moment that touched all of us and continued to speak to us for years.

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For anyone who is interested in left wing/historical materialist inroads to discuss Christianity, i have been reading a physical copy of Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed William R Herzog that i found in a used bookstore.

I cannot recommend it enough, it goes into various aspects of ancient Palestinian history from the worth of a talent to the treatment of day laborers by landowners' hired help, to the proportion of people within various classes in the time period discussed. It directly compares Jesus to Paolo Freire, specifically the period of time where Freire was targeted by the government for the results of his educational methods.

It takes a lot of the unpalatable and paternalistic metaphorical readings of the kingdom of heaven as a place run by a tyrant, and recontextualizes the stories as being about a real time and place where people lived and struggled.

context- I am an ex Catholic turned transsexual communist, and while I may not follow the tenets of the Church anymore and have resentment for the harm it did to me and countless others, I recognize that it has provided comfort and can be a difficult framework to negotiate with. I'm sharing this less as "see, the Church is cool after all!!" and more "if you have the patience to actually sit down and talk to people, this may be a useful reference."

reposted from news megathread, per a suggestion in a reply.

And here's a clip of his God Damn America speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYqrXVNfYUI

And here's the full Chickens Coming Home to Roost sermon, it's long but it's also a really cool example of rhetoric and speech and is BASED AS FUCK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUtZNQ0REFA

Yes this is basically a subtweet about how it's ridiculous to demonize "Christianity" because of the Bible.

I am not and have never been a member of the Church of Christianity, nor will I ever, but I respect the liberatory and militant strains within it.

They meet in 2016

I know a lot of Hexbear will be crab emoji-ing, but I’m genuine sad at his passing.
I’d like to think it happening on Easter is symbolic of something.

By wolfythewitch

Palestinian Christians are condemning a move by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to collaborate with a leading pro-Israel advocacy group on an online tool that aims to define Palestinian resistance as antisemitic.

In a letter sent late last month from Kairos Palestine to the USCCB Committee’s head, Bishop Timothy Broglio, sixteen Palestinian Christian leaders representing Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant denominations and church organizations express their deep disappointment regarding the USCCB’s endorsement of the American Jewish Committee’s online resource, Translate Hate. The bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, in partnership with the AJC, added its own annotations to the AJC’s resource, which offers glossary of “antisemitic terms, phrases, conspiracies, cartoons, themes, and memes” and titled it, Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition.

The Kairos Palestine letter charges the bishops’ document was “adopted without any form of consultation with Palestinian Christians, rendering us invisible and nonexistent in a discourse that directly impacts our lives and communities.”

It comes, they write, “at a time of immense suffering for our people, as tens of thousands are being killed, starved, and displaced under Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem—actions condemned by leading international and Israeli human rights organizations.”

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