It Was Not A Silent Night - Rewrite by Jeff Wiersma

It was not a silent night
there was pain, and joy, and fright
A first time mother, far from her home
Forced, far to travel, by edicts from Rome
A young woman's cries echoed out
that night in King David's town

It was not a silent night
the barn floor cold, the cattle and flies
Mary is screaming in labor and pain
sweat and fear upon her face
with blood and tears on the ground
that night in King David's town

It was not a silent night
as Joseph watched with worried eyes
Held Mary's hand as he knelt on the floor
joy at the screams of the newborn
Love incarnate came down
that night in King David's town

Love incarnate came down
that night in King David's town

White U.S. Christianity = It's Own Greatest Threat - Charles Mathewes, professor of Religious Studies

Fear moves us away from the core of Christianity — love.

When it comes to keeping us away from the core truths of our faith, I suspect this one error is key: many Evangelical and Fundamentalists Christians today seem governed by fear. (The celebrity fundamentalist Christians who have built their fortunes selling fear have discipled their adherents incredibly poorly).

Theologians as well as psychologists will tell you that there is a spiritual peril in acting out of fear and a sense of danger. Fear drives us into patterns of “reasoning” that are far from reasonable, but more akin to reactionary patterns of cause-and-effect.

And fear moves us away from the core of Christianity — love. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love,” says the first epistle of John.

The tyranny of fear in US Christian life is especially visible among white evangelicals, who stand out in their opposition to pluralism in the United States.

The full article is available here

Christian Zionism's Problematic Interpretation of Scripture - Stephen Sizer

Any suggestion that the Jewish people continue to have a special status before God is biblical anathema. The exalted Christ rules from the heavenly Jerusalem with sovereignty over the entire world. A regression to the limited form of the Old Covenant that Jesus fulfilled is not sound Christian teaching.

The Rise of Biblical Literalism vs Christian Tradition
The rise of biblical literalism in the early 18th century was central to Christian Zionism. In the 1830's, John Nelson Darby substituted the traditional Christian view of the Revelation for his own literalist hermeneutic, claiming that God had revealed it to him by special revelation.

In place of all main Christian tradition, Darby concocted a "dispensationalist" view; the belief that God was about to destroy the world and inaugurate a "whole new dispensation" on earth. This led to speculative interpretations of apocalyptic writings, especially Daniel and Revelation.

Lewis Chafer defines the literal hermeneutic upon which which dispensationalism and Christian Zionism is based in the following way: "The dispensationalist believes every statement of the Bible has only the plain, natural meaning its words imply." Additionally, dispensationalists believe prophecy must be taken literally, despite Christian tradition having interpreted the Bible's future predictions as symbolic.

Unfortunately, this absolutist commitment to literalism does not place any emphasis on the historical context of passages or the way scripture interprets scripture.

Take for example the blessings made to Abraham in Genesis 12. Though these promises were made to the patriarch personally, Christian Zionists applies to the current nation state of Israel.

Biblical Prophecy Removed From Its Covenant Context
Christian Zionists - working from a flawed literalist hermeneutic - believe prophecy is pre-written history. In doing so, they detach the words of the prophets in scripture from the covenental contexts in which they were originally given.

This speculative endeavor is at odds with the prophets themselves, who consistently stressed that it was their intention to call God's people back to the terms of their covenental relationship. Their role was not to reveal arbitrary and otherwise hidden facts about predestined future events thousands of years later.

This is the most basic hermeneutical error which Christian Zionists consistently repeat. Biblical prophecy is invariably conditional rather than fatalistic and is ALWAYS given within the context of the covenant relationship between God and his chosen people.

But Christian Zionists treat scriptures as a "frozen text." Based on highly selective texts, they erroneously focus on a restored Jewish kingdom rather than the Body of Christ, upon the contemporary State of Israel rather than the cross of Christ. Their selective hermeneutic leads to them ignore how Jesus and the Apostles reinterpreted the Old Testament.

The Christian Zionist's misguided reading of both history and contemporary events, determined by the dubious exegesis of highly selective texts, is essentially fatalistic, polarised and dualistic. It sets Israel and the Jewish people apart from and above all other people; despite what Jesus and Paul taught.

Any suggestion that the Jewish people, let alone the nation state of Israel, continue to have a special status before God is biblical anathema. The exalted Christ rules from the heavenly Jerusalem with sovereignty over the entire world. A regression to the limited form of the Abrahamic Covenant that Jesus fulfilled is not sound Christian teaching and ignores the ways that Jesus and the Apostles reinterpreted the Old Testament.

The Unfortunate Results
These problematic practices and understandings only serve to perpetuate, exacerbate, and the policies of right-wing Israelis who resist negotiating land for peace. It reinforces Israel's apartheid policies and the illegal settlement and absorption of Occupied Palestinian Territories into the State of Israel.

Mary, The Magnificat, and an Unsentimental Advent - Rachel Held Evans

The incarnation isn’t about desperately grasping at the threads of power and privilege. It’s not about making some civic holiday "bigger and better." It’s about surrendering power, setting aside privilege, and finding God in the smallness and vulnerability of a baby in a womb.

We like to paint Mary in the softer hues—her robes clean, hair combed and covered, body poised in prayerful surrender—but this young woman was a fierce one, full of strength and fury. When she accepts the dangerous charge before her, (every birth was risky in those days, this one especially so), rather than reciting a maternal blessing, Mary offers a prophecy, called the Magnificat.

With the Magnificat, Mary not only announces a birth, she announces the inauguration of a new kingdom, one that stands in stark contrast to every other kingdom—past, present, and future—that relies on violence and exploitation to achieve "greatness."

This is the stunning claim of the incarnation: God has made a home among the very people the world casts aside. And in her defiant prayer, Mary— an unwed, un-believed teenage girl in an occupied land—names this reality.

The incarnation isn’t about desperately grasping at the threads of power and privilege. It’s not about making some civic holiday "bigger and better." It’s about surrendering power, setting aside privilege, and finding God in the smallness and vulnerability of a baby in a womb.

The full article is available here

Advent: Labor Pains In The Birth Of A New World - Shane Claiborne

Compassion For The Poor - Father Greg Boyle