1 race sexuality bible acts 8

Race, Sexuality, and
the Bible

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Batwa people of East
Africa

Give people a common enemy, and you will
give them a common identity. Deprive them
of an enemy and you will deprive them of the
crutch by which they know who they are.
- James Alison

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All cultures have people
they scapegoat …

they scapegoat …
race, religion,
gender, wealth,
appearance, ability,
etc.

they scapegoat …
Jesus showed us that the
kingdom of God includes
those who are rejected by
others.

In the Gospels …
Samaritan woman
Syro-phonecian woman
Lepers
Prostitutes
Tax-collectors

In the Book of Acts …
Philip in Samaria
Philip on the Gaza Road

Acts 8:26
Now an angel of the Lord
said to Philip, “Go south
to the road - the desert
road - that goes down
from Jerusalem to Gaza.

So he started out, and on his way
he met an Ethiopian...

he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an
important official in charge of all the
treasury of Candace, queen of the
Ethiopians.

Ethiopians. This man had gone to
Jerusalem to worship

Ethiopians. This man had gone to
Jerusalem to worship, and on his
way home was sitting in his chariot
reading the book of Isaiah the
prophet.

The eunuch was reading this
passage of Scripture:
He was led like a sheep to the
slaughter, and as a lamb before the
shearer is silent, so he opened not
his mouth. In his humiliation he was
deprived of justice. Who can speak
of his descendants? For his life was
taken from the earth.

The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me,
please, who is the prophet talking
about, himself or someone else?”
Then Philip began with that very
passage of Scripture and told him
the good news about Jesus.

As they traveled along the road,
they came to some water and the
eunuch said, “Look. Here is water.
Is there anything that would hinder
me from being baptized?”

No man who has any defect may come near:
no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or
deformed; no man with a crippled foot or
hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or
who has any eye defect, or who has festering
or running sores or damaged testicles.
(Leviticus 21:16 ff)
“No one whose testicles are crushed or
whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to
the assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy
23:1).

Then Philip said, “Let me return to
Jerusalem and commission a
seven-year study process. Then we
will schedule debate and vote.”

Then Philip said, “Let me return to
Jerusalem and commission a
seven-year study process. Then we
will schedule debate and vote.”NOT

Then both Philip and the eunuch
went down into the water and Philip
baptized him.

The same toxicity that stigmatizes
racial difference stigmatizes gender
difference, abilities difference,
health difference, culture difference,
class difference, etc.
The same toxicity that harms people
harms the planet.

supremacy
domination
privilege

1495
2nd Voyage Return Cargo: 1600 male
and female Taino slaves for Spain
“It is possible, with the name of the
Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it
is possible to sell … Here there are so
many of these slaves … although they are
living things they are as good as gold.”

The Spaniards who remained in Hispaniola were
encouraged to take Taino slaves “in the amount
desired.” Columbus himself gave a teenage girl to one
of his crew, Miguel Cuneo, for his personal “use.”
Cuneo wrote that she “resisted with all her strength”
when he attempted to have sex with her, so he
“thrashed her mercilessly and raped her.” Being given
a Taino woman to rape was, in fact, a popular
“company perk” for Columbus’s men. Columbus
himself wrote to a friend, “There are plenty of dealers
who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten
[years old] are now in demand.”

- An eyewitness in the early 1500’s
As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they
endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide.
Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide.
The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned
conception and childbirth…. Many, when pregnant, have
taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after
delivery have killed their children with their own hands,
so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.

Of the estimated 300,000 Taino alive when Columbus
“discovered” them in 1492, about 12,000 remained in
1516, fewer than 200 in 1546, and zero in 1555. What our
history calls “the discovery of America,” Taino history
might call “the arrival of the Christian genociders,” if, that
is, any Taino survived to tell an alternate history. None did.

“…invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and
subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever,
and other enemies of Christ wheresoever
placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms,
principalities, dominions, possessions, and all
movable and immovable goods whatsoever
held and possessed by them and to reduce their
persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and
appropriate to himself and his successors the
kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities,
dominions, possessions, and goods, and to
convert them to his and their use and profit.” -
Pope Nicolas V, Romanus Pontifex, 1454,
Doctrine of Discovery

[W]e ask and require that you . . . acknowledge the Church as the
ruler and superior of the whole world and the high priest called Pope
and in his name the king and queen . . . our lords, in his place, as
superiors and lords and kings of these islands and this mainland . . . ,
and that you consent and permit that these religious fathers declare
and preach to you . . . . [I]f you do not do this or if you maliciously
delay in doing it, I certify to you that with the help of God we shall
forcefully enter into your country and shall make war against you in
all ways and manners that we can, and shall submit you to the yoke
and obedience of the Church and of their highnesses . . . , and we
shall take away your goods and shall do to you all the harm and
damage that we can, . . . and we protest that the deaths and losses
that shall accrue from this are your fault . . .
From the Spanish Requirimiento of 1513

The 16th-Century conquests of the Conquistadors
The 15th Century Doctrine of Discovery
The 4th-Century conquests of Constantine

39
“In hoc signo vinces”
IN THIS SIGN CONQUER
CONVERT BY THE SWORD
DOMINATE
COLONIZE
ASSIMILATE
INVADE AND OCCUPY
KILL
TERRORIZE

21st Century Terrorism/Counterterrorism
19th-20th Century Colonialism/Missionary
Movement

Movement
Early Christian antisemitism

from Martin Luther's Tract The Jews and Their Lies:
“Be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever
they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of
devils in which sheer selfglory, conceit, lies, blaspheme and
defaming of God and men are practiced...”

Constantine's rationale to move Easter away from the Jewish Passover:
“It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom
of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their
hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these
wretched men are necessarily blinded. By rejecting their custom,
we establish and hand down to succeeding ages one which is
more reasonable, and which has been observed ever since the
day of our Lord's sufferings. Let us, then, have nothing in
common with the Jews, who are our adversaries... how can they
entertain right views on any point who, after having compassed
the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by
sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their
innate madness carries them... Therefore this irregularity must be
corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in
common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord.”
(The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, Chapter IX)

Movement
Early Christian anti-semitism

Yolanda Pierce (of Princeton Seminary) told the bitter truth
in a 2015 article:
We often fail to deconstruct how proslavery theology still
influences American Christianity. But simply put:
Theological arguments upheld the institution of slavery long
after every other argument failed. American Christian
theology was born in a cauldron of proslavery ideology, and
one of the spectacular failures of the Christian church today
is its inability to name, interrogate, confront, repent, and
dismantle the cauldron which has shaped much of its
theology. We are daily living with the remnants of a
theological white supremacy, coupled with social and
political power, which continues to uphold racist
ideologies.... [C]an this nation afford to keep ignoring the
truth that black people in America live under a threat of
racial violence, never quite feeling that we are fully equal
citizens in the nation that our enslaved ancestors built?

WHY?
1. We* couldn’t handle Jesus’ radical new vision of God and
the kingdom of God. We cleverly undermined his message,
using Scripture, redefining key words.
2. We responded to persecution in kind.
3. We made a dangerous deal with Constantine and the
Roman Empire.
4. We practiced scapegoating.
5. Our leaders failed us via “the Doctrine of Discovery”
6. European Christian nations became bitter colonial rivals,
united by white Supremacy.
7. We loved gold more than God or neighbor.
8. We were easily manipulated through fear by demagogues.
9. We covered up history to new generations and didn’t tell
our true story.
10. *We (privileged White Christians) clung to power.

Five Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional
5. Spiritual

“Where common memory is
lacking, where people do not
share in the same past, there
can be no real community.
Where community is to be
formed, common memory
must be created.”
- Georges Erasmus,
Canadian Aboriginal leader,
Dene nation

Thank God for churches that
seek to demonstrate the
radical justice & grace of the
kingdom of God.

The Lord’s Prayer
• O God, whose love
makes us one family,
2. May Your unspeakable
Name be revered.

3. Now, here on earth
may Your
commonwealth come.
4. On earth as in
heaven may Your
dreams come true.

5. Give us today our
bread for today.
4. Forgive us our
wrongs as we forgive.

3. Lead us away from
the perilous trial.
2. Liberate us from the
evil.

1.For the kingdom is yours
and yours alone.
2. The power is yours and
yours alone.
3.The glory is yours and
yours alone.
4.Now and forever, amen.

5. Now, here on earth may your
commonwealth come.
4. Here on earth may your
dreams come true.
3. Hallelujah
2. Hallelujah
1. Amen.

Let this attitude be in us
Let this attitude be in us.
The attitude of Jesus
Amen.

Christ being in the image of God
Did not count equality with God
Something to be grasped
But he emptied himself,

By taking the very nature of a
servant
Being made in human form
And being found in appearance as a
man
He humbled himself.

He became obedient to death
Even death upon a cross
Therefore God exalted
him to the highest place

God gave him the highest name
of all
So that at Jesus’ name
All knees should bow
All tongues confess

That Jesus Christ is Lord
To the glory of God the Father
Who works in us to desire
And do God’s good pleasure.

Christ has no body here but
ours.
No hands, no feet here on
earth but ours.
Ours are the eyes through
which he looks
On this world with kindness.

Ours are the hands through
which he works.
Ours are the feet on which he
moves.
Ours are the voices through
which he speaks
To this world with kindness.

Through our smile, our touch,
our listening ear,
Embodied in us,
Jesus is living here.

So let us go now
Filled with the Spirit
Into this world
With kindness.

1 race sexuality bible acts 8

1 race sexuality bible acts 8

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1 race sexuality bible acts 8