{"id":6162,"date":"2023-02-22T08:11:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T12:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/?p=6162"},"modified":"2023-02-23T11:07:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T15:07:17","slug":"sacrificing-our-humanity-to-change-world-part2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/2023\/02\/sacrificing-our-humanity-to-change-world-part2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacrificing our Humanity to Change the World (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Sacrificing<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we continue considering the topic of sacrificing our humanity to change the world, the second temptation may be harder for us to draw present societal applications for. It\u2019s hard for me to get my head around the devil taking Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tempting him to place God in a position to perform a miracle to save Jesus\u2019 life. One thing that helps here is not to think of the temple as solely religious. It was the center of the Jewish religion, but it was also the seat of the temple state<\/i>, so with this temptation, it\u2019s more helpful to think of the temple as a state capital.<\/p>\n

Welcome Readers! <\/i><\/b>Please subscribe to Social Jesus Here<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

(Read this series from its beginning here<\/span><\/a>.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

These verses ultimately speak to me of the temptation to sacrifice oneself for the cause, to put oneself at risk, assuming that good will ultimately result from that sacrifice. Jesus was tempted to throw himself off the pinnacle in the hopes that God would intervene. How many times since then have people in justice movements been inspired to put their own wellbeing in jeopardy and sacrifice themselves to try and awaken the consciences of their oppressors? I think there is a place<\/i> for certain types of sacrifice for specific causes, but what I\u2019m referring to here is the way that some movement leaders call others to become sacrificial lambs to reach the \u201chearts and minds\u201d of those harming them.<\/p>\n

I think of how pastors have pled with some of my Christian LGBTQ friends to keep showing up in unsafe religious environments each week to model something<\/i> (I don\u2019t know what) for bigoted Christians in the hopes that their hearts will be changed. This doesn\u2019t take into account the real life harms these spaces impose on these LGBTQ Christians. As a dear friend of mine used to say in Ben Kenobi tones, \u201cThese aren\u2019t the sacrificial lambs you\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

My friends have callings and dreams and hopes for their lives and shouldn\u2019t have to waste their years simply justifying their existence. They exist. They are here. The question for straight , cisgender Christians is how will we choose to relate to our fellow Christians whether they are different from us or not?<\/p>\n

I think of the critiques of feminist scholars like Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, who have spent a lot of energy critiquing certain expressions of self-sacrifice, taught by well-meaning Christians, that prioritize and center oppressors and abusers to the detriment of survivors and victims.<\/p>\n

I will be quoting at length here from Brown\u2019s and Parker\u2019s classic essay \u201cFor God So Loved the World?\u201d It\u2019s in dialogue with statements made by Martin Luther King, Jr. Again, it\u2019s lengthy, and worth the extended read:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn liberation and critical theologies the suffering of Jesus becomes a symbol for the conflicts that occur when people fight for new and more just social forms. The old must pass away before the new comes, and in its death throes the old lashes out against the new.\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree. But as Brown and Parker go on to explain, this concept often then turns into unhealthy passive acceptance and unhealthy forms of self-sacrifice having a greater purpose and meaning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe martyrs of the revolution are the sign that the beast is dying. Their blood gives hope, because it reveals the crisis that is at hand. Furthermore, violence against the vanguards of a new age is to be accepted. Acceptance witnesses against the perpetrator of violence and ennobles the victim. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, accepted the inevitability of the violence directed against the civil rights movement and saw it as the responsibility of people in the movement to bear the suffering in order to transform the situation<\/i>. [Italics added for emphasis]\n<\/p>

\u2018Suffering can be a most creative and powerful social force\u2026. The nonviolent say that suffering becomes a powerful social force when you willingly accept that violence on yourself, so that self-suffering stands at the center of the nonviolent movement and the individuals involved are able to suffer in a creative manner, feeling that unearned suffering is redemptive, and that suffering may serve to transform the social situation.\u2019 (Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted. in A Testament of Hope<\/i>, ed. James Washington (New York: Harper & Row, 1986, 47)<\/p>\n

King\u2019s view is similar to the \u201cmoral influence\u201d theory of the atonement: unjust suffering has the power to move the hearts of perpetrators of violence. The problem with this theology is that it asks people to suffer for the sake of helping evildoers see their evil ways. It puts concern for the evildoer ahead of concern for the victim of evil. It makes victims the servants of the evildoers\u2019 salvation.\u201d (Brown and Parker, For God So Loved the World?<\/i><\/span><\/a>, p. 14-15)<\/p>\n

This teaching has proven not only harmful but also lethal for victims of abuse.<\/p>\n

Another source worth listening to on this point is womanist scholar Delores Williams, author of Sisters in the Wilderness<\/i>. We\u2019ll listen to her, next.<\/p>\n

(Read Part 3<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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