• deathtoreddit@lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      4 months ago

      The de’il, no

      He wasn’t pro-imperial, as much as he was an active pacifist, and perhaps subversive against the established Pharisee order (tho his actions in the temple, against commercializing his father’s house of prayer was somewhat militant)

      But as much as he may be relatively progressive for his time, his message is co-optable, especially when the Romans took up his movement to justify their empire

      Besides, he lived in a slave society, not a capitalist society… (are you a dullard?) How would he oppose something that did not came yet?

      • Finiteacorn@lemmygrad.ml
        0·
        4 months ago

        my point was not that he was pro capitalist but that he would be, since again he went around spreading imperialist propaganda. Liberals today give all kinds of lip service about billionaires being to rich and shit or corporations being too powerful and then turn around and show their true colors when it comes to the global south. And the reality of how he has been used to justify imperialism right before it became capitalism and while capitalism existed and today leaves very little doubt about what his teaching were all about.

        • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
          0·
          4 months ago

          No idea why you’re being downvoted comrade.

          New Testament was written in the time of widespread slavery and this is what it had to offer:

          Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ, not with a slavery performed merely for looks, to please people, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the soul. Render service with enthusiasm, as for the Lord and not for humans, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are enslaved or free.

          Pretty sure if capitalism existed at that time, it would have the same advice to give wage slaves.

          • deathtoreddit@lemmygrad.ml
            0·
            4 months ago

            Edit: ok I think you’re proving my point, that verse is Ephesians 6:5, which is a letter written by Paul the Apostle (note that this guy is a ex-Pharisee Roman-turned Christian, who has many reasons to co-opt his message)

            Here’s an actual verse from Jesus

            In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus quotes Isaiah in his mission statement: “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”

            Now, frankly, both Jesus and Paul did use language of slave-master relationship, but it doesn’t necessitate that to earthly masters, at least in Jesus’ case (as he was a rebel and troublemaker to the local Roman-collaborator Pharisee order) , but merely to God

            In fact, I’d prefer this interpretation of Christ, as a culmination to Jewish liberatory practices against debt

            Nathan: I just pulled up the full text from Leviticus Chapter 25, verse 10: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you” (with reference to the Jewish word for the periodic debt forgivenesses). And then the last line, “you shall return every man unto his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family.” So that’s interesting. So with the mention of Leviticus Chapter 25—this is really the part of your whole rap, sir, that I just find to be absolutely electrifying—could you describe to us how Jesus fits into this situation as the culmination of Jewish prophecy, as a product of Jewish tradition, and describe Jesus’ role in all this, as described in Luke Chapter 4?

            You can read more from Michael Hudson’s article

            • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
              0·
              4 months ago

              Bible is extremely self contradictory, you can fish out quotes to support nearly anything, as proven by history over and over: https://philb61.github.io/

              What Bible simply does not offer however, is a direct condemnation of slavery which would only take one short passage. There’s nothing to counterbalance the quote I pasted above, or the quote from the old Testament discussed here: https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/

              Given how self contradictory the Bible is, support for slavery is one of the very few points you can get from it with any level of certainty. You can do some mental gymnastics and infer a condemnation of slavery from general statements like “setting the oppressed free”, but then you can make pretty much any other concievable point by selecting the passages that can be interpreted to support your point, and ignoring the passages where your point is directly and explicitly refuted.

        • deathtoreddit@lemmygrad.ml
          0·
          4 months ago

          And his fate that he was executed by the Roman gov’t and its Judean Pharisee collaborators, for challenging the latter, and to an extent, the former’s rule

          Was he pro-imperial when he got killed for that, like the commenter said?