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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

@thecuriousreader.bsky.social

480 followers 340 following 730 posts

Book lover, tea drinker, question asker

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · Jul 2

“What the church now requires "by faith," I suggest,

• is to run risks for justice in a brutalizing society;
• is to run risks for forgiveness in a vengeful society;
• is to run risks for hospitality in an exclusionary society;”

A Gospel of Hope, Walter Brueggemann, pgs. 70-71.

It is clear that the church needs no more custodians to keep it running the way it has been. It now needs no more pastors or leaders who will conduct business as usual. Because we are in an emergency situation in our society

where the gospel matters decisively. What the church now requires "by faith," I suggest,
• is to run risks for justice in a brutalizing society;
• is to run risks for forgiveness in a vengeful society;
• is to run risks for hospitality in an exclusionary society;
• is to run risks for generosity in a parsimonious society;
• is to run risks for the scandal of Easter resurrection in a society that reduces everything to our reasonable possibilities;
• is to run risks for poetic imagination in a society of prosaic anxiety.

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Laurie Voss @seldo.com · 19h

They arrested Eleanor Roosevelt?

Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 23h

"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 1d

Scones with clotted cream and jam paired with a pot of Yorkshire tea.

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Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 4d

Don't look away.

Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · 4d

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

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Josiah Hawthorne @josiahhawthorne.bsky.social · 6d

Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.

He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.

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Michael J. Svigel @svigel.bsky.social · 6d

Theology 101: You can’t have it both ways—you can’t “resist the antichrist” in the abstract while failing to resist the things the spirit of antichrist promotes: flattery, apostasy, lawlessness, destruction, materialism, self-exaltation, deception, warmongering, arrogance, and blasphemy.

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 7d

“The centralization of social power for imperial, oppressive uses is the direct opposite of the loving empowerment of others which is the genuine human calling.”
Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, J. Richard Middleton & Brian J. Walsh, 1995, pg. 127.

(Babel and Babylon R Us.)

The problem with "Babylonian" civilization, from the perspective of Genesis 11, is precisely the systemic centralization of power that comes with empire building, which results not simply in the impulsive violent outbreaks of Cain or Lamech, but in the organized violence of an oppressive social order legitimated and sustained by a powerful myth of origins. Contrary to the ancient idealization of Babylonian culture as the epitome of human aspiration and achievement, the writer of Genesis 11 declares that this aspiration is exactly what impedes God's purposes in history, in effect bringing the story to a screeching halt. It therefore does not matter that violence is not explicitly mentioned in the story of Babel. The centralization of social power for imperial, oppressive uses is the direct opposite of the loving empowerment of others which is the genuine human calling. Instead of Babel being a normative ordering of the human world, which embodies divine blessing, it reaps the curse of God's judgment, and its ultimate outcome is chaos, the confusion of tongues. Contrary to the intentions of the builders, this chaos is the only name they make for themselves, says the writer of Genesis 11, engaging in an ironic wordplay between Babel and balal (the Hebrew word for "to confuse").

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 7d

Then I’m guilty too. :)

I don’t want to say more and give away spoilers.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 7d

“Pride was a library.”

Katabasis, R. F. Kuang, pg. 82.

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Diane Langberg, PhD @dianelangberg.bsky.social · 8d

A truth-teller disturbs, alerts, awakens, and warns against indifference to injustice and complacency about the needs of human beings. To be silent about injustices in this world is to be a partner with those who carry out violence, evil, and corruption.

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 9d

“This is most fundamentally a matter of imaging God; the life of a person or community reflects the sort of god they are committed to. The two main targets of prophetic critique are thus idolatry and injustice, since false worship is inextricably linked to corrupt living.”

(Citation in alt text)

In this, Jesus is exactly right. Just as the Torah affirms that the love of God should lead to a life of obedience, the prophets emphasize that Israel's allegiance or submission to YHWH, the God of the exodus, ought to be manifest in a life that embodies righteousness and justice, since these are central to the interhuman flourishing that God desires. In the prophetic perspective, allegiance to the one true God inevitably flows into a life of obedience characterized especially by justice in human relations; by contrast, idolatry or false allegiance flows into a life of disobedience characterized by injustice. This is most fundamentally a matter of imaging God; the life of a person or community reflects the sort of god they are committed to. The two main targets of prophetic critique are thus idolatry and injustice, since false worship is inextricably linked to corrupt living.

A New Heaven and a New Earth, J. Richard Middleton, pg. 103.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 10d

Picture of a large grayish brown rabbit with white and the eyes and nose resting his chin on a red rug.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 12d

“This was the key to flourishing in graduate school. You could do anything if you were delusional.”
Katabasis, R. F. Kuang, pg. 50.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 13d

I’ve been waiting to read Katabasis by R. F. Kuang, and my library hold came in!

Picture of library book: Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Cover illusion is an old academic building that is hollow with Escher-like stairs descending downward.

Book edges are illustrated in color. Top to bottom: a figure in silhouette falling through flames, a circle with a person all in black, and another silhouette figure falling through waves. The circle has the words “Hell is other people” around it.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 13d

"You've got anti-matter language
Contrived to conceal
You've been lying so long
You don't know what's real
You're a figment of your own imagination
And people see through you"

People see Through You, Bruce Cockburn, 1985

cockburnproject.net/songs&music/...

Bruce Cockburn - Songs - People See Through You

cockburnproject.net

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 14d

Methinks the placement of the drawing prompts is intentional.

Picture of blank page with 2 drawing prompts from “301 Things to Draw.” First prompt is “37. UFO,” and halfway down the page is the second prompt — “38. Cow.”

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 16d

How much foolishness would be avoided if “prophets” who made failed predictions were permanently barred from ministry?

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 18d

I love that you have this opportunity!

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David Dark @daviddark.bsky.social · 18d

"God did not put us here to dominate and demean one another. That’s Satan." @thecroftonshow.bsky.social www.nashvillescene.com/arts_culture...

Advice King: How Do We Heal the Political Divide?

Just like every other American, I’m completely disoriented

www.nashvillescene.com

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 19d

I wish it was just amusing history.

Picture of a library book:
Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them by Lydia Kangaroo, MD and Nate Pederson.

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Diane Langberg, PhD @dianelangberg.bsky.social · 21d

We must not assume that our family, church, community, country, or organization is always right just because the people in it use the right words. We must never agree to “protect” the name of God by covering ungodliness.

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milkbun 🍞 @milkbun.bsky.social · 22d

Less then a week left till my campaign ends! I appreciate everyone who's supported me so far. 🥰

Even if you can't pledge, I'd love to finish with a strong ending so all likes and reposts are appreciated!
Find it here: tinyurl.com/milkbunBK

#crowdfunding #art #cuteart

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 22d

“the very complex heterogeneity of the world have been dissolved or repressed into a totalizing vision of the world. Such a vision is inherently violent because it necessarily excludes… any person or group who sees things differently.”
Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, Middleton&Walsh, pg. 35.

What deconstructionists are saying is that the sort of homogenizing and naturalizing approach to otherness and difference that is illustrated by both racism and
U.S. immigration policy has characterized Western thought and culture as a whole and modernity in particular. The difference of women, the otherness of non-Western cultures and the very complex heterogeneity of the world have been dissolved or repressed into a totalizing vision of the world. Such a vision is inherently violent because it necessarily excludes not just elements of reality that don't fit, but any person or group who sees things differently. "When convinced of the truth or right of a given worldview," notes Kenneth Gergen, "a culture has only two significant options: totalitarian control of the opposition or annihilation of it." Whether or not these are the only options, this has in fact been the legacy of the last 500 years of Western history in relation to women, to non-Western, particularly nonwhite peoples, and to the nonhuman creation itself.
Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, J. Richard Middleton & Brian J. Walsh, 1995, pg. 35.

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Diane Langberg, PhD @dianelangberg.bsky.social · 22d

A good portion of Christendom today seems to serve their political beliefs. It seems the political system has become so important to us that we act and speak in ungodly ways to protect what we have labeled godly. Our politics are not our Christ.

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Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 23d

Same here.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 23d

Yes! I’m auditing a seminary class by one of the authors - J. Richard Middleton. He’s redeeming the word “worldview” from being used as an ideological cudgel to lord it over others.