Saturday, June 11, 2022

Christianity: The Religion For All

There are far more ways to misinterpret a text and its ideas than there are ways to soundly and correctly evaluate it.  In the case of the Bible, an enormous number of distortions have arisen inside the church and been asserted by non-Christians.  One might hear of claims that Christianity is a "white person's religion."  There are claims that Christianity is ultimately for men (based on the asinine idea that God appointed men some special spiritual leadership status in families) and does not appeal as much to women, and then there are contrary claims that Christianity is for women because it is supposedly not enticing for men--as if there are even any gender-specific personality traits or philosophical stances that this could possibly arise from.  There are many conflicting ideas about who Christianity is "not for."

Christianity is not a "white person's religion," nor is it a religion for just black people, a women's religion, a men's religion, and so on.  If true, it is for everyone, and even if it is not true, its own tenets are plainly egalitarian in nature and written of as if they apply to all people across history.  Its moral commands are presented as obligatory for all people and its salvation is offered to all.  The will of Yahweh as described in the Bible itself is for every person, every bearer of the divine image (Genesis 1:26-27)--no matter their gender, race, age, nationality, physical appearance, sexual orientation, social standing, language, psychological health, or family background--to willingly choose reconciliation to him and receive eternal life, without which the fate of general humanity is to eventually pass into eternal nonexistence [1] according to the Bible.

In fact, one description of heaven in Revelation 7 refers to a mass of redeemed people from all tongues and nations, confirming that Christianity is not meant to give any specific nation, ethnic group, or race a moral or soteriological advantage over the other.  Of course, one can even find this aspect of general egalitarianism in the very Mosaic Law that is the target of many asinine misrepresentations.  The same moral obligations and rights Yahweh revealed to the Israelites were for cultural outsiders, as core moral obligations and the rights they connect with are tied to the nature of a deity that does not change (Malachi 3:6) and that wanted Mosaic Law to be an example for all (Deuteronomy 4:5-8).  The hypocrisy of treating humans better or worse because of their ancestry or geographical background, among other things, is outright condemned repeatedly in the Torah (Exodus 23:9, Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

There have still been irrational fools who, as Christians or non-Christians, treated Christianity as if at least some kind of sexism or racism was part of its teachings instead of a universally condemned sin.  According to the actual Bible, both the moral and the soteriological parts of Christianity are not bound to a Christian's genitalia, skin color, or cultural background.  If something is morally obligatory, it is good for anyone to do it and it is sinful for anyone to abstain from it.  This much is true by logical necessity even if the Bible is not true.  Then, if the salvation of all is the will of God (2 Peter 3:9) factors like gender are irrelevant to redemption.  On both a moral and soteriological level, therefore, anything other than gender and racial egalitarianism is contrary to Christian theology.

Again, Christianity is either for no one at all, if it is false (beyond the aspects of it like the existence of an uncaused cause that are true with or without the rest), or it is for everyone, if it is true.  Anything else is simply in opposition to what the Bible actually claims about its own philosophical ideas and the nature of moral obligations and grand metaphysical ideas.  Galatians 3:28's affirmation that there is "neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" is part of the very core of Christianity from start to finish.  In the first chapters of the Bible, all humans are said to bear God's image.  In the last book of the Bible, a massive group with representatives from very diverse ethnic backgrounds is presented as having a place in heaven.  The only way someone would read the Bible and think it is anything other than deeply egalitarian is if they made obvious assumptions along the way, and assumptions the text blatantly contradicts at that.


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