Disqus - Latest Comments for jwinton

Re: Me Versus We: Part 3, Economy, Not Sacrifice

Jason Winton — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 17:11:12 -0000

The only concern I have with this interpretation is that the community itself does not always have the goodness and faithfulness required to meet each other's need. Jesus' promise for those who had left everything requires knowledge and resources beyond even what the Acts community could pull off, as is seen in Acts 6 when they got caught up in scarcity and bias among the Greeks-speaking Jews. I think Jesus is pointing his disciples to a more reliable option, where their father (who knows their needs) directly inspires brothers and sisters to freely respond with sharing and gifts. So it seems like the pre-requisite is not community per se, but instead trust in their father, even in poverty, because he has promised to work with others to meet our physical needs.

Re: Experimental Theology: Don't Let the Bible Come Too Close

Jason Winton — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:09:51 -0000

I read this quote the other day just as I was mourning the UMC vote to reinforce bans on same sex weddings and LGBTQ clergy. Most of my friends who advocate for a non-affirming stance seem to worry that full inclusion of LGBTQ people in church life would be to deny the plain biblical witness. Who are the "scheming swindlers" in that conflict? How would Kierkegaard read the Bible's clobber passages?

Re: Experimental Theology

Jason Winton — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 14:00:37 -0000

Beautiful

Re: So Much of the Privileged Life Is About Transcendence

Jason Winton — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 01:18:27 -0000

I agree with you, in a sense, and it's probably a good warning for us White privileged types. But the author never suggested that anyone "meditate on the poor" or objectify "the disenfranchised." Her example was about environmental racism. She observed the tendency of privileged people to isolate from these painful systemic costs. The point wasn't to meditate from a distance but within the ordinary, daily parts of our lived experiences. Many of us do not want to face that sort of pain and cannot see how God is actively bringing hope in it. So the avoidance continues...

Re: Experimental Theology: The Paradoxes of Progressive Political Theology: Niebuhrian, But Not Niebuhrian Enough

Jason Winton — Tue, 09 May 2017 19:46:41 -0000

I was wondering if you can say more about progressive Christian's "purity traps, contradictions, and utopian idealism"? As I thought about this, I was trying to come up with my own examples. One that came to mind: would progressive Christians want a liberal democracy if it included conservative Christians (contradictions, purity trap)? Anyway, I'd love to read a few of your examples too.

Re: Experimental Theology: Not Obeying the Sermon on the Mount

Jason Winton — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 19:15:42 -0000

I have a new appreciation for Jesus' image of building a house on a foundation of rock versus sand. I live in Chico, Ca where the rain and flooding have eroded Oroville Dam's emergency spillway. Those who live in the watershed are now anxiously aware about the lack of bedrock on that hillside. http://www.latimes.com/loca...

Re: Preterism and the Gospels: Part 8, Eschatology Revisited

Jason Winton — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 16:45:12 -0000

I have enjoyed this series as well. You make it very clear--to me anyhow--the ways in which our own society might be on a similar trajectory toward self-destruction. Our elections, no matter the year or outcome, seem to only confirm this path.

But not all of Jesus' foretelling of judgment seems like a wounding that Israel did to themselves. For example, in Matthew 25:41, the king in Jesus' parable says, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." I can see how this very thing happened in history, especially as the communities of the way got started and as they were eventually scattered. I'm not trying to argue from the metaphysical perspective against the historical one. It just seems like Jesus (and God) has way more agency and power when it comes to these judgment passages. Instead of only warning about a self-inflicted wound, it seems like Jesus used powerful imagery to convey an unavoidable reckoning with God that would take place in their time.

Re: Experimental Theology: The Innate Violence of Activism

Jason Winton — Mon, 02 May 2016 14:53:59 -0000

Good word

Re: Learning To Live With Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Jason Winton — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 14:14:24 -0000

Hi Richard, have you ever come across Bob Ekblad's writings ("Reading the Bible with the Damned") or their jail ministry at Tierra Nueva in Washington? I've thought about him more than a couple other times when reading your blog. It seems like you two have a lot in common, including that you and he were both interviewed on the Jesus Radicals Iconocast.

Re: If Only Everyboy Could Realize This. But It Cannot Be Explained.

Jason Winton — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 18:38:20 -0000

Here's another one from the title, "If Only Everyboy Could Realize This..." Nonetheless, as a boy, I do really appreciate Merton's reminder.

Re: Are You Performing or Ministering?

Jason Winton — Tue, 13 May 2014 23:28:06 -0000

This article is spot on! I especially liked the part about being singleminded and free from worry. True freedom is totally worth whatever control one has to give up in the process.

Re: Newton, Boston, and the Martyrology of Whiteness

Jason Winton — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:09:22 -0000

"don't get guilty; get sad, get angry, get something, anything that is
oriented towards others and the world rather than yourself."

This sounds like good advice. If for nothing else, it will help folks to not be "in their head" with guilt. I've experienced some real freedom similar to that by making amends for serious wrongs I've done in the past. Still, there seems to be much more at stake when you believe yourself to be continually in sin and cannot (apart from societal change) do anything substantial about it.

Dealing with guilt and laboring unselfishly for others can inspire and add to the good already being done. But the Apostle Paul seems to point us to grace as well: "where the Spirit of Lord is, there is freedom," reminding the Corinthian church that they were "being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." To live in the Spirit's freedom might mean that we emphasize stories of change, like Jin S. Kim did in his iconocast episode, saying what it can look like to be free from the "logic" of white supremacy in our society.

Of course, the key is to live out that freedom. But it would be useless, in terms of loving others, to wait for the Spirit's freedom until the racist world chooses to embrace the kind of love they hated in the first place.

Re: Why I as an Activist Love the Gifts of the Holy Spirit!

Jason Winton — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:38:18 -0000

Interesting that you mention the lack of faith communities where this divide can be healed. I just returned from a visit to Tierra Nueva in Burlington, WA. They are an unique ministry and faith community because of their work in liberation theology, legal advocacy, farming, and spirit-empowered faith and prayer. It was an uplifting and challenging experience. Bob Ekblad, the director of Tierra Nueva, was interviewed on the Iconocast a year or so back.

Re: Manifesto (Luke 4:18-19)

Jason Winton — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:26:02 -0000

What I like about this, Mark, is your ability to capture a non-academic audience with the subversive imagery and story that Jesus' "manifesto" contains here. I showed it to my parents, nonacademics, who are politically conservative and evangelical, and they loved it. They saw fear being wiped away and almost automatically felt closer to a real savior who provides for the poor, imprisoned, oppressed. I'm not sure they fully understood all the implications of that yet, but thanks anyway for writing to us with Jesus' message. For me, sometimes I find it hard not to alienate them with the Gospel's radical edge whereas your poetry didn't seem to do that.

Re: Why I Am Not Going to Vote

Jason Winton — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:28:47 -0000

It seems to me his point was that the destruction of the earth in our time will have real consequences: social, economic, political, etc. Think of an oil spill or the contamination of a watershed. So we should not be surprised when imperial power (in all of its varied forms) turns in on itself by fighting over resources and launching attacks that, in turn, could kill us all. God seems involved in saving and judging the root of this violence by calling people to a different way of life and then supplying the material and spiritual gifts to follow Jesus in the world with true freedom.

Re: Why I Am Not Going to Vote

Jason Winton — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:02:44 -0000

Good point, Donald. You articulated this in such a straightforward, concise way.

Re: Why I Am Not Going to Vote

Jason Winton — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:03:12 -0000

Teasing does little to convince anyone. It's just insulting. And it tempts others to retaliate. Why don't you try pointing to some stories about the Bengazi cover up instead?

Re: Getting Beyond Presidential Politics

Jason Winton — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:08:23 -0000

Another unjust aspect of voting, besides the so-called "choice" between the lesser of two evils, is the coercive function it serves. Our votes seem to legitimize the "majority rule" over others, which might be another form of violence in and of itself.

Re: Permission To Kill :: JESUS CULTURE

Jason Winton — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:10:30 -0000

I agree that we can't have it both ways, seneca. If Jesus is radically re-shaping Mosaic law, then we have to hold these stories of human "justice" found in the Hebrew scriptures against Jesus' higher standard of love and obedience to God ("You have heard it said...but I tell you"). This probably won't solve the tensions we feel in loving a God who apparently allowed violent and oppressive means to achieve many of the goals promised to Israel. But Jesus was a Jew and lived out those promises, too, only without sin like the article says.

Jesus seems to undermine all expectations about Israel's national security, military might, social power and hierarchy. Why do followers of Jesus still doubt this aspect of his example today? He lived totally dependent on God's loving care, not on any human authority's reassurances about domination or protection. He released self-emptying love, suffering for the sake of those who hated him, offering forgiveness for their sins, and leaving vengeance in the hands of God.

Re: A Lenten Reflection on Shame

Jason Winton — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:34:22 -0000

Can we have liberation from the shame while the preferential (and unjust) structures still exist and we're still white, male, etc?

That's a good question, Paul. I wonder if Mark's answer would be that we never actually discontinue our struggle with shame in the sense that the unjust structures are still violent and racist and that, beyond this, the shame can be an energizing impulse for a 'posture' of repentance that extends into our whole life. That said, how does one deal with an admittedly difficult and often burdensome feeling in the face of conditions around us that scream for liberation now?

Re: Anarchist Threads in Scripture: a primer on Christian anarchism, part 3

Jason Winton — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:36:15 -0000

I was trying to say that I see you combining two things that don't easily go together (catholic theology and literalism) in order to interpret the text. As a result, I think you may be missing an important element in Luke's story about Cornelius: that the Holy Spirit's love and outpouring challenges versus affirms the status quo.

With any future comments, I think I could be more understandable if I knew what you hoped to gain from it. In other words, what has (or hasn't) made the conversations at JR worth-your-while so far? This article is probably not the best place for a question like that, but you can email me (wintonjason AT hotmail DOT com) for a more personal response...

Re: Anarchist Threads in Scripture: a primer on Christian anarchism, part 3

Jason Winton — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:52:37 -0000

I'm afraid you've made too much of the distinction between Incarnation and what happens when God pours out the Holy Spirit. But, even if this distinction has a testimony in scripture, isn't your pointing to "mortal sin" precisely the kind of thing that can interrupt a "direct literal interpretation of the text"? The text itself doesn't seem to say anything (besides Cornelius' own message) about whether or not he was without sin. But it does tell us how the Holy Spirit confirmed the truth (i.e. Jesus) to all who were there. Isn't that the better focus for us now?

Re: Anarchist Threads in Scripture: a primer on Christian anarchism, part 3

Jason Winton — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:48:31 -0000

Again, I'm not sure where you arrived at that conclusion. In the most basic way, John tells us that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Is that the kind of dwelling you were referring to?

Of course, in the Hebrew scriptures, Isaiah, "a man of unclean lips," witnessed a powerful filling of the Spirit and repented…

Luke’s account of the Spirit’s love for Cornelius is a touching example, too.

Re: Anarchist Threads in Scripture: a primer on Christian anarchism, part 3

Jason Winton — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:23:31 -0000

The Holy Spirit can (and does) deal with sin...where did you get the idea that he can't?

An anarchist understanding of the Spirit in the case of Cornelius is like direct spiritual "subversion," pouring Himself unto a man that would not otherwise follow the life and teachings of Jesus. No need for coercion there. Just a gift, Himself. And the hope that Jesus' life would inspire obedience from the devout and God-fearing man.

Re: Confessing Pacifism, Repenting in Love

Jason Winton — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:43:17 -0000

Personal stories often help in so far as one can learn and grow. I suspect you are deciding right now, like many of us, whether trusting Jesus has brought goodness and justice to the world. Maybe you gathered some conclusions from reading about people's experiences during the horrors of the Holocaust (God's absence?). I can respect that, though I've concluded something different.

Also, I agree that nonviolence or love (as Jesus practiced it) does not wait for others to come alongside the weak in order to decide how to help. That's a confused position, for sure, and I don't see Jesus being "absent" like that either.

As far as the "unholy power" bit, I was referring to the idolatry of the state. That much is clear to me. But my grandfather participated in the Normandy invasion. He might have been 19 or 20 or so. He survived the fighting, but of course came home with vivid memories of the brutality there. He saw soldiers being killed (on both sides) and, after the fighting had ended, he went to the death camps as well. Took pictures of the conditions, the bodies stacked on top of each other. He kept those pictures put away for most of his life, and never really spoke of what happened to him or what he saw. That is, until my mother and her sisters made a "life album" for him, shortly before he died. They included those pictures in it. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe they wanted to display it in pride because he had fought a great mission to free people from their imminent death. In any case, the State always has corrupt and mixed motives, even if God's grace is given to some through them. While I don't affirm my grandfather's fighting, I also don't condemn him for it.