Comments on: Martin Luther King, Jr. – Letter from a Birmingham Jail https://wthrockmorton.com/2021/01/18/martin-luther-king-jr-letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/ A [retired] college psychology professor's observations about public policy, mental health, sexual identity, and religious issues Thu, 21 Jan 2021 11:38:16 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Richard Willmer https://wthrockmorton.com/2021/01/18/martin-luther-king-jr-letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/#comment-111333 Thu, 21 Jan 2021 11:38:16 +0000 https://www.wthrockmorton.com/?p=37191#comment-111333 Pope Francis echoed MLK’s longing when he (Francis) described obsession with ideology as a “serious illness” and having “lost … Jesus”.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/pope-francis-vs-ideology

The problem of enslavement to ideology is a universal problem.

]]> By: Ellie is still here in 2021 https://wthrockmorton.com/2021/01/18/martin-luther-king-jr-letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/#comment-111309 Tue, 19 Jan 2021 14:19:58 +0000 https://www.wthrockmorton.com/?p=37191#comment-111309 In reply to Caroline Wise.

Now, any sign of beatitude ethos is called out as “socialism”

Just thought it bore repeating. 🙂

]]> By: Caroline Wise https://wthrockmorton.com/2021/01/18/martin-luther-king-jr-letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/#comment-111303 Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:09:44 +0000 https://www.wthrockmorton.com/?p=37191#comment-111303 This says it well “” I long for a change. I long for an end to concern for ideological purity and a striving for relational purity.””
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and the hope that some humanity would rise up and overcome our arrogance hidden in the bowels of our doctrinal towers is dead. Indifference was fueled by that arrogance. It has been said. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Neither hot, or cold, is the tepid theology driven by insufferable rightness that shuts its eyes to those it makes suffer makes me want to spit it out.

The blood on the ground, it cries out. This is not a soft cry, but a weeping, wailing, screaming lament of “how long Lord” while those with the power in the silent indifferent church, rattle on, as they are prone to do, that race theory is some enemy of the church. The crumbs at the table, even the limp acknowledgement that lynching fields stain the silent church, are swept a way every time we fail to own the truth that white privilege benefited from blood shed and amends are in order.

The evangelical church I knew, I walked away from this year As the upside down kingdom Jesus spoke of in the beatitudes was replaced by the doctrines of the American Dream (for white people mostly male) longing for beauty I saw a burned down forest. Now, any sign of beatitude ethos is called out as “socialism” I left the evangelical church to save my faith

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