I answered this a bit elsewhere in my response about power and status, but to dig just a bit deeper, I think that politics in many ways comes down to the protection of one's power and status, even at the expense of financial success (like, just look at how Elon has flushed tens of billions of dollars on Twitter, but white supremacists get to tweet again).

For instance, it is more or less what Ronald Reagan promised when he campaigned on "welfare queens" against Jimmy Carter in 1980. Carter was considered a turncoat by many white Christians for enforcing the law against private segregation academies, and Reagan was pretty clearly saying that he would make Black Americans, and especially Black women, suffer without spelling it out. And even though a whole lot of people suffered economically during Reagan's first term--it was a significant recession--he won reelection in a landslide.

To me, there's a pretty direct line to draw from that to present day politicians basically running on a platform of, "I will make the people you hate suffer." And I think that many US Christians have decided that they will be good voters for those politicians first and good Christians a distant second.

Wow

Yes, and while it is not pastorized, it is homoousionized.

(Theology nerd alert: that is a pun based on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoousion)

I think that many people are drawn to whatever will give them power and/or status, and at least here in the States much of historically white, male-led Christianity has been wrapped up in both of those at the direct expense of pretty much everyone else.

In doing so, however, we forget that power and status were among the things with which Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus successfully repelled that temptation. We, in large part, have not. Jesus was tended to by angels as a result. I'm not so certain that we will be.

To bastardize C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, it is very likely that the cold-hearted, self-righteous prick who goes to church every Sunday is far closer to hell than the atheist.

To take him one step further in The Great Divorce, the gates of hell are locked from the inside. He suggests--and I can back this up with Scripture--that entrance to heaven may yet be possible after we die. If an atheist who left the world a better place than they found it dies still an atheist, I do not fear for the fate of their soul the way I would for the hatemongering Christian.

Ten years ago, the church I was the minister of was broken into over Thanksgiving weekend and almost set on fire. It was a small congregation with an older, historic building, running an annual deficit and I was losing all sorts of sleep over how much cleanup and restoration would cost us. People all around town chipped in money to make sure we met our insurance deductible--and this was before Gofundme had really become a thing. It was for the congregation absolutely, but with all the worry and stress I was carrying, it felt like it was a blessing to me as well. I continue to treasure my memories of the seven years I spent as that church's pastor.

(The insurance company went on to drop the congregation as a client, so they definitely ended up on the naughty list, but that's another story for another time.)

I believe in Baby Santa, which is Santa coming to the earth as an infant like Baby Jesus, in order to rid the world of Santa Baby, which is one of the worst Christmas songs ever written.

I am genuinely grateful and humbled that this AMA has had a happy impact for you, and believe me, I empathize with feeling as though you're missing the mark or a piece this year.

One Scriptural teaching that has made a huge difference to me this year is Jesus's teaching that sometimes the right hand must be cut off to save the entire body. Prior to my burnout, I saw that as, to use John's language, a hard teaching and one I continually struggled to accept. It took jettisoning congregational ministry in order to preserve the rest of my faith to understand the meaning and importance of that teaching. Which is not to say that the loss is any easier, but I can better understand why it had to happen that way. A loss so integral to who you are, such as of love or vocation, is like losing your right hand and it is deeply, profoundly painful. But Jesus is saying that amid the pain, life is saved--possibly for whatever God has in store next. I know that doesn't take away the pain, but I've learned that I am still capable of getting back on track despite the pain. Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability here--I see it and appreciate it.

I remember making Christingles as a kid a couple of times and loving the way they smell with the orange and the cloves. My favorite Christmassy craft, however, is to make an Advent wreath, which is super easy to do if you've got access to pine or cedar twigs somehow.

A lot of my other favorite holiday traditions are culinary, from cocktails to sweets, but most of all for January 6--Armenian Christmas--my wife and I cook up a huge dinner of kufteh, lavash, bulgur salad, dolmas, etc.

I would submit that there is not so profound a change in God the Creator between Testaments (obviously, there is a big change in God the Son). God is plenty loving and justice-oriented in the Tanakh (Old Testament), and God is capable of wrath in the New Testament--witness the capital punishment meted out to Ananias and Sapphira. And I am by no means accusing you of this, but the framing of God the Creator as so very different between Testaments has led to antisemitic theology in Christian circles, so it is very important for me to take care with that topic.

As regards perfection, I would say that perfection is not a static state of being, because stasis is inherently imperfect as it precludes any additional positive dimensions. God's dynamic nature is a surer path to perfection, I would imagine.

Those, and I think He'd use at least some of it to short the stock options of every billionaire so as to increase their chances of entering the kingdom of heaven above that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle.

Santa is a wintery Willy Wonka who runs an entire operation on non-union elf labor, trafficks in fossil fuels for ill-behaved kids, and mushes reindeer whose veterinary care is murky at best.

Jesus of Nazareth challenges us to sacrifice for others, even if it means all we own, so as to love others as we normally love ourselves so that we may be the very best versions of ourselves individually and collectively, in this world and the next.

You don't see a difference?

My family and in-laws.

Faith isn't the same as science, and neither are meant to take the place of the other.

Can I answer that one for you? /s

What do you mean by “tangible evidence”? There are plenty of philosophical arguments for God, some even using evidence from science as a premise (like the Kalam Cosmological Argument).

It is a very interesting theological text, especially given the rich history of women mystics in Christianity. Until it can be dated more precisely, though, I'm not sure it's best utilized as a historical text.

I believe in a God who only makes burritos from scratch.

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). We are a spin-off from the Presbyterians dating back to around two hundred years ago during the Second Great Awakening. I have served both Disciples and Presbyterian (PCUSA) congregations and have been very happy having a foot in both camps, so to speak.

I explain several factors that led to my burnout in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/RevEricAtcheson/status/1520095327046545408

I would add, on top of everything in that thread, that more and more I experienced my ethnic identity be perceived as bad and unwanted, to the extent I was told not to talk about how my ethnicity influences my faith because the church comes first. The frequency with which who I am became a weapon was more than I could bear.

I would have to think about what would lead me to return to the pulpit. I could see myself in interim ministry for pastors on sabbatical, or churches in need of a few months between pastors, but I do not know when or even if I will ever serve as a settled pastor of a church. But in the meanwhile, I continue to seek other opportunities to do ministry and live out my call.

Always lovely to see you here!

IIRC, the Unitarian Universalists do ordain atheist pastors, so an atheist would not (and should not) have to fake it there.

But more to the core of your point--yes, someone could fake their way thru the process, just as they could in other professions. There are doctors and nurses who discredit medical science, biologists who discredit life science, journalists who discredit journalism, etc. If they made it to where they are, of course there can be pastors who faked it as well. As to why that is, I think we as a society will make choices to reward fakery rather than truth for reasons of convenience. I wish that were not so, for my profession and for others.

Would you recognize Him if He did?

The practice of Christianity has had many different priorities over the centuries, and most of those splits have had to do with some combination of theological, political, nationalistic, etc. priorities.

We treat other books thusly too--we highlight what we think is important and minimize what we think isn't. Like, it is Christmas Eve--think of just how many adaptations of A Christmas Carol there are.

With the church, those differences have felt much more dramatic because we so often say that salvation is at stake, persecute the losers, and so on, to our detriment and disrepute.

While I believe in an eventual Second Coming and Final Judgment, I do not personally adhere to any version of the Rapture.

My favorite verse varies from moment to moment and mood to mood, but one of my longtime favorites comes from Exodus 4 and was read at my ordination: Who gave speech to mortals? Who makes them speaking or not, deaf or hearing, seeing or blind? Did not I, the Lord? Go, and I will be with your tongue and teach you what you are to say.

I have not performed an exorcism, merely watched Anthony Hopkins perform them in the movie Rite.

I don’t know what would be closest for me. I definitely needed a few months away from the church after I burned out on congregational ministry, but I never felt like giving up my faith. Maybe when my wife had a very much wanted pregnancy end in a miscarriage that required surgery? I remember sitting in the hospital chapel and having some extremely unkind things to say to God. But even then, I never deeply felt like walking away. So I don’t know.

I think God created the universe for the same reason artists create art, writers create stories, etc.: when it is who you are, you are at your sacred best when you create. Maybe God could’ve still been God without creating the heavens and the earth, but then God would not have been God the Creator.

My favorite Christmas treat is pretty much any kind of dessert…cookies, gingerbread, peppermint, you name it.

Favorite Christmas memory…probably when my parents gave me a Nintendo 64 for Christmas and my dad was up all Christmas night playing Mario Kart on it like a little kid. Also the first Christmas when I finally got to retire from playing Joseph in the church Christmas pageant after doing it more times than Chris Hemsworth has played Thor.

I do have a kid, and like me, she cares more about the cookies than about Santa right now, which suits me just fine.

1. I do not believe the Tanakh (Old Testament) correlates with Christmas. The Tanakh stands and exists on its own merits, even if Christianity had never existed.
2. As I noted elsewhere here, there is no solid Biblical evidence to support any individual date of the birth of Jesus.
3. I believe the Resurrection is why we have all heard of Jesus, otherwise He would have been in history simply another inconvenient Israelite executed by the empire. But to make it to the Resurrection, we need the Incarnation. Without it, there is no Resurrection--just as there is no Resurrection without Crucifixion. They are all important.

He said pastor not priest.

People like you are rly low iq lmao

I kinda almost love how politely you asked me to repent...like, that's definitely not how demands of repentance usually work on the internet.

My Protestantism is actually deeply intertwined with my ethnic identity--I'm a fourth-generation Armenian Congregationalist, and that faith identity was integral to my family's flight to the United States during the genocide during World War One. I have relatives who have chosen Catholicism, and in fact received much of my theological education from the Dominicans and Jesuits and have a deep love of Catholicism. But I was raised in a faith tradition that has given my family strength for generations and could no sooner separate that from myself than I could my ethnic identity.

"The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy"
- Yevgeny Zamyatin