Without Works

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Less than a week after President Trump formed a Justice department task force fighting Anti-Chrisitian Bias, Reverend Dr. William Barber II - a founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, National board member of the NAACP, and MacArthur Fellow - was arrested for leading a public prayer. The Rev. Dr. and two others were arrested for “crowding, obstructing, and incommoding.” The prayers started out quietly and as the ministers began to raise their voices they were told to leave or suffer arrest. Rev. Dr. Barber had been at the capitol all day, part of a rally held behind the Supreme Court. That rally, organized by Repairers of the Breach, a national team of organizers, religious leaders, artists, strategists and advocates centering and elevating leaders who have been directly impacted by systemic injustice. focused specifically on how budget cuts would impact women and children. The interdenominational speakers included Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders as well as the president of the National Urban League and a representative of the Institute of Policy Studies. According to a written statement, the rally was meant to draw attention to, “... immoral budget cuts and proposed budget cuts being pursued in Washington D.C. at the expense of the poor, working people, children, women, and families.” Lemuel: Jesus taught that religious faith was a private experience, not a public one. In Matthew 6:5-6 he rails against public demonstrations of faith. Amity: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have their reward in full. But when you pray , go into your room, close your door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Lemuel: That scripture, cited often against the demonstrative prayers of conservative and evangelical ministers, is being turned on Reverend Barber, and his associates. There is a larger consideration here. That this prayer meeting was a form of protest directed at the policy makers who are ruining people's lives. As we stress here, Jesus' message, the only message of Christianity, is redemption and salvation, and mercy. Jesus was baptised by his cousin, John in the Jordan river, and went into the wilderness, there tempted by the devil. He came out of the desert, wandering into his dusty childhood town. He has been tempted and proved, fined down by severe abstention, blasted by the merciless sun, his eyes blazing with purpose. He attends the Sabbath service, as is asked to read the scripture that day. Amity: “ …the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, he found the place where it is written: “The spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone on the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” - Luke 4:17-21 Lemuel: This is the message. This is what this meeting was meant to do, and why these prayers were offered up. ** Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com** Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Newsweek Episcopal News Network Breach Repairers

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: At two National Prayer Breakfast events President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new task force, “The Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” to be headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.” As the name suggests, its purpose is to: “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.” A few hours later President Trump signed an executive order putting this plan into action. The use of government authority to support and endorse a specific religious group has caused controversy with both secular and religious groups. With unresolved military conflicts around the world and heightened domestic unrest, why is this an issue? A task force to address the largely imaginary discrimination against the world's largest religion? We are subjected to a daily erosion of rights: the elimination of DEI programs, the curtailing of women's reproductive rights, the curtailing of rights for trans people, and replaced them with a thing like, “Christian Acceptance Day,” and rhetoric about the place of Christian faith in American life. Trump argues that he wants his new task force to, “bring God back.” Lemuel: Bring God back from where? Where has God been? First I have to assert that this is not Christianity. It is not the job of the body of Christ to oppress the needy. The current evangelical church is embracing a counterfeit version of the Gospel, with the mercy, compassion and love of God excluded. Salvation, in Jesus teaching, is not easy to achieve. It requires sacrifice, and devotion. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives a chilling picture of the Christian, “Day of Wrath.” This is the judgement day when God sits as righteous judge over the quick and the dead. In describing the day of judgment, Jesus draws a parallel to sorting sheep from goats. He describes God as a king, sorting sheep to right and goats to the left. Amity: “Then the king will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my father ; take your inheritance., the kingdom is prepared for you since the creation if the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me.” Then the righteous will say, “Lord, when did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go and visit you? “ “The king will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25; 31-45 Lemuel: This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Immediately following this is the righteous king of the story condemns those on his left to a judgement prepared for, “the devil and his angel.” When those people ask what they have done to deserve this, Jesus starts with, “I was hungry and you didn't feed me…” Jesus is not in the habit of condemning people to hell. In fact, he mentions damnation comparatively little. You will find more mentions of hell in any given church any given Sunday. Jesus brings it up to demonstrate what God values, and what earns salvation. He also makes it clear what demands damnation, and it is exactly what passes as Christianity in the conservative movement. Show compassion and mercy, humanity, and love. If you do not you are cursed to the eternal fires prepared for those beings who rejected God before the world began. Bring God back? God is everywhere. In the church, yes. In the homeless person. In the Trans Kid. In the unwed mother. In the convict. God is in your queer neighbor. You can't bring God back; he hasn't gone anywhere. He's starting you in the face. He's been staring you in the face everyday. https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-prayer-breakfast-30ff6f55a2e3c7b8643a15e7b158537d https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-trump-signs-executive-orders-related-to-faith-announcement https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-eradicates-anti-christian-bias/

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Fires are burning through Southern California. We don't know how they started. Arson, fireworks, and unauthorized camping are potential causes. Driven on by hundred mile an hour winds, these fires quickly spread and devoured entire neighborhoods. There are currently three remaining active fire incidents remaining: Palisades, Eaton, and Auto with the latter being 100% contained. Over forty thousand acres have been burned. The Eaton fire has produced the largest number of fatalities. While the evacuated homeowners watch their homes reduced to ash, conservative politicians and commentators lay blame for the severity of the damage on California's “woke” policies. The suggestion being that in an effort to create a safe, inclusive environment for emergency services workers, incompetent people were hired for quotas and media appearances rather than merit. This from the same people supporting the wildly inadequate and unqualified choices of the current president elect. Beyond that there are outright lies congruent with conservative fantasies about the inability to stop the blaze. Blame is laid on Native Americans, the tiny Delta Smelt fish, and homosexuality. A few have even gone further, claiming that this is a divine punishment for the excesses and abuses of the entertainment industry and the moral values it spreads in the media. Lemuel: The fires in Southern California are not God's retribution at a center of sin and vice. You can find examples in the Bible of God taking action against countries and kingdoms. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah provides an interesting example. Here the twin cities of the plain are to be destroyed for their population's indifference to suffering, their misuse of prosperity, and mistreatment of foreigners seeking shelter for the night. These things are emphasized in Ezekiel 16:49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. Even the Old Testament God was reluctant to destroy them. The Bible mentions a divine envoy being sent to investigate Sodom thoroughly before assigning destruction. Even then, God consults with his friend Abraham before making this decision. This is related in Genesis 18: 20-33. 20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” 22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord.[b] 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare[c] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” 26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” 27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.” 29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?” He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.” 30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” 31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.” 32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” 33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home. Amity: The city of Los Angeles is not represented solely by an entertainment industry. Overall the city is very religious, with 1,700 Christian churches, 202 jewish synagogues, 145 Buddhist temples, and 48 mosques. The Los Angeles Diocese is the largest in the United States, with nearly five million members. There are two hundred and eighty Catholic parishes in the Los Angeles area. One hundred and fifty four Methodist churches. Five hundred and seventeen Baptist churches. Sixty five percent of the city claims Christianity as their faith. Lemuel: The fiercest and most wrathful interpretation of God is reluctant to bring punishment on his children, even when the deserve it. The seventy-five thousand persons displaced by the fire crisis are victims of an unforeseen disaster. Please Donate if you can - https://www.calfund.org/funds/wildfire-recovery-fund/ Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there. Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes On Tuesday, November fifth, convicted felon, rapist, and would be dictator Donald Trump was voted back into office. It is pointless to go into how this could have happened, as any excuses will not change the results.  The truth is that it is inexcusable. Despite the exposure of the man, and many of his crimes, he was put into power. Again. The following is fifteen minutes of screaming into the void. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Marcellus Williams is dead. He was the third person executed in the state of Missouri, and the fifteenth person executed in the nation this year. As of this recording, the national total has risen to 20 people. He was convicted in 2001 of the murder of Felicia Gayle, a former journalist, stabbed to death in her home in 1998. The Innocence Project released the following statement: Mr. Williams' story echoes that of too many others caught in our country's broken criminal legal system. A Black man convicted of killing a white woman, Mr. Williams maintained his innocence until the very end. His conviction was based on the testimony of two eyewitnesses who were paid for their testimony. No DNA evidence linked him to the crime. And the current St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney acknowledged that errors made by the trial prosecutors – including mishandling the murder weapon and intentionally excluding Black prospective jurors in violation of the Constitution – contributed to a wrongful conviction. Nonetheless, the Missouri Attorney General's Office relentlessly pursued Mr. Williams' execution and opposed clemency. The Attorney General and Missouri Governor Mike Parson – who ultimately denied the request for clemency – ignored the wishes of the victim's husband who has consistently made clear that he opposed the death penalty for Mr. Williams. Lemuel: The Bible expresses conflicting opinions about the death penalty, as is to be expected of a book compiled and edited over such a long period of time. Capital punishment is a part of Old Testament teaching, and death, probably by stoning, is the penalty for various, ‘crimes,' which to ancient peoples included things like idolatry, false witness, rape of a virgin, male homosexual practice, and child sacrifice. Still, Cain was not killed for the murder of his brother. Moses, despite killing an Egyptian overseer who was beating a Hebrew slave to death, was allowed to flee into the desert rather than face Egyptian justice. In the New Testament, we are presented with the death, by capital punishment, of Jesus Christ and nearly all of his original disciples. Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death. Saint Peter, the founder of the Church (rather than the faith ) was crucified. James the Younger was stoned and having survived this, was beaten to death with clubs. Of the original twelve only one survived to old age, John, and he, according to extra biblical tradition, survived his death sentence, which was being boiled alive. These executions were legal. In the case of Jesus, the execution was sanctioned by the religious authorities at the time, that is to say, the Church, and both Herod and Pilate, the secular authorities. I bring this up to explain that Jesus' torture and execution were legal in both the eyes of Church and State. Given this history, its impact on nearly all of the founders of the faith, why would a Christian support the death penalty? Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Today we look into the murder of Sonya Massey. In my telling of the events, I will be quoting directly, and so will be using profanity. In her final words she used an ancient spiritual invocation against evil. Why?  To start with, this is what happened. Sonya Massey was a 36 year old black woman, a resident of Springfield, Illinois. She was murdered in her own kitchen by Illinois State Police Officer Sean Grayson.  Officer Grayson was earlier admonished by superior officers for abuse of his authority, for harassment, and falsifying reports. He served six different police departments in four years, moving from place to place when his exploitation of power was discovered.  Ms. Massey called the police to investigate a prowler. When Grayson and his partner arrived, Ms. Massey was herself investigated. She was almost immediately requested to show her Identification. Officer Grayson directed Ms. Massey to remove a pot of water that was boiling on her stove. As she was removing the pot she said, presumably to Officer Grayson, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Officer Grayson responded by immediately drawing his gun, shouting, “You better fing not. I'll fing shoot you in the f***ing face!” As Ms.  Massey apologized and ducked for cover with her empty hands over her head, and Office Grayson made good on his promise and shot her in the face. Three times.  Lemuel: Ms. Massey's final words included the invocation, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” This is a version of Jesus' rebuke of Saint Peter, who attempted to dissuade Jesus from accomplishing his mission. Jesus tells him, “Get thee behind me Satan,” or, in less formal language, step aside. The invocation is repeated in medieval manuscripts: “Vade Retro Satan…” Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com https://www.christiancentury.org/news/sonya-massey-said-i-rebuke-you-name-jesus-what-s-significance https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/06/us/sean-grayson-field-report-massey-shooting/index.html https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/08/rebuke-evil-in-name-of-jesus-sonya-massey/#:~:text=1:3;%20Ps.,presence%20of%20a%20holy%20God

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Effective June twenty-seventh, all Oklahoma schools are required to incorporate the Bible, and the Ten Commandments, into their curriculum. Ryan Walters, Republican State Superintendent, insisted on this plan, made effective immediately. This followed a Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed House Bill 71 which required that requires the following: Lemuel: ( in stentorian voice ) “Each public school governing authority and the governing authority of each non-public school that receives state funds shall display the Ten Commandments in each building it uses and classroom in each school under its jurisdiction. The nature of the display shall be determined by each governing authority with a minimum requirement that the Ten Commandments shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font.” Amity: This is an issue that surfaces every few years, causes controversy, then sinks quietly, unresolved. This time it has gathered force from the increasing number of supporters on the Evangelical right. According to Superintendent Walters, “This is not merely an educational directive, but a crucial step in ensuring our students grasp the core values and historical context of our country.” Lemuel: To our unchurched listeners, perhaps even those who do not care for the oeuvre of Cecil B DeMille, We will enumerate the commandments: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images. 3.Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 5.Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." Lemuel: The first problem with this particular set of rules is that it narrows the interpretation of the commandments through its language. This is a specific translation, and that is dangerous for what is being purported to be the words of God himself. Amity: The other, obvious problem, is that these are specifically religious rules. The first four of these commandments are meant to regulate and set apart religious practice from the other spiritual ideas. Questions: So why are we returning to this? Why the effort to enforce a set of religious rules that Republican leadership privately ignores? How many of these commandments has Trump broken? Theft? Adultery? False witness? Coveting? ORGAN END STINGER Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Amity: We are also reachable at withoutworkspod@gmail.com, on twitter @withoutworkspod and on Facebook at Without Works podcast. All that information is on the website as well, so go there and have a look around. I've been Amity and he's been Lemuel, and we urge you to go out and do something good. AP News CNN

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: This week, in our new, shorter format, we will explore the new role of convicted felon and former president, Donald Trump in Get Thee Behind Me, Felicia. Lemuel: I often used the word, blasphemy,' to describe behavior that falls outside of the teachings of Jesus. It's a strong word, overused these days to cover things less than sacred. We include an article in our notes today, a piece on a respected and educated man, author and talk show host, Eric Metaxes. Claiming membership in the Greek Orthodox Church, he has spoken and written on the Ecumencal values shared by the Christian Church as a whole. Even with this background, he makes an odious comparison: His now deleted social media post showing a photograph of Trump's scowling face and a depiction of the crucified Christ, under which was written the caption: “If you're not sure you can vote for a convicted criminal, Remember you worship one.” To make is clear: Metaxes is comparing a sexual predator, grifter, adulterer, exploiter, to Jesus Christ. Trump is guilty of his crimes; Jesus was not. False equivalency at least. Amity: Trump has tried courting the Evangelical vote for years, and against all reasoning, has been successful. During his 2016 campaign he visited a non-denominational church in Council Bluffs, Iowa and put a few dollars in the Communion Plate, thinking he was being asked for cash. Beyond the question of why one of the supposedly richest men on earth, valued at just under seven billion dollars, gives God pocket change is one thing. The other thing is the fact that he can't tell an offering plate from a Communion plate, or that both are completely separate parts of a service. Lemuel: On the subject of the Eucharist itself, Trump said this: “When I drink my little wine- which is about the only wine I drink- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed.” He seems to have only the most rudimentary idea of what the Eucharist is for, despite its supposed importance to him. Amity: His knowledge of the Bible is equally rudimentary. Questioned about his favorite Bible passage he deferred by claiming the answer was too personal. When further pressed, he couldn't say if he favored the Old or New Testaments. Yet he has now issued a new Bible, the,“God Bless the USA Bible,” which includes the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and among other secular documents, the lyrics of Lee Greenwood's, “God Bless the USA.” To their credit mainstream Churches have rejected this most recent attempt to court their vote. The problem is that there are those who don't. Lemuel: So what are we seeing? The birth of a cult? A cancer in the Body of Christ? The Trump message, steeped in fear, racism, and sexism, has replaced the genuine Gospel in the minds of its followers. This message of violence and vengeance is somehow operating inside of the Christian Church. QUESTIONS: Do secular minded people distinguish between the, “Christian,” Trump followers, and the genuine followers of Christ? Is this new dissonant Trump teaching an example of Orwell's, “Double Think?” (Holding two absolute opposing ideas despite their contradictory natures, and accepting them) Is the damage caused by the Trump cult to the Christian Church irreparable? ORGAN END STINGER Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Amity: We are also reachable at withoutworkspod@gmail.com, on twitter @withoutworkspod and on Facebook at Without Works podcast. All that information is on the website as well, so go there and have a look around. I've been Amity and he's been Lemuel, and we urge you to go out and do something good. Outro Song https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/no-you-cannot-compare-trumps-conviction-to-jesus-crucifixion/17743.article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-accidentally-put-money-in-communion-plate-at-iowa-church-a6847061.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/28/us/donald-trump-bible-christianity-cec/index.html

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: The amount of research that goes into each show makes it difficult to release episodes in a timely manner. By the time that we gather enough information for an informed opinion on a subject, it has been replaced with another fresh assault on the public accountability of faith. We are experimenting with a new idea: a single subject to discussion, each of us sharing our opinions. This week it will be Not Necessarily the Good News, and our discussion will be on the recent changes in the Methodist Church. Not Necessarily the Good News. Amity: The Methodist Church, the communion founded in the late eighteenth century by brothers John and Charles Wesley, has recently followed the example of the Episcopal, Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches and ended bans on gay clergy, and same sex marriage. The current United Methodist Church was created in 1968 by joining two associated branches with roots in Wesley's teachings, the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Union together to a 12.5 million strong communion worldwide. Outside of sharing the basic tenants of the faith, the methodist Church has three principles, which we could sum up this way: Do no Harm. Do good, of every possible sort. Engage in daily, rigorous spiritual practice, like reading the scriptures, and prayer. Based on these foundational principles the Methodist Church faced conflicts with conservative spiritual forces, most notably the Anglican Church. The Methodists followed the example of John Wesley who in 1774 published a sermon on the evils of slavery. By 1780 Methodist pastors were compelled to deliver anti-slavery sermons, and by 1785 any member who had purchased a slave, except with the express purpose of setting that person free, was expelled from the Methodist fellowship. This caused a rift with slave state Methodists who wanted to hold on to what they considered property. A similar rift has been caused by the acceptance of gay clergy and gay equality in marriage. Language adopted by the United Methodist Church in 1972 condemned its gay members, declaring the gay lifestyle incompatible with Christian teaching, and banning gay members from ordination while extending to them the love of Christ. The United Methodist Church, in its recent conference, reversed the language and the decision, but that has lead to many churches to disaffiliate. DISCUSSION: With over seven thousand of the thirty thousand Methodist Churches committed to disaffiliating, will the Methodist Union survive? The inclusion and reconciliation with gay members consistent with the principles of founders John and Charles Wesley. Is there any grounds for churches separating for the communion? Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there. Amity: All of our social links are on the website so if you want to reach out go there for all that information. I've been Amity and he's been Lemuel, and we urge you to go out and do something good.

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Today we will have an open discussion on the controversies around a recent film, “The Book of Clarence,”  a recent comedy about fictional characters who live in Jerusalem at the time of Christ, and interact with Jesus and his disciples.  Lemuel: The stories' protagonist is a feckless young man played by LaKeith Stanfeild. Accompanied by his best friend Elijah, played by RJ Cyler, the two travel a picaresque route through Jerusalem, meeting the disciples, the Holy parents, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus himself.  Amity: The questions we will be asking are these: How does the film address the story?   Is the film sacrilegious or misrepresent the Bible story? Is it ever appropriate to make fun of sacred topics? Why the controversy? Is it because of the light tone taken to sacred subjects, or is it because the film represents nearly all of the biblical characters as African?

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Today we will look at the new speaker of the house and his opinions in Not Necessarily the Good News and Lemuel will look into the woman who started it all in Pillars of Wisdom. Necessarily the Good News  Amity: Current speaker of the House , Republican Mike Johnson expressed his point of view this way:  “I am a bible believing christian. Someone asked me today, in the media, they said, ‘It's curious, people are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?' I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf, and read it. That's my worldview.'” This is problematic for many reasons. There are many biblical translations, accepted by many parts of the church.  Speaker Johnson is a Protestant, and beyond that a Baptist. There are 57 Baptists currently serving in the House of Representatives, the second largest Christian denomination represented, the largest being the Catholic Church, with 122 members. When a speaker says that the Bible is his opinion, what does it mean, and why is it important to us? SUMMATION: In the end I would say this: When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, Jesus responded: “My kingdom is not of this world … “ The separation of Church and state is a construct instituted by Jesus Christ. Maybe Speaker Johnson's bible doesn't include this verse.  Amity:  And now, in honor of the season, we try to understand a little more about the woman central to the Christian Church.  Pillars of Wisdom:  Amity: “At the center of this mystery, in the midst of this wonderment of faith, stands Mary. As the loving mother of the redeemer, she was the first to experience it. ‘To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator." -Pope John Paul the Second, Redemptoris Mater Lemuel:  She is designated with the title Theokotos in the Eastern Christian Church: the God - bearer. The Immaculate Conception in the Roman Church where she is also referred to as the Queen of Heaven, Our Lady, and Star of the Sea. There are few more important persons in the Christian world than Mary. For a person who changed the world we don't know very much about her. She was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter, perhaps a good deal older than her and may have even been a widower with other children from his first marriage. We know that she had a maternal aunt, Elizabeth, a devout, much older woman who also brought a miraculous child into the world.  Mary received a visitation; she was informed that she, among all the women of the world, was chosen to bring God into the world, if she chose to receive it. With her consent, she brings this child into the world.  The rest of that story becomes her son's story; his mission, and sacrifice, but she remains in the background. She urges him to spare a newly married couple the embarrassment of running out of wine at their wedding feast.  She was present at the crucifixion; Jesus tells her that John, the youngest disciple, was to act as her son.  The years after this, she drops away from focus. She begins reappearing in illustrations in catacombs at the beginning of the second century. She is given some of the titles mentioned earlier. Some of the titles were borrowed from earlier Goddesses, and some of the depictions as well. A woman with a baby, a woman weeping for her murdered son.  There are no canonical stories about her after she is a part of the miraculous gathering on the day of Pentecost, but that story implies that she was a leader in the early church. Her death is never described, but her Assumption, (her body being taken intact into heaven) is a doctrine in much of the high church.  Ancient peoples come to us as ciphers, and most of the biblical people we meet are shadowy figures with unexplained motives. We don't understand Judas Iscariot, and can only guess why he did what he did. A person like Joseph the Carpenter comes across as decent and kind, but he is painted in quick, efficient strokes with no color or detail.  SUMMATION: Mary is, in the faith, the most important person who ever lived. She is a distant example of perfection in some branches of the Church. The best way to find her is to see a young woman bearing a child, mourning that grown child's death, then carrying him on in her heart for the rest of her life.  Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there.  Amity: All of our social links are on the website so if you want to reach out go there for all that information.  I've been Amity and he's been Lemuel, and we urge you to go out and do something good. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Sources  https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-johnson-earn-his-views-by-reading-the-bible-2023-10 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/us/politics/mike-johnson-interview-hannity-takeaways.html https://orthodoxbridge.com/2012/05/20/why-evangelicals-need-mary/ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-mike-johnson-says-separation-church-state-misnomer-rcna125181

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. This week, we are going to discuss the events occurring in the Gaza strip, the history of the region, and the evangelical view of the situation. This is being recorded on October 28, 2023 and we are doing our best to give the latest information. Amity: I have tried to keep this as straightforward and clear as possible. I am extremely emotional about this topic and have spent much of the past twenty days watching the news coming directly out of Palestine, sharing Palestinian voices and calling my representatives to demand a ceasefire and humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine.  First things first - we have to state unequivocally the following: Zionism is not Judaism, and a person can be anti-Zionist and not anti-semetic, as many, many American jews are. We will come back to this in a few minutes. The attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 is abhorrent and terrible and we grieve with the survivors and families of those who were killed. May their memories be a blessing.  Events leading up to October 7 Let's start with some history, which I have put together from several sources. This is a very broad, very simplified overview of the history. In the show notes, we have included an extensive reading list to get a rounder view of the subject.  Israel and Palestine: In the late 19th century, the Zionist movement called for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people to escape persecution in Europe. Immigration and the purchase of land in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, was encouraged. The land known as Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century encompasses a 25,000 square mile piece of land bordered on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, on the East by what is now Syria and Jordan on the south by Egypt and on the north by Lebanon. After the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Britain was granted a mandate to govern the region of Palestine and Jewish immigration increased as Nazism took hold in central Europe. This brought tensions in the area with the Arab population, and after the Second World War a new plan was drawn up and agreed by the United Nations to create two separate Arab and Jewish states with Jerusalem remaining international. The Arab state would include Gaza, an area near the border with Egypt, a zone near the border with Lebanon, a central region which includes the West Bank, and a tiny enclave at the city of Jaffa.But this was never implemented after Arab opposition. At midnight on 14/15 May 1948, the Mandate for Palestine expired and the State of Israel came into being. The Palestine Government formally ceased to exist, the status of British forces still in the process of withdrawal from Haifa changed to occupiers of foreign territory, the Palestine Police Force formally stood down and was disbanded, with the remaining personnel evacuated alongside British military forces, the British blockade of Palestine was lifted, and all those who had been Palestinian citizens ceased to be British protected persons, with Mandatory Palestine passports no longer giving British protection. Over the next few days, approximately 700 Lebanese, 1,876 Syrian, 4,000 Iraqi, and 2,800 Egyptian troops crossed over the borders into Palestine, starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The war, which was to last until 1949, would see Israel expand to encompass about 78% of the territory of the former British Mandate, with Transjordan seizing and subsequently annexing the West Bank and the Kingdom of Egypt seizing the Gaza Strip. The 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, known to Palestineans as the Nakba took place both before and after the end of the Mandate. The foundational events of the Nakba took place during and shortly after the 1948 Palestine war, as that 78% of Mandatory Palestine was declared as Israel, leading to the expulsion and flight of 700,000 Palestinians, the related depopulation and destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages by Zionist militias and later the Israeli army and subsequent geographical erasure, the denial of the Palestinian right of return, the creation of permanent Palestinian refugees, and the "shattering of Palestinian society" Now, back to what I brought up at the opening of this episode, the difference between Zionism and Judaism. Zionism v Judaism: Judaism is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people having originated as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Zionism is a nineteenth-century political ideology that emerged in a moment where Jews were defined as irrevocably outside of a Christian Europe. European antisemitism threatened and ended millions of Jewish lives — in pogroms, in exile, and in the Holocaust. Many Jews today are anti-Zionist, believing that Zionism was a false and failed answer to the desperately real question many of their ancestors faced of how to protect Jewish lives from murderous antisemitism in Europe. While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others. Our own history teaches us how dangerous this can be. So what is a settler colony? Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers. Settler colonialism is a form of exogenous domination typically organized or supported by an imperial authority. Settler colonialism contrasts with exploitation colonialism, which entails an economic policy of conquering territory to exploit its population as cheap or free labor and its natural resources as raw material. In this way, settler colonialism lasts indefinitely, except in the rare event of complete evacuation or settler decolonization. Writing in the 1990s, Patrick Wolfe theorized settler colonialism as a structure (rather than an event) premised on the elimination rather than exploitation of the native population, thus distinguishing it from classical colonialism. He also argued that settler colonialism was centered on the control of land and that it continued after the closing of the frontier. His approach was defining for the field, but has been challenged by other scholars on the basis that many situations involve a combination of elimination and exploitation. Settler colonial studies has often focused on former British colonies in North America, Australia and New Zealand, which are close to the complete, prototypical form of settler colonialism, but is also applied to many other conflicts throughout the world. Today in Gaza, over 2 million Palestinians live within roughly 140 square miles, it is “one of the world's most densely populated territories,” according to Gisha, an Israeli nongovernmental organization. Half of Palestinians living in Gaza are under age 19, but they have few to no prospects for socioeconomic growth and limited access to the outside world. Israel has maintained a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza since 2007 that has had a devastating effect on Palestinian civilians. Israel has built an apartheid blockade, which gives it control of Gaza's borders and is also enforced by Egypt. The International Committee of the Red Cross considers the blockade illegal and says it violates the Geneva Convention, a charge Israeli officials deny. The U.N., various human rights groups and legal scholars, citing the blockade, consider Gaza to still be under military occupation by Israel. Human Rights Watch likened the conditions in Gaza to “an open air prison,” referring to the restriction of movement Israel enforces on Palestinians there. Israel prohibits Palestinians from entering or leaving the area “except in extremely rare cases, which include urgent, life-threatening medical conditions and a very short list of merchants,” according to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group.  Israelis, Jewish settlers and foreigners are not subject to those restrictions and are free to travel in and out of Gaza. Over the years, Israel has gradually closed land-border crossings from Gaza into Israel except for one — which is open only to Palestinians with Israeli-approved permits. Egypt sporadically closes its land-border crossing for months on end, which is often the only way people in Gaza can gain access to the rest of the world. Further, the roads within Gaza are segregated and Palestinians and Isralis are issued different colored license plates to allow for easy identification. By limiting imports and nearly all exports, Israel's 16-year blockade has driven Gaza's economy to near-collapse, with unemployment rates above 40%, according to the World Bank. More than 65% of the population live under the poverty line, according to the U.N., with 63% of people in Gaza deemed “food insecure” by the World Food Program. Little psychological support exists for a generation of children who are “living with the long-term psychological effects of constant exposure to violence,” according to a U.N. report, which described an uptick of mental health issues, including depression, among young people living in the Gaza Strip. Israel controls food, water, electricity, internet, medicine and movement of the Palestinian people and have been annexing more and more of Gaza since 1948. Hamas, a Sunni Islamist political and military organization committed to armed resistance against Israel and the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state in Israel's place has been the de facto governing body in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it ousted the Palestinian Authority from power. Several nations and governing bodies have labeled Hamas a terrorist organization which encompasses between 20,000 and 25,000 members.  Events of October 7  On October 7, Palestinian militant groups led by Hamas launched over 3,500 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel and executed a surprise invasion by land, sea and air, breaking through the Gaza-Israel barrier to attack at least 22 locations in Israel's Southern District. Civilians were targeted in those locations, which included a music festival. Thousands of Israeli citizens were injured and at least 1400 were killed. In addition, over 200 people were taken hostage. Events since October 7  Israel began bombing and airstrikes on Gaza on the 7th of October. These continue through today, October 28th. On October 13th, Israel gave the 1 million residents of northern Gaza an order to evacuate to the south and if they did not, anyone left in the north would be considered a combatant. Israelis allowed one road for the evacuation, but during that time, they bombed the roads, targeting civilians and ambulances. On October 17th, Al-Alhi hospital was bombed, killing over 500 Palestinian refugees. The Israeli defense ministry claimed responsibility for the attack, but shortly after, they rescinded that statement and blamed a misfired Hamas rocket. Israel has ceased all water, food, electricity and medicine from entering Gaza. They have also blocked the only exit available to Gazans at the Egyptian border. Over 1,000,000 Palestinians have lost their homes to bombings. 22 hospitals have been shuttered. Surgeries, including amputations required by injuries from explosions are being performed without anesthesia or fresh water often by the lights of cell phones. As of October 27th, Israel has begun a ground offensive and shutdown the satellite access, silencing any Palestinian journalists and citizens from getting information out of Gaza. They have also warned that they believe Hamas has a stronghold underneath the largest hospital in Gaza, where 15,000 Palestinians are currently seeking refuge. One report states that between October 7 and 26, 7,028 Palestinians were killed, including 2,913 children. This figure is likely significantly less than the actual death toll as this is based on bodies recovered. There are hundreds of buildings that have been reduced to rubble and contain the remains of people that haven't yet been found.  I could speak on this for hours, but we are trying to keep it as straightforward as possible, so I want to just end with some clarity on definitions.  Western media is using the phrase “Israel-Hamas War” in most of their coverage.  A war indicates an armed conflict between states or nations. A war requires two armies. Israel has the 10th largest army in the world and is backed by most if not all Western nations. Gaza, or Palestine, is comprised of 2.2 million people, half of which are children. A segment of Hamas is located within Gaza but they are not an army, they use largely improvised weapons as Israel dictates what comes in and out of Gaza. This is not a war. This is not defense. This is a calculated ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Gaza is often described as an open air prison - I used the term earlier - but this is also a euphemism. A prison indicates that the population are criminals, prosecuted and found guilty of a crime. A prison also requires that it's inhabitants are provided adequate food, water, and medical care. None of these requisites are true of Gaza. The population of Gaza have been convicted of no crimes, and the settler colony of Israel has control over it's water, food, electricity, communications, and medicine - that is a textbook definition of a concentration camp. Finally, the word genocide and ethnic cleansing are both being used, and both are accurate but they are not the same thing. Ethnic cleansing comprises the actions that can be used in the goal to remove members of an ethnic or religious group from an area. Genocide is the murder of an entire population. All genocide can be considered ethnic cleansing, but not all ethnic cleansing is genocide.  It is clear that Israel has been guilty of humanitarian atrocities for decades. These have ramped up exponentially in the past month with unyielding aerial attacks, the use of white phosphorus, the targeting of hospitals, schools, and mosques, the silencing of Palestinians communication with the outside world and the denial of basic human needs to the 2.2 million civilians in Gaza, including over 1 million children. It is becoming more clear everyday that Israel seeks to finalize their purging of Palestinians from the land they have colonized by means of genocide. And many Palestinians are making the devastating decision to stay in their homes as long as possible, afraid they will leave and lose what little they have left the way their ancestors did in 1948. They are standing their ground believing that it's better to die in their homes as many of them have nothing left to lose. Evangelical POV: Genesis 12: 7 informs us: And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.  The previous verse tells us this:  And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. This tells us that the promised land was always occupied by other peoples, other groups that had to be driven out so that Abraham and his descendants could settle there.  When the Hebrew people, having escaped famine, settled in the borders outside of Egypt they multiplied and became a threat to the Egyptians who became concerned that in the event of a conflict, or threat to their empire, the Hebrews could be persuaded to side with the invaders attack Egypt. They were taken in to slavery for hundreds of years. Returning, they were told:  And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Again, the land was inhabited, and these people were, under the holy wars initiated by Moses' successor, Joshua, these people were driven off, or in some cases, assimilated. Individual people, living among the Hebrews were made welcome, and given rights.  “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  Leviticus 19:34. This story, the struggle of the Hebrew people to overcome obstacles and keep the land of their promise is central to Zionism. Evangelical Protestant Chrisitians, who largely follow a literal interpretation of scripture, have cited this set of scriptures, and endorsed and supported the idea of a Jewish homeland.  The new evangelicalism, endorsed Israel for more sinister reasons. Dispensationalist writer, Hal Lindsey, began an elaborate and exact timeline for the return of Christ that started with Israel becoming a nation.  From there he listed current events that must be fulfilled to anticipate this return, followed by years of tribulation, and a literal battle of Armageddon taking place on a ruin in Northern Israel.  This belief has been endorsed by evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell. It has been made a part of modern Christian mythology with it's inclusion in the popular, “Left Behind,” series of books and films. Follow Amity on TikTok @sassyscribbler Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ [withoutworkspod@gmail.com ](mailto:withoutworkspod@gmail.com)Our Internet home: [www.withoutworkspodcast.com ](http://www.withoutworkspodcast.com)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promised_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVuHgaTdysY https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bsxdg https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/zionism/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler_colonialism https://www.nbcnews.com/news/gaza-strip-controls-s-know-rcna119405 https://abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-long-history-israeli-palestinian-conflict/story?id=103875134 https://afsc.org/sites/default/files/documents/Palestinian%20Nonviolent%20Resistance%20to%20occupaltion%20since%201967.pdf https://www.usip.org/palestinian-politics-timeline-2006-election https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html https://abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-surprise-rocket-attack-hamas-israel/story?id=103816006 https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/middleeast/gaza-death-toll-report-intl/index.html Reading List: My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story by Ramzy Baroud Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape by Raja Shehadeh In the Presence of Absence by Richard Widerkehr On Zionist Literature by Ghassan Kanafani Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands by Sonia Nimir Power Born of Dreams: My Story Is Palestine by Mohammad Sabaaneh Stories Under Occupation: And Other Plays from Palestine by Samer Al-Saber Palestine Is Throwing a Party and the Whole World Is Invited: Capital and State Building in the West Bank by Kareem Rabie Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd Of Noble Origins: A Palestinian Novel by Sahar Khalifeh My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Show Notes Your Own Personal Jesus 1.Was Jesus a pacifist? Jesus taught non-violence. That's what we have been told. Is it true? You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. Matthew 5:38–42 This is what comes to mind when discussing Jesus' response to violence. It was an example mentioned in both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, in contexts that suggest that he mentioned in on two separate occasions. That would make it a teaching he meant to reinforce through repetition. What does it mean? These teachings had a profound effect on Christian thinking over the centuries. Think about the break with the Mosaic law that Jesus' words created, the teaching that reinforced the Lex Talionis. Christian Anarchy is political-religious movement. It teaches, among other things, that any earthy government is inherently evil. It teaches that the principles of Jesus' teaching demand a rejection of hierarchical power structures used by the organized church, and state. One of the most vocal and popular of it's proponents was author Leo Tolstoy, who described the mainstream church and state, and its contrast with Christian Anarchy: “That this social order with its pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, armies, and wars is necessary to society; that still greater disaster would ensue if this organization were destroyed; all this is said only by those who profit by this organization, while those who suffer from it – and they are ten times as numerous – think and say quite the contrary.” Tolstoy's book, “The Kingdom of God is Within You,” (1894) taught that the proper way to interpret Jesus' statement, “turn the other cheek,” was as a call to non-violent resistance. This interpretation has had lasting effects. Tolstoy's correspondence with a young Mohandas Gandhi, and the absorption of those teachings by American civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King bore this idea out. This seems to be the best way to interpret Jesus' teaching, but is the idea of turning the other cheek situational? In other words, is there a time that reacting without violence is counterproductive? Here is an example of Jesus' teachings shifting over the span of his brief period on earth. Earlier in his ministry he sends his disciples out to evangelize alone, to tell neighboring villages about the good news. Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. ** Matthew 10: 9-10** Shortly before his death and glorification, Jesus reminds his disciples of the time that he spent apart from them. Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:35-36 It seems that Jesus is telling his disciples to be prepared if they must defend themselves. Maybe he meant that there is no glory in being victimized. Here is example of Jesus personally behaving in a way that could be considered violent: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started! Matthew 23: 27-31 This passage is from one of Jesus' public battles with the religious authorities of his time. Jesus' verbal assault goes on, and is absolutely relentless. The religious organization of the Temple, and I must stress, it was during this time, had pretended to meet the needs of the people, but instead was willing to work with the occupying Roman government to achieve its own ends. It also found ways of profiting from the miseries of the people. An example: The sacrifice of animals was the accepted temple way of doing penance for sins. A person would bring an animal, size and type determined according to Moses law, and have the priest sacrifice it. This animal would have to be without blemishes, a perfect specimen. Because many people traveled to the temple, on pilgrimage, and many were not farmers, but tradesmen, the animals in question were often purchased on temple grounds. The Romans had demanded that the common currency of all colonized countries was to be Roman coin, with an engraved image of the Emperor. Since this was considered a graven image money had to be exchanged at the temple for money that did not bear the likeness of a false god. The result was that vendors put up booths selling livestock on temple grounds, and penitent sinners wandered into the temple courts looking for the best exchange rates. Unscrupulous money changers set the rate of exchange, and the price of sacrificial animals. A penitent, in a state of shame for their offenses, might not be able to afford all this. The truly impoverished lived under crippling guilt of their sins. When Jesus healed these people he would often end with the phrase, “Your sins are forgiven.” He could have easily said, ‘No charge.” No sacrifices, no payment. Recognizing all this, you can imagine how Jesus reacted to seeing the stalls of animals inside the sacred courts of the Temple. Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.' Matthew 21: 12-13 The book of Mathew describes this as a succession of stories that lead of to the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. It is as if Jesus accelerates his attacks on the organized church and its hypocrisy, knowing that he has a limited time. All four of the gospel authors describe Jesus purging the temple. John, generally accepted as the last of the gospels written, includes a detail where Jesus makes a scourge of cords and uses it to rush the animals and their owners out. 2. The incident in Montgomery, Alabama 3. Is self-defense justified Find us on Twitter (X): @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com

Show Notes **Not Necessarily the Good News ** On June 8, 2023, Televangelist, three times decorated veteran, political consultant, media mogul, presidential hopeful, philanthropist, founder of Regent University and the Christian Broadcast network died in his home at the age of 93.  He had a few close calls in the closing years of his life. He had taken a bad fall from a horse in 2017,  suffered an embolic stroke in 2018, and suffered another fall in 2019 in which he broke three ribs. Despite all this, he continued mostly regular appearances on his syndicated television program, The 700 club, which he had hosted since it began in 1961.  The 700 Club was the first television program of his Christian Broadcasting Network, which went from a local Virginia Beach station to a cable network in 1977, and eventually to The Family Channel, which remained on the airwaves until 1997. Robertson was affiliated with the Southern Baptist fellowship,  Welton Gaddy: Interfaith Alliance's former longtime-president, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, has died at the age of 81. Welton was a beloved leader, and an inspiration to everyone who cherishes both religious freedom and democracy. Welton's journey took him from being a rising leader in the Southern Baptist Convention to one of the most respected voices seeking to ensure the first amendment's promise extends to all Americans regardless of faith or belief. It does not go without notice that we are remembering Welton just as the LGBTQ+ community is celebrating Pride Month. Welton wrote about full inclusion and dignity for LGBTQ+ people long before many other religious leaders. Across so many areas, Welton used his platform to project a vision for America that was inclusive of different beliefs and respectful of every individual's inherent dignity. He was unwilling to accept that any religious tradition in this country should take precedence over another. Over the course of seventeen years, starting in 1997, Welton led Interfaith Alliance and established it as one of the leading advocates for religious freedom. Under Welton's leadership, “interfaith work” was not about a bunch of people from different faiths coming together just for the sake of optics. It was about building relationships between communities so that together we could have an impact on the critical issues facing our nation. Among Interfaith Alliance's many accomplishments under Welton's leadership were his incisive paper making a case for marriage equality from a faith perspective; his passionate advocacy challenging antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry and other forms of hate targeting religious minorities; and the protection of the vital boundaries between religion and government as he pushed successive administrations from both parties to avoid unnecessary entanglements. Rev. Gaddy increasingly focused his ministry on the relationship between faith and public life. He joined the board of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and served as its president before leaving to lead Interfaith Alliance in 1997. There are few people that have made such a lasting impact on America, and I continue to be in awe and so thankful for Welton's life in the ministry In 1991, he became senior pastor at Northminster, a church affiliated with the progressive Alliance of Baptists, which now proclaims to people visiting its website that “every part of you is welcome here — your gender, your race, your politics, your theology, your sexuality.” https://interfaithalliance.org/interfaith-alliance-mourns-the-passing-of-rev-dr-c-welton-gaddy/ https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%204&version=NIV https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/16/us/the-rev-c-welton-gaddy-dead.html https://youtu.be/IBysfGR90us The More You Know There are many ideas about heaven in the Old and New testaments.  Like Christian ideas about Hell, they have developed over time. In many cases it is ambiguous, in others it is very detailed. The Book of Revelation has a very detailed vision of the throne of God, and it has influenced poetry and art for centuries:  At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits[a] of God. Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” Revelations 4: 2-11 In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14: 1-6 Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Show Notes Pillars of Strength Who was she? She appears in only one of the Gospels, the last of them, the Gospel of John, Chapter 4, in verses 4 through 42. It's not a synoptic Gospel, meaning that it does not have crossover material in the other Gospels. Jesus is going through Samaria with his disciples. He passes through a town called Sychar, and while his disciples go out to look for lunch, Jesus sat by a historic well, a well dug by the ancient Patriarch Jacob hundreds of years earlier. “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” … The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) This is the story of the woman at the well. She is not given a name in the Gospel, but in the Eastern Orthodox tradition she is called, “Photine.” She is a Samaritan, which, as we learned in an earlier episode, was a separate community who had some common beliefs with the Jews. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Jesus sounds almost impatient. He is thirsty, and hungry, and he is bantering with this woman who is showing her cultural prejudice. Her next statement is clearly a dig: “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?” … Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” Is she flirting with him? Does this pass as banter? The Gospel of John is different from the other three Gospels in that it includes these kinds of long, reconstructed conversations, and it certainly recalls, in Jewish history, the, “betrothal,” scenes of Issac, and Moses, who met their future wives at a well. The point seems to be that Jesus is up-ending those expectations. He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. I have always liked this line. Her response to his show of supernatural ability she replies, gobsmacked, “I can see that you are a prophet.” The encounter then takes a few more turns, including Jesus revealing to her that he is the expected Messiah. Here is the interesting thing about their interaction. Jesus does not expose her. He declares his mission to her. This is a pattern in the Gospel of John. He shows who he is openly, and people choose to reject or accept him. Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Here is another interesting point: The disciples, though surprised to find him talking to a woman, thought it was just something that he did. His actions were beyond questioning, and, his talking to women, the way he spoke to everyone else, was just something they had come to expect. Former Vice President , and current Presidential hopeful Mike Pence said that, in order to avoid any accusation of impropriety, does not eat alone with a woman, or attend events where alcohol is served, without his wife. That seems noble, on one level, but it speaks to a bigger problem. Are women so distracting that they are shunned and relegated to being lovers, wives, and mothers? Doesn't the problem start with men unable to control their thoughts and actions? Jesus didn't care. He knew that women are equal to men, and completely equal in the sight of God. He knew that women should look for their own salvation, not have a man direct them, or guide them through it. Compare this to Saint Paul, who says in 1 Corinthians 14:33–35: "As in all the congregations of the Lord's people. Women should remain silent in the churches, They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." Jesus is about equality. Women can come to God on their own, and, in this case, they can lead their husband, their whole village to salvation. That should have been the rule in the faith. Then again, there are some Christians who literally think they are holier than Christ… The More You Know Last time we discussed Hell, a place that the broad diversity of Christianity will agree exists, in one way or another. We talked about how there is a difference of opinion on whether or not it is eternal, or even what it is, but it is a part of the faith. A theological or moral necessity, though not in the way we expect. Today we are looking at an idea from the Catholic Church, the concept of Purgatory. The recent edition of Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Purgatory this way: Purgatory is the state of those who die in God's friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven. Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance. The idea was that some people are part of the faith, but die unconfessed, or died with some unfinished perfecting to do. Heaven allows no sin or uncleanness, so a Christian goes to an intermediate state, purging the last of their earthly sins, before joining the righteous in heaven. Where does this idea come from? The Book of Maccabees, the Apocryphal book that describes the jewish who wrestled the Kingdom of Judah away from their Greek overlords during the Seleucid Empire, establishing their own rule from 167 to 37 BCE. The story of four brothers, fighting off impossible odds, their bravery in battle, their single-minded devotion to not allowing their faith and culture to be erased by Greek ideas, is exciting reading. Eight books in all, but the first two books are considered canonical by the Catholic Church. In the Second book of the Maccabees, there is a story where Judah discovers that some of his soldiers, loyal patriots, had died while wearing pagan amulets, good -luck charms for protection in battle. Judah orders sacrifices held to purge them of their lack of faith in the afterlife. The idea was common in Judaism by that age, and was incorporated into early Christianity. It is mentioned by Saint Paul, when he mentions praying for Onesiphorus, a member of the Church who has passed on. The church outside of Catholicism, has rejected the idea of Purgatory. High church doctrines in Orthodox, and Anglican communions, have similar ideas, namely the process of Glorification, by which the soul is extended God's grace and makes the final step into sanctification. Some Christian Churches will accept the idea of prayers for the dead, but not the idea of suffering for righteousness. The idea of Purgatory is expressed most beautifully in the image of the Anima Sola. A figure that started in Italian Catholicism, and became popular in Latin American Catholicism, where it became a figure that spoke to the oppressed and colonized: A woman, breaking free of her chains, looking upward through the burning flames of Purgatory. The image is so evocative that it is included in over syncretic faiths, like Santeria. What do you think? Is the idea of further suffering after death, even for the righteous, simply adding to the terror of death? Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Show Notes Not Necessarily the Good News Marjorie Taylor Greene, political gadfly, professional bully, anti-semite, anti-Catholic, and tantrum throwing child, said this recently, when addressing the arrest of former president, and professional mountebank, Donald Trump: "Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today," she said during an interview with Right Side Broadcasting in New York. "Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus — Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government." Comparing that man to Jesus Christ, is blasphemy. The More You Know “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.” C.S. Lewis Christianity is broad, ancient, and diverse faith. There are many beliefs about an afterlife, and they come from different sources, including Pagan religions. Where do we start? Where we always do. What is your perception of hell? What is it based on? Asking most people, they will tell you images from the book of Revelations, a metaphorical book where nearly everything is expressed in symbols. An evangelical Christian will tell you of a literal lake of fire, and burning torment, believing it wholeheartedly, and overlook a passage involving seven headed dragons rising from the sea, or locusts with human faces stinging men with their scorpion tales. And the vision of Hell that involves fiery torment, where Satan sits on a throne, ruling an army of demons? No, that is nowhere in the Bible. It seems to be the creation of Heavy Metal musicians. Here is something interesting. The vision of Hell in Christian eschatology is widely varied. The old testament has different beliefs on the afterlife, including a place called Sheol, a place beneath the earth we walk on, where the spirits of the dead: “For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You;Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. Isaiah 38:18 “If I look for Sheol as my home,I make my bed in the darkness;If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father';To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister';Where now is my hope? And who regards my hope? “Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?” Job 17:13-16 “When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, So he who goes down to Sheol does not come up." Job 7:9 People, on death, become mere shadows, with not recall their former lives at all. Everyone goes there, and only exceptionally good and holy people are spared. Some texts indicate that all people go there. If you look these scriptures up in your Bible, you might find the word Hell put where Sheol should be. Hell is a pagan goddess, and a location. The location would be a place for souls would be punished, something similar to the later idea of Hell. The devil was not a figure in Judaism in a way recognizable to Christians, until after the captivity in Babylonian 597 BC. Ideas from local religions informed the Jewish intellectuals who were kept in the King's court. Babylonian cosmology was a frightening place, a demon haunted world where spirits had to be appeased through magic spells. In the 2nd century BC Ptolemy II, ( son of Alexander of Macedon's general ) was ruler of a hellenized state in Egypt. He was a great patron of arts and knowledge, and wanted a translation of the Laws and Religion of the Jews. He commissioned a translation that we now call the Septuagint; It means, “seventy-two,” and that is for the seventy-two scholars, 6 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. They produced the translation that influenced the Bible we still use, and began a conversation between Greek and Jewish ideas, each influencing each other. With these additional ideas came the notion of punishment for wickedness. The idea of Hades became accepted where instead of the emptiness of Sheol, we are treated to a place of torment Jesus mentions Hell, (as a concept, since the word was not introduced until the fourth century in translations of scripture ) and he does, eleven times in the synoptic gospels, it is in contrast to the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom he is sent to earth to establish. "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10: 28 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.” Mark 9: 42-48 The horrible end that Jesus describes is meant to shock a people out of a despondency, into action. He was showing that salvation was not a matter of taking sacrifices to temple, or following the dietary laws and rules, but a person taking it all very personal and serious. “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels jto Abraham's side.6 The rich man also died and was buried, and in kHades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus jat his side. And he called out, m‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for oI am in anguish in this flame.' But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.' And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' But Abraham said, ‘They have qMoses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, ‘If they do not hear qMoses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.' ” His other point is rally obvious; those who live in luxury, showing no compassion or sympathy, will be punished. But is it eternal punishment? What will punishing people eternally, with no hope of salvation, achieve? Yes, there are some who deserve horrible things to happen in payment for their actions, particularly their actions against others. The police officer who kills a black man, kneeling on his neck, under his state granted authority, the clergy who uses religion as way to gain the trust of children before he abuses them, the young men who assaulted and beat to death a young man because he was gay. Those people deserve punishment. But is eternal punishment going to manage anything? In the end, where do these ideas come from? These lurid pictures of monsters that torture the tormented. These ideas come from us. The hell described in scriptures is a range of things, from a twilight world where people wander, nameless, with no identity, or memory, to an actively burning torment. Having a range of choices, why has the idea of torment and monstrosities been so influential? And this begs another question: Why do we need this horrible place, this collection of neuroses, to make us behave ourselves? Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Show Notes Not Necessarily the Good News https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154880673/jesus-commercial-super-bowl-billboard-he-gets-us-hobby-lobby-evangelical-billion https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/us/he-gets-us-super-bowl-commercials-cec/index.html https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/he-gets-us-ad-campaign-branding-jesus-church-marketing.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viSIMcWAe48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1idNZnX0F8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W127-l1t4T4 The More You Know Last episode we looked into the nature of God. It was too big a subject for one conversation, but we touched on a few details that were important: God is greater that the way they are depicted in the Bible. God is greater than limitations and rules. We also discussed that the idea of God has changed over time. God, as mentioned in the Book of Genesis is a limited being who can be surprised or have his plans interfered with. By the book of Exodus God is closer to what we know now; “I am,” a mysterious and all powerful being who we are compelled to obey. He will grant us favor if we are faithful. By the later books, the prophets like Jeremiah, or Isaiah, God is even more mysterious and his motivations are equally difficult. When we come to Jesus as God, the quality of mystery is overwhelming, and Jesus does little to dispel it. Jesus explains to us that God is too great to understand, and reveals only the things we can understand. Whatever else God is, God is love. God is connected with everyone, and sees us as his children. So what are we addressing about God today? The Good and Bad places, and maybe the places in-between. Today we start with the big question: What happens after we die? The Bible is a collection of 66 books compiled over many, many years. It has been edited over time by many scholars, and can include different books according to Church. The Catholic Church: 73 books. The Protestant Church: 66. The African Orthodox: 84. Those examples alone show a diversity of what is accepted as a basis of the faith, and they can include something close to mythology and other things that are tangible history. So we start: What do you think happens after we die? Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Show Notes Not Necessarily the Good News https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/stories/fr-rafael-garcia-sj-fulfills-vocation-in-ministry-with-migrants/ https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/sacred-heart-church-provides-shelter-to-all-migrants-regardless-of-legal-status-immigration-el-paso-texas-border https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_HPOPYrilw https://www.npr.org/2022/12/24/1145245308/el-paso-migrants-church-shelters-christmas-freezing The More You Know Christianity has borrowed God from earlier sources, Judaism of course, and that sourced several more ancient religious ideas. The Creation cycle and the Story of Noah exist in other Near Easter beliefs, but their purpose is different. Those stories are filled with elements that would seem strange to a modern Chrisitian; The gods that these stories borrow from are vulnerable, and they exist in a world of powerful demons, and can be fooled by magic spells or simple human ingenuity. This is a world of difference from the idea of Jehovah, all wise, all knowing, all powerful. The most obvious example of the creation story. God makes a garden and dresses it. He creates a gardener to tend it, a man in his own image. Unlike God, Adam cannot be alone, so God creates a woman from Man's side, telling both of his new creations that they are forbidden from eating the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, which grows there. Eve is tempted by the serpent, and she convinces her husband to eat of it as well. That leads to this odd passage: “And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever. So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” - Genesis 3:23 This seems to suggest a rivalry between God and human beings, something unfamiliar to modern Christianity. There are other ways in which this God seems unfamiliar to modern Christianity. He is a tribal God, who plays favorites. He repents of having made man, so he floods the earth to wipe out all of mankind. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” - Genesis 6: 5-7 This God also demands absolute obedience. Later, when God chooses the patriarch Abraham for an exclusive pact: Reading from - Genesis 22: 1-15 Contrast this with the vision of God presented later, in the New Testament. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” - 1 John 1:5 “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” - 1 John 4:8 Is this the same God? It suggests a few things, that either the nature of God is dynamic, and can change, or the nature of God is immutable than these are stories about him, someone from the outside making assumptions about what he saw and understood. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Show Notes Episode 53: Bearing Witness Cannon Fodder Jan Karski Stand Up and Testify Amity: This is the segment where we tell a personal story about something that we are grateful for. Lemuel: A few episodes ago we talked about my health issues. Late last year I discovered that the almost staggering pain in my back were not a pulled muscle, but an unusual , frankly rare case of coccidioidomycosis. It ate through the discs in both my upper and lower back, and that pain was the grinding of my vertebrae together. After months of misdiagnosis I was able to get the care I needed. A ten hour surgery, and a long recovery. There have been other problems, most recently a compensatory frozen shoulder injury. But I am getting the care I need from doctors who seem invested with restoring me to health. I realize that there are months of hard work ahead. I am a martial artist for most of my life, and meant to work toward a black belt in Tomiki Aikido. Those plans have been jeopardized by the extent of my injuries. Hiking, camping, several of the other activities I enjoyed, are also jeopardized. But I will slowly build myself up. As I look to a long and painful recovery, I am comforted by a Bible verse from the Book of Isaiah. He was quoted by Jesus more often than any of the other scriptures, so i put value in his beautifully crafted sentences. Isaiah 40:31 reads: "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." I will be patent. I will endure. I will be lifted up. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: This week we have a special open conversation. It will start with one of lemuel's many sad memories of childhood, and end with reviewing how it affected his view of Halloween. I, as the voice of reason and a former pagan, will shake my head in silence. http://www.boolean-union.com/Chick/Comics/Spellbound/Spellbound.htm http://www.toonopedia.com/crusadrs.htm Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes Episode 51: Love and Happiness Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: We start with a story of a man who is a shame to the cloth in a short segment of Get the Behind Me, Felicia Lemuel: I will start the conversation this way: We will have Amity read all of the negative statements Jesus made about homosexuals and homosexuality. All of the moral correction he directed as the founder of the Christian faith, the head of the Chirsitian Church, and as I believe, God made manifest on earth. Amity: (twenty seconds of silence) Lemuel: This has been a reading of the holy scriptures where the Lord Jesus Christ condemning homosexuality. In all of the accepted canon, Jesus offers not a word. Why not? There were obviously homosexual men and women in Jesus' time, and he had not a word to say against them. Of his disciples no one has anything to say. It falls again on Paul, a man who claims the authority Christ gave to Saint Peter, to nourish the new Church, to carry the baggage of Mosaic Law into the new faith. Amity: Two thousand years years later, this dynamic continues. This time continued by “Pastor” Dillon Awes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4fcQ55Urjc https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-gay-people-solution-killings-bible-1714037 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… Amity: Next up, we take a moment to consider something very familiar through a new lens in The More You Know. "Pray then like this: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'" Jesus was a very practical prophet, and he spent his time in action. He did not spend hours conceiving and embroidering elaborate prayers. When asked for a prayer from one of his disciples he produced this. There are two versions of it, in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, with slight variations. Some scholars think this reflects the shift from a mostly Jewish Christianity to a Universal Christianity. The Lord's Prayer is an interesting example of how things have been added to the actual scripture. I learned the prayer with the addition of the Doxolgy, a hymn in praise to God. the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen I always assumed, growing up in the church, that this was a part of the prayer. It was not said by Jesus, but is included in the King James translation of the scripture. This is based on those translators using what they thought was an ancient manuscript. It is actually now a part of the prayer, though it was originally a part of the call and response of the early Church. We have posted some alternative translations of this prayer. Why? Because the KIng James Translation, so well known and memorized, has errors in it. Pope Francis bright attention to this when he addressed the line, “ …And lead us not into temptation.” “It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation. I am the one who falls. It's not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen.” Here are some examples of other versions of the Lord's Prayer. https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/lord_contemporary_message_bible.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Prayer#:~:text=%22Pray%20then%20like%20this%3A%20',deliver%20us%20from%20evil.'%22 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/06/led-not-into-temptation-pope-approves-change-to-lords-prayer#:~:text=Now%20Pope%20Francis%20has%20risked,Conference%20of%20Italy%20last%20month ORGAN END STINGER Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes and links to stories we talk about can be found there. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: This week we are discussing church and state - how it is supposed to be separate and how our activist court is eroding that separation. The first amendment to the US Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The two parts, known as the "establishment clause" and the "free exercise clause" respectively, form the textual basis for the Supreme Court's interpretations of the "separation of church and state" doctrine. Three central concepts were derived from the 1st Amendment which became America's doctrine for church-state separation: no coercion in religious matters, no expectation to support a religion against one's will, and religious liberty encompasses all religions. In sum, citizens are free to embrace or reject a faith, and support for religion—financial or physical—must be voluntary, and all religions are equal in the eyes of the law with no special preference or favoritism. In two cases this term, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court made it abundantly clear that there's little room for the separation of church and state in its regressive constitutional framework. In Carson v. Makin, the court held for the first time that a state must fund religious activity as part of an educational aid program. Maine's tuition assistance program pays for students in rural areas with no public high school to attend another public or private school. Concerned with maintaining a strong separation between religion and government, Maine has long prohibited the use of public funds to finance religious instruction and indoctrination. Many other states have adopted similar provisions, in some instances dating back two centuries. And with good reason: Avoiding compulsory taxpayer support for religion lies at the heart of the Constitution's religious liberty protections. In fact, James Madison, the principal author of the First Amendment, explicitly warned against taxpayer funding of religion, including religious education, because it would be the first step in allowing the government to force citizens to conform to the preferred faith of those in power. For these reasons, the Supreme Court has previously respected states' ability to restrict taxpayer support for religious educational activities. Indeed, for decades, the court rejected efforts to direct government funds to religious uses. In Carson, however, six justices disregarded these longstanding, historical church-state concerns. According to the court, state funding of religious indoctrination is not only permissible, but now required in some circumstances. The Carson majority thus firmly placed the free-exercise rights of the Christian plaintiffs over the Establishment Clause rights of the broader populace. One week later, it did the same in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which the court ruled in favor of a Christian public-school football coach who prayed with his players while on duty. Ignoring well-established precedent that prohibits school officials from participating in prayer with students, the majority embraced what one lower court judge called a “deceitful narrative” spun by Kennedy and his lawyers. The court characterized the coach's prayers as “quiet” and “personal,” but they were nothing of the sort; Coach Kennedy delivered his prayers audibly, at the 50-yard line, immediately after games, often surrounded by students. The court said that Kennedy had abandoned any intent to pray with students, but in fact he repeatedly demanded that he be able to continue praying with his students, declaring that he was “helping these kids be better people.” The court also claimed that no students were coerced into prayer, but the record shows that at least some players joined Kennedy in prayer solely to avoid separating themselves from their team. And in any event, that misses the broader point: As the court had recognized for over a half-century, merely forcing students to choose between participating in teacher-led prayer, protesting, or avoiding certain school activities where official prayer occurs is inherently coercive and therefore unconstitutional. “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.” John 6:15 “And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to atrap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone's opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar's.” Jesus said to them, j“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” Mark 12 13-17 “So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” John 18: 33-36 https://www.aclu.org/news/religious-liberty/the-supreme-court-benches-the-separation-of-church-and-state Amity: That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you like it, please subscribe and leave us a review - and share it with a friend. Lemuel: We have an internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com. Our show notes, links to stories we talk about, and notes for our episodes can be found there. Amity: We are also reachable at withoutworkspod@gmail.com, on twitter @withoutworkspod and on Facebook at Without Works podcast. All that information is on the website as well, so go there and have a look around. I've been Amity and he's been Lemuel, and we urge you to stay inside, and do something good. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode 49: Jesus is for Closers Not Necessarily the Good News Amity: “The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.” ― Methodist Pastor David Barnhart Your Own Personal Jesus In 1968 Augustine “Og” Mandino wrote a short book on an alternative method to success in salesmanship. It quickly became a bestseller, being translated into 2o languages and selling over 50 million copies. “The Greatest Salesman in the World,” is framed in an Orientalist fantasy. An old man, Hafid, is the most successful salesman the ancient world. He is, to his servant's and employee's surprise, looking to retire and pass on the secret of his success to someone, just as his mentor, Pathros, passed to him. Pathros took Hafid in as a young camel tender. He recognized Hafid's ambition, and tells him to sell an expensive coat in the poor community in Bethlehem. After a fruitless day, he hides in a stable for the cold night, and discovers he shares it Mary and Joseph, and the child Jesus. He gives Jesus the coat and returns to Pathros, prepared for harsh criticism from the old man. Instead of being angry, Pathros praises him and presents him with the secret to becoming a great salesman. A chest with ten scrolls that teach a counter-intuitive method of salesmanship. Each scroll must be read three times a day and meditated on. Scroll I - I will Form Good Habits and Become their Slave Scroll II - Greet Each Day With Love In Your Heart Scroll III - I Will Persist Until I Succeed Scroll IV - I am Nature's Greatest Miracle Scroll V - Live Each Day as if it Were Your Last Scroll VI - Master Your Emotions Scroll VII - The Power of Laughter Scroll VIII - Multiply Your Value Every Day Scroll IX - All is Worthless Without Action Scroll X - Pray to God for Guidance At the end of the book, Hafid finds the salesman who will carry these ten scrolls foreward: The youthful Saint Paul, on his way to start his new mission, teaching the Gospels. The inference is that by using these salesmanship principles, Paul was able to spread Christianiiy to the ends of the earth. Evangelism through marketing? It seemed that Og Mandino, raised in the Church, was using Chrisitian principles to promote a kind of secular ethical workplace. Commendable, perhaps, but as a pseudo-hisorical You might have seen the ads, and they are just that: ads, in March. I noticed them around Easter. Black and white photographs interrupted by captions reassuring us that for all his divinity, Jesus understands us. The last caption directs us to a website, He Gets Us. The Website presents more of the striking images and helpful captions. There is, for insurance a prompt: Read, and following it we can read stories of Jesus confronting things like anxiety, loneliness, broken relationships, and can hear audio on his dealing with these issues. There are links to photographs on Instagram, and video readings on YouTube. All of these features can be accessed through the Facebook page. This is part of an estimated 100 Million dollar campaign of Marketing Agency, Haven. It is supplied by private donors who form the Christian Servant Foundation and that supported by organization called the Signatry, and boasts an eccumenical approach to evangelism. The idea, began with the Signatary approached Bill McKendry, founder of Haven, and he partnered with. Gloo, another faith based faith serving advertising agency, and began this well funded enterprise. The outreach is to follow Jesus' example. “[Jesus] crafted his language and his storytelling to resonate with people,” says McEndry. “He told agricultural stories to farmers. He told fish stories to fishermen. … This culture is immersed in media, and we're using media to reach them for Christ.” The goal is to reach the unchurched, and the those who have come to think of christianiity in only negative terms. During the two month test launch of the, “He Gets Us,” site, restricted to 10 cities, 17,000 people engaged with chat, or start a Bible reading plan. The question to ask is whether this is the right approach. Are Jesus and his message merely a commodity to be exchanged? Is this reducing God to a tangible object? In both cases is it a part of a need to convert people like numbers on a scoreboard? https://hegetsus.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwj42UBhAAEiwACIhADhAPGwb0Jdr7LfBLdHjrORucq4yinwA2FiDk3DaeDIQb85BXEDhBoRoCMCkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/he-gets-us-ad-campaign-branding-jesus-church-marketing.html https://salesblink.io/blog/the-greatest-salesman-in-the-world-book-summary https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/392259242 https://thesignatry.com/ https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/whats-the-deal-with-those-he-gets-us-ads/ Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes Not Necessarily the Good News President, Dictator, and former KGB Head Vladimir Putin was attending a rally in March in support of his actions against Ukraine. This was early in the war, and over 20,000 Russians attended the rally, mostly those who support Putin's aggression and his dream of recreating an empire. Putin had given reasons before the invasion of Ukraine including stopping the Ukrainian sepratists, the villains in his interpretation, from genocide of their own people. Then he added this: "And this is where the words from the Scriptures come to my mind: 'There is no greater love than if someone gives his soul for his friends…” Yes, he quoted Jesus Christ as to why he invaded the independent country. We know that Putin, like many before him, is quoting Jesus out of context. What was Jesus' intent when he said this? “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” John 15: 12-13 https://theweek.com/russia/1011510/putin-quotes-jesus-to-justify-invasion-of-ukraine https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/1011020/war-in-ukraine-is-a-metaphysical-battle-against-a-civilization-built-on Stand Up and Testify Stand up and Testify is our way of preserving the church tradition of giving time to the congregation to stand up and talk about a moment, between weekly services, where they felt God's presence, or understood a spiritual truth, or had a moral victory. There is a lot of humor about this, and often its because the person giving their testimony is oversharing, or putting others in a bad light. I will do my best to avoid this in my testimony. Last summer I was working out with an extraordinary martial arts instructor, and in the days following developed a sore back. After a few weeks the pain kept me from sleeping, I visited my regular doctor and he said, based on my range of motion, it was a pulled muscle and could be relieved through physical therapy and ibuprofen. Eight months later I went to visit him again, insisting on X rays. I had developed dizziness, and a lack of sensation in my legs. It turned out I had a spinal infection, and that vertebrae and discs had been pitted and scored with infection. I had a nearly ten hour surgery, removing the infected discs and between two sets of vertebrae, and reinforcing the vertebrae with four sets of screws. There was a brief hospital stay and I was released home. I am recovering. I will be going back to work next week, for limited hours. I am told that I will not be able to get back to my full function in the future. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes Not Necessarily the Good News Just a few months ago former national security advisor Michael Flynn made this statement:  “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.” He did this at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio Texas, the bully pulpit of Evangelical misogynist, anti-semite, and homophobe John Hagee, best known for creating the idiotic, “Blood Moon Prophecy,” an apocalyptic prediction inspired by the cycles of the moon.  This was part of the, “Reawaken America,” tour, a call to revival under the banner of Christian Nationalism. We should point out that Christian Nationalism is a contradiction; two north end magnets repelling each other.  Theocracy is a very old idea, and never applied anywhere with any degree of success. God, who sets planets in orbit, appears to be indifferent to human governing.  The great danger to a Theocracy is that lacking God's constant intervention on sanitation issues and infrastructure, is that it must be administered by people. People who know what God intends and use scriptures to interpret it.  Michael Flynn, currently under investigation by the House Select Committee for his part in the deadly and badly botched January 6th coup d' etat,  endorses the kind of apocalyptic prophecies that made John Hagge so popular.  We have covered, in recent episodes, how the idea of how the United States has been depicted as a Chrisitian nation despite the overwhelming lack evidence. A Christian nation does not practice  genocide. A Christian nation does not practice slavery. A Christian nation does not use unjust laws to oppress people based on the color of their skin.  This is one of those occasions where the appeal to a prepared audience gets the expected reaction. An appeal to the religious minded who do not trust government authority. God will establish a kingdom on earth. In this appeal it would an earthly kingdom, not a spiritual kingdom as Jesus wanted. Who would administer their kingdom? The likes of Hagee, Alex Jones, or Michael Flynn. The Old Testament describes an attempt at Theocracy.  Not a full theocracy, mind you, but a group of wandering judges who heard grievances and made decisions based on the laws of Moses. This was a limited period of Bible history, covered in the Biblical book oF Judges. There are a dozen judges described, and to the credit of Biblical authors and editors, no one attempts to cover their moral failures and shortcomings. There were virtuous judges like Deborah, who we visited in an earlier episode, warrior judges like Gideon, and a few with superhuman abilities like Samson. Eventually this period gave way to a kingship, and that started the tradition of a centralized formal government led by a political leader rather than a prophet like Moses, or a guerilla fighter like Samson.  One of the things we can say that the United States managed to do right is to create a new kind of government, one that is not ruled by a person claiming divine leadership. It's odd that the new conservative movement is trying to bring back a failed system of  governance.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/11/19/michael-flynn-alex-jones-feucht/?fbclid=IwAR2Euhv4QlNKmpT1mQkMu-ctN_oDRGz9vsAk9gKQSTv1qVwMtXmPYxjK0rw https://gbcbowie.org/blog/how-jesus-calls-us-to-submit-to-human-government/ https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/10-things-know-bible-teaches-god-human-government/ https://www.learnreligions.com/bible-on-paying-taxes-700647 Your Own Personal Jesus In, “Your Own Personal Jesus,” we try to think about modern problems in the words of Jesus or the ideas he expressed. Conservative forces often appropriate Jesus' words' or more often, conservative writers like Saint Paul, to validate their viewpoint.  So, following Michael Flynn's statement on establishing theocracy, we thought it would be a good opportunity to look at Jesus' thinking on the subject. There is a comment, very famous, that can be applied:  Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away. The fact is Jesus seems impatient with even being asked the question. Here is something you don't hear much: Jesus had a temper, and was often cross with the constant attempts to trip him up with words. Jesus did not appreciate being drawn, with flattering words, into answering this questions.  I have read several conservative religious opinions on this, and it is interesting how this scripture is most often turned into a citation strictly on paying taxes and nothing else.  We have included samples here to show how Jesus' word are not given and primacy among Old Testament scriptures, and the ever present croakings of Saint Paul: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” ROMANS 13: 1 Ignoring the words of Paul, we can see that Jesus' words can be applied to Michael Flynn's preposterous assertion.  Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes As we approach the holiday season we will hear a great deal of rhetoric about families and family values. We will hear about the historical importance of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and how they were both expressions of Christian values. Christmas is a religious holiday that has been adopted by all kinds of people as a secular celebration. Thanksgiving is no less religious, and it has also been adopted as a secular holiday.  Thanksgiving needs to be practiced with some awareness of its problematic origins.  The first Thanksgiving was a three day harvest celebration held by about fifty Plymouth colonists who survived the difficult passage and conditions that killed off, and a little over a hundred uninvited members of the Pokanoket Wampanoag tribe, including their chief, Ousemequin. The celebration became an irregular tradition for many years, and was declared a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, an attempt to mend the country after the Civil War:  It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. The Wampanoag people, People of the First Light, were nearly decimated by contact with European settlers and traders. Speculation is that as high as ninety percent of local indeigenous populations were lost, and local confederated tribes were destabilized by the continued expansion of settlers into Indigenous lands. Many Wampanoag, devastated by illness and their helplessness in the face of mass deaths, decided to convert to Christianity. To do it, they accommodated the European ideas about Patriarchy, abandoning their own traditions where women could inherit family wealth and had a voice in tribal decisions.  Chief Ousemequin had two sons that converted to Christianity, Wamsutta and Metacom. They were given Christian names, Alexander and Phillip. Alexander died suddenly, under what many Wampanoag felt was suspicious circumstances. Phillip was not only of the opinion that the ever expanding settlers had poisoned his brother, but that they would poison him as well. He was summoned to a meeting with settlers where they accused him of resisting progress, and insisted that he signed a document demanding the surrender of all Wapanoag firearms. Chief Phillip signed the agreement but did not comply. Aggressions rose between the colonizers and the indigenous tribes. It led to what is remembered as King Phillip's War, a fight in which the Christian Indians, their loyalties divided, often took up arms against their own chief. At the end of the war 40 percent of the Local indigenous population was dead. Members of the revolt were drawn and quartered, and those parts put on public display. Chief Phillip's wife and nine year old son were sold into slavery. In 1676 Phillip himself was captured and killed.  The first recorded celebration was in 1621. King Phillip's War ended after two bitter years in 1676. Fifty one years after that first celebration of unity the settlers  and native peoples, a program of destabilization and genocide had already begun.  https://www.history.com/news/first-thanksgiving-colonists-native-americans-men Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: This week we complete our conversation  on Saint Paul of Tarsus in The More You Know.   The More You Know Lemuel: We have covered the negative aspects of Saint Paul, at least the aspects that have impacted Christianity as a faith.  We started this discussion with the question, “ Why are churches half empty, and a younger generation declaring themselves non-religious. I feel this is really due to an embrace of religious dogma and a conservative theology by the church at large. This is not the theology of Jesus, but the theology of Paul.  We have seen how Paul has affected Chrisitian thinking by laying strict rules, rather than the openness that Jesus taught. We have also seen how he assumed control from the church leaders that Jesus put in place. He was able to do this by appealing to the jewish communities, and the gentile christians, far from the church: Jerusalem.  He seems to be affecting the new church at a distance as well, from a distance of time.  With the attitude that the scripture is inviolate, and unchangeable, Paul's words seem to be fixed into the Bible with no chance of removal. Maybe this discussion can lead to a new perception of the scripture. An understanding that this collection of spiritual books was edited by scholars who thought they were preserving a part of the early church, when they may just have an outlier who became dogma through his selection. The most important thing is that with all Paul's certainty about his palace in the church, Jesus was the founder of the faith, and his open  acceptance of everyone is more important than Paul's prohibitions. Topics:  Vessels of Wrath: Paul's strange explanation of Evil. Women in the Church Doctrines on Gay inclusion in the Church Paul's troubled relationship with Judaism An overview to all that we have learned Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: This week we continue an exploration to investigate influential and problematic saint  Paul of Tarsus in The More You Know. First we are going to Texas to discuss why we don't live there - and it has nothing to do with our exes - in Not Necessarily the Good News. Not Necessarily the Good News And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. - Genesis 2.7 On September 1, 2021, 666 new laws went into effect in Texas. Just this number should be a warning to anyone with a modicum of popular culture and/or religious understanding. Included in these laws are such things as an open carry law for firearms requiring no training or license, the banning of the teaching of critical race theory, and several modes of voter suppression. I will come back to some of those in the future probably, but in addition, an abortion law was entered into the books and that's what I want to speak about today. Texas' new abortion law, which went into effect after the Supreme Court did not weigh in, could prevent the vast majority of abortions in the state. It prohibits abortions once cardiac activity is detected in an embryo. That can happen as early as about six weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant. Unlike other similar bills across the country, Texas' law doesn't set criminal penalties for violating the ban. Instead, the law allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps someone get an abortion. This timeline doesn't make any sense in terms of the reality of menstruating individuals. The timing would line up with an 8-12 day late period - which could happen for all manner of reasons outside of pregnancy, thus basically disallowing anyone from seeing an abortion at any time.  It's a bounty - Texas has put a bounty of $10,000 per individual - be it the pregnant party, their partner, the driver, hotel or motel employees, doctors, nursed, instacart workers - anyone who “helps someone get an abortion”  I read a bible passage at the beginning of this segment. Largely, the abortion debate in this county is fueled by so-called Christians who have pushed the idea that life begins at conception, which is starkly contrasted by Genesis, which refers to the breath of life, presumably indicating that the first breath is the indication of life. This follows most scientific thought which balks at late term abortion of fetuses that would be viable outside of the womb - and the reason that late term abortions are extrordinarily rare and are usually in cases of inviability or grave danger the the carrier. In this country, a living woman carrying a fertilized egg has less bodily autonomy than a corpse.  https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1032894148/in-texas-666-laws-take-effect-sept-1-including-many-conservative-priorities https://jezebel.com/the-texas-abortion-provider-who-defied-s-b-8-has-been-1847711763?utm_campaign=Jezebel&utm_content=1632177335&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1xN2osrdpMRtaTJQXFgVb3vUge95ZOkTuf6C884DE5wm5-l0fTzYYlikI https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/us/texas-abortion-lawsuit-alan-braid.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR1haJw-T7NRmOlbEBoPj4whPC9udS5lyEr6-Tyls3xIhFAHHQQ8OuNEY6k The More You Know I remember having a lunch with a friend, a practicing Jew, who discussed Jesus with me. He talked about reclaiming Jesus as a jewish man, from a jewish rabbinical tradition.  He said that Christianity was really the fault of Saint Paul, who he considered a lunatic.  A few years later I was discussing this idea with another jewish friend, who agreed that Jesus taught within the traditions of Judaism, but Saint Paul twisted and changed things to make a new, anti-semetic  religion. It's a very common criticism. As we have seen Paul was a man eager to assert his Jewishness, and constantly remind his readers of his religious education and credentials. He would never want to be seen as the man who separated Christianity from Judaism, but with some of his statements, he severed the connections. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/who-was-paul https://www.huffpost.com/entry/apostle-paul-lived-and-died-as-a-dedicated-jew_b_3376350 Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. This week we will talk about hypocrisy in the Church- and continue with our conversation about the most problematic declarations of a problematic saint in The More You Know. First, we are going to discuss current hypocrisy, ethics in journalism, and leaps of logic in Not Necessarily the Good News Not Necessarily the Good News Path of thought: Headline: “Catholic leader whose organization voted to deny Biden communion caught using gay dating app” Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had lead the charge to deny President Biden communion for his abortion stance and I started interested in the hypocrisy angle so common in GOP politicians and clergy. However, when I went to research the story, I was faced with a couple of articles from the WSJ, one of which referred to “conservative Catholic publication, The Pillar.” Read that article and two things stood out - the repeated phrase “According to commercially available records of app signal data obtained by The Pillar” and a lengthy section of the article written, supposedly in relation to Burrill's position in cracking down on child abuse in the church but clearly just written to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia. https://www.upworthy.com/catholic-monsignor-who-pushed-to-deny-joe-biden-communion-caught-using-a-gay-dating-app https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/07/20/bishop-misconduct-resign-burrill/ The More You Know What informed Paul's negative opinions of homosexuality as a legitimate way to express love? We know that he was a conservative who wanted to anchor the new faith in Old Testament tradition. There are several verses in the Old Testament about the, “sin,” of homosexuality. For instance: If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:13 Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination. Leviticus 18:22 Add to this nearly identical stories in both Genesis 19: 1-11 and Judges 19: 16-24 involving roving gangs of homosexual rapists who prey on men travelling from city to city. In both cases the travelling men are sheltered by, “righteous,” elders who offer their virgin daughters to the lustful mob in an attempt to placate their needs. In one case the mob is stopped by angels. In the other the rapists accept the travelling man's offered concubine and rape her to death. The endless cycle of kings that follow the book of Judges take turns indulging and preventing idol worship, and encouraging or punishing the male and female prostitutes that were a part of those rites. This explains why Paul, in the book of Romans, concludes that idol worship is the cause of homosexuality, and describes this as part of his construct on the origin of sin: Why did Paul add these condemnations when Jesus and the rest of the disciples did not? Paul seems to have felt that it was his job to place the new Christianity in the context of the old religion. Try to make it acceptable to people coming from Judaisim. The irony is that Paul's evangelism eventually spread outside of Jewish communities and into gentile groups. Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Sprong has written on the idea that Paul himself was a homosexual man, and that his struggle with his own urges were the basis for his writings excluding them from salvation in the new religion. Bishop Sprong's writings were inspired by theologians like Arthur Darby Nock, who visited the idea of Saint Paul as a struggling gay man. There is no actual evidence to support the idea that Saint Paul was gay. It is a concept that we must acknowledge in discussing him, but there is not biblical or extra biblical historical source that supports the theory. Others scholars have felt keenly the contradiction we brought up last week; that the same man who wrote such powerful passages about the love of God could not be the same man who wrote hurtful passages condemning sexual choices that are out of people's control. The idea here is that these passages were added later by translators and some early churchmen. That could be the case, but there is no proving it, at least not with the documents we have on hand. Finding a very old manuscript without the anti-homosexual additions would be the only way to prove it. In the end we can accept what we have: a stridently anti-gay Paul, who for his own reasons, has excluded same sex love from acceptable expression, even insisting that God has set up this rejection. Of course, as we learned last time, this is the same man who insisted that some people were, “vessels of wrath,” created by God to demonstrate his redemptive, or punishing power. If we accept all scripture is infallible, then we have to accept this as part of our faith. The prejudice is not only justified, but endorsed by God. If we say that the scripture is only right when divinely inspired, how do we make the distinction between inspired and uninspired? Maybe there is another way to look at it. Maybe, as Christians, we use the words of Jesus as a meter, and measure all of the stories as consistent with the spirit of Christ's teaching. If we look at the scriptures through a Christ powered lens, we can see where an apostle's personal opinions or struggles made it into the work. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes This week we continue an exploration to investigate influential and problematic St. Paul of Tarsus in The More You Know.  But first we're going to visit the Supreme Court in a brief detour of Not Necessarily the Good News.  Not Necessarily the Good News In its final week of session, SCOTUS ruled in favor of a Philidelphia Catholic charity that wouldn't allow same-sex foster parents. In the grand tradition of solving a problem that doesn't exist, in 2018 CSS declared that would not consider same-sex couples as potential parents for foster children. When it found out, the city of Philadelphia insisted that all its contractors agree not to discriminate. So the charity sued. It said endorsing same-sex couples as foster parents would violate its religious teachings about marriage. In response, Philadelphia said the charity was free to express and practice its religious views but not to dictate the terms of municipal contracts. The city also said the charity was not being punished for its religious views, noting that it still has city contracts, worth millions of dollars a year, to perform other services for children in foster care. SCOTUS did rule in favor of the charity, but kept its ruling narrow. The court rejected the urging of Catholic Social Services, one of 30 agencies that contract with Philadelphia to find homes for abused and neglected children, for a broad ruling that would allow religious objections to overcome anti-discrimination laws. ... The More You Know The book of Romans is a primer in Christian theology as Saint Paul constructed it. It is one of the most referenced books in the New Testament, and venerated by many Christians It was started as a letter written to the Church of Rome somewhere in  47 - 57 AD, partly to raise funds for a missionary expedition to Spain. In it Paul lays the foundation of a new theology of Christ in the context of Jewish teachings, particularly the Pharisaic tradition he was educated in.  In Romans Paul meant to show that Jesus was the culmination of jewish teaching and ideas. Jesus was the completion of all God's promises to the Jewish people. Judaism alone, without Jesus Christ, is an incomplete faith. For that reason alone Romans is a deeply problematic book.  In the book Paul sets up questions that one might raise from the traditional scriptures, then answers them as the authority on Christian teaching. It goes on this way, raising a question, generating a response, then responding to the question raised by the response.  Sometimes, it has to be said,  he paints himself into a corner.  ... Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today's painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: This week we will begin an exploration of an equally influential and problematic saint in The More You Know. But first a moment of prayer in Not Necessarily the Good News. Not Necessarily the Good News On March 24, 2021, Representative James Talrico led the Texas House of Representatives in an Invocation at the start of the session. I will read it now in its entirety. “Holy Mystery: you have so many names. The Torah calls you Creator, the Quran calls you Peace, the Gita calls you Destroyer, the Dharma calls you Truth, and the First Epistle of John calls you perhaps the most beautiful name of all: Love. You are the strange love uniting all things. The love that drew elements together after that Big Bang; the love that drew life itself from those primordial oceans; the love that drew us all to this exact moment. The love we were born of, the love we exist in, and the love we will one day return to. In my faith, you expressed yourself through a barefoot rabbi who embodied your perfect love. A crucified carpenter who gave only two commandments: love God and love neighbor. Because there is no love of God without love of neighbor. Help us love not just in word, but in action. Help us honor not just the name of Jesus, but the way of Jesus. Help us... free the oppressed, feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the sick, release the prisoner, welcome the stranger, forgive the enemy, and above all: protect your Creation. The Word of God is Love. Let us not be hearers of your Word, but doers of your Word—in our families, in our communities, and in this chamber. Not just with prayers, but with policies. Not just personal love, but political love. Holy Mystery: open our minds, open our hearts, open our hands so that we may build a new world in the shell of the old. A world that is more just, more free, more whole, and more in love with you. In all your many names, we pray. Amen.” Now this was read in an active session of a state legislature in a country whose Constitution explicitly spells out a division between church and state, so I can understand people being upset about the recitation of any prayer in that context. However, the outcry that actually occurred was much different. Rep. Jonathan Strickland tweeted: “I am disgusted such blasphemy was spoken in the chamber. Lord forgive us for turning our state over to this trash. Where are the bold followers of Jesus Christ?” - Now this is also a man who called vaccines sorcery, so we don't need to go down his particular rabbit hole. But he wasn't alone in his ire, and there were other supporters that agreed that this, possibly the least offensive, most inclusive prayer that I have ever heard. - Thoughts? Next up, let's meet the man of the hour, or next few hours, in The More You Know. The More You Know So, church attendance is down. People are no longer declaring church or even religious affiliations. Why are people turning from faith and faith communities? Among the vailid reasons is a concern about the rigidity of religious dogma, and how it discourages and marginalizes some communities. Religions like Buddhism and Christianity started as a rejection of contemporary conservative religious values. In Jesus' time minor functions of daily life were strictly monitored by religious authority. Sin was everywhere. Not just sins that we think as deadly sins, but little things. Any kind of work on the Sabbath day could transgress the law. That could include spitting, or a woman carrying a brooch that weighed over a prescribed amount. Forgiveness of sins was granted by a priest and the proper sacrifice had to be offered to secure God's forgiveness. Sins were erased by rituals, the elements of which were purchased at the temple, using special temple money. There was an exchange rate for that too. The more money you had, the more secure you were in God's favor. If you could not afford these sacrifices, you were living in sin, a social outcast. Jesus pushed back, sometimes physically, against this restrictive version of faith, a belief system meant to exclude people, particularly the economically deprived and marginalized. Jesus bypassed all the trauma and public humiliation for transgressors and just went along forgiving people their sins. “Your sins are forgiven,” he would say, and they felt accepted by God. It cost them nothing except a will to change and sincere belief. Jesus' kind of Christianity is not what people are rejecting. Where Jesus taught a faith of freedom and liberation, most modern people associate Christianity with conservatism and spiritual exclusion. Those are the same things that Jesus argued against! Why does Christianity mean misogyny and bigotry to unchurched people? Well, much of it can be put down to the writings of one influential man. His writings took Christianity in a decidedly conservative direction. For example: "Women should remain silent in the churches, They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." Here is another example of his spiritual wisdom. He explains the orgins of homosexuality: “... God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Lets stop there; there are only three specific times where homosexuality is mentioned in the New Testament. All three specific mentions are negative, and all of them have a single author: Paul the Apostle, formerly Saul of Tarsus. His story is complicated and his personality is contradictory. He started as a man out to persecute the early Christians, and then became a staunch and combative Christian convert. He was a proud Jew, and a strong believer in the primacy of the Jewish people and their primacy in the new faith, yet he rejected this, eventually calling his valued religious education, “fertilizer.” For two thousand years Christians have had to reckon with Saint Paul's contribution to the New Testament. He is remembered as a father of the church and its doctrine, but he never met Jesus, and encountered him only in a mystical vision. A friend once described it this way; “Jesus was a rock star. Paul was an accountant.” Where Jesus tore up the rules and shouted down authority, Paul endorsed new restrictive rules, rules that he sometimes claimed were divinely inspired and equally his own ideas. Historical Paul (This episode) His name was Saul, originally. He may have been named after King Saul, the first King of Israel. Like King Saul he was a member of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a roman citizen, and had a latinized name: Paul. He used the name Paul when addressing a gentile audience. He grew up in Tarsus, an ancient city in what is now Turkey, It was considered an academic center, and Paul was a product of its educational system. He was a proud and pious jew who came from a family who leaned into the Pharisee interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures. He was sent from Tarsus to Jerusalem to receive his formal religious education from Gamaliel, a teacher of enormous reputation. While living in Jerusalem, he found that members of Christian church, all loyal jews, were worshipping at synagogue, and making new converts. He resented them. It might have been that as a foreign born jew, he was anxious to show his devotion to his ancestral faith. He did have a fanatical drive to preserve his faith in a way that would have pleased his teachers. Whatever the reason he personally participated in the execution of a young Apostle, Stephen. After that he became an active member of the hunt to expose Christians. He inveigled his way into the priestly community and even got a license from the high priest at Jerusalem to arrest and imprison Christians in neighboring communities, bringing them to Jerusalem for judgment and possible execution. On one of these hunting trips, a trip to Damascus, he has a vision of Christ. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. — Acts 9:3–9, NIV He is struck blind, and remains that way until he reaches Damascus and is helped along by a man named Ananias who was warned to find Paul in a dream. He effects a miraculous cure for Paul, and he becomes an ardent evangelist for the religion he was persecuting. He became a missionary, preaching to far flung corners. He made three excursions, reaching the christian communities, teaching, creating new ideas about how to run the church, and gathering monies to fund new missionary expeditions. Twenty years after persecuting the new faith, he becomes the victim of a mob of angry jews who accuse him of defiling the synagogue by inviting gentiles. This cases a riot, broken up by roman soldiers. They arrest him. There is a trial, to which the mob is present. It is very like the circumstances that led to Jesus' execution, but Paul has a trick to pull: To appeal, as any roman citizen has the right, to roman laws rather than jewish ones. This was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing his death sentence, but he prevented it long enough to continue his long disciplinary letters to the churches he helped found. Over the next five episodes we will talk about Saint Paul's controversial ministry, and the long shadow he cast over Christianity. The Topics will include: Vessels of Wrath: Paul's strange explanation of Evil. Women in the Church Doctrines on Gay inclusion in the Church Paul's troubled relationship with Judaism An overview of all that we have learned. In the next few episodes we will take a look at the peripheral saint whose writings became the foundation of Christian conservatism. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes This week we do something a little different as we go to media for our source. We watched 1960's Inherit the Wind, based on a play based on a trial set in the south in the 1920s pitting a school teacher against the state for uttering Charles Darwin's name in his class. We discuss the spectacle, the oration, the acting and the ice cream alongside some name drops (Ussher, we see you) and some missed opportunities (division of church and state?). It's an interesting and slightly different discussion. Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Today, a short exploration into the work of Bishop Usher. But first, Amity has a condemnation of the Vatican she would like to speak to. Amity: I am using my inherent white woman power to demand to speak with Catholicism’s manager about a piece of news being reported that the Vatican, and thus the Pope, has issued a ruling said that the church should be welcoming toward gay people, “with respect and sensitivity,” but not endorse their unions. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/world/europe/vatican-same-sex-unions.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-16/vatican-refuses-to-bless-same-sex-unions/13251548 Thank you for indulging me in my ire, now let’s talk about the Archbishop that brought us, apparently, so many of today’s evangelical beliefs. Who is Bishop Ussher? He is the man who discovered the age of the earth. No, really, he figured this out. Bishop James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, Chief Primate of all of Ireland, published his 1650 masterpiece, Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, the chronicle of Asiatic and Egyptian matters together produced from the beginning of historical time up to the beginnings of Maccabees. His work added together the chronologies mentioned in the Bible, taking into account historical resources from extra biblical sources. The New Testament is easier to account for because it includes historical characters like Caesar Augustus and Pontius Pilate. The Old Testament also mentions historical figures, like Nebuchanezzar, and Cyrus of Persia. Bishop Ussher was a genuine scholar who put a great deal of research into his computations. He took into account other systems for measuring time, including constructs like lunar calendars. It took into account other historians, like Josephus. He incorporated the great scientists of his age like Kepler, the German mathematician and astronomer whose work was inspired Newton. The final result was a calendar that accounted for all of the different historical dates, and astronomical tables, and he came up not only with a date, but a time. Now this could seem like the story of an eccentric who made up his own schedule for the age of the earth, but he was an earnest historian and scientist. He created a historical timeline taking into account all of the historical sources available to him. In a world before the fossil record, before disciplines like paleontology, and when archeology was in its infancy, he tried to make sense of the world. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: Today we will investigate an instance of heathen idolatry a CPAC. Yes, someone a actually made and worshipped a golden idol. There is a historical precedent for this, and we discuss that in The More You Know. First, though, we are going to speak about taking a stand in a brief edition of Canon Fodder. Canon Fodder Popular Bible teacher Beth Moore may be the most high-profile Southern Baptist to publicly cut ties with the conservative evangelical denomination in the last year, but she is not the only one to go. Some say a string of recent departures should serve as a wake-up call for the Nashville-based network of churches. "Southern Baptists need to do some soul searching of why so many African-American leaders have left and now why their most prominent woman leader has left," said Ed Stetzer, a Southern Baptist pastor and executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. When the author and Bible teacher Beth Moore announced she was leaving the Southern Baptist Convention this week, she cited the “staggering” disorientation of seeing its leaders support Donald J. Trump, and the racism and sexism revealed in her community by his presidency. Ms. Moore is not the leader of a church, a role inaccessible to Southern Baptist women. But as an itinerant speaker, she attracts significantly larger — and more engaged — audiences than most church leaders. Ms. Moore has an electric stage presence. She is also an “exegetical powerhouse,” said Kate Bowler, a historian at Duke Divinity School who wrote about Ms. Moore in her 2019 book, “The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities.” Rather than simply telling personal stories or offering generic inspiration, she goes deep on biblical texts that can look dry or complicated to the untrained eye. Ms. Moore’s books are ubiquitous in evangelical Bible studies, which are often targeted to one gender; like secular book clubs, they tend to function as intimate social gatherings as well as sites of literary analysis. In recent years, Ms. Moore has achieved a new fame online that is distinct from her writing and speaking career. On Twitter in particular, where she has more than 950,000 followers, she found a new audience including men and non-Christians, and space to speak on topics beyond her usual portfolio of women’s issues and spirituality. Her new outspokenness has turned her into a kind of avatar for evangelical women who may be theologically conservative but are increasingly uncomfortable with the cultural politics they have seen revealed in their churches since the 2016 election. In August, Ms. Moore issued a thread that read like a fiery sermon, directly addressing the racism she saw in the white evangelical world. “White supremacy has held tight in much of the church for so long because the racists outlasted the anti racists,” she began. “Outlast THEM.” She exhorted her readers to ignore name-calling and to take the long view. And, as always, she directed them back to the text: “Stay in your Bibles,” she wrote, advising her followers to read the Old Testament prophets, starting with Isaiah, for insight into “God’s displeasure over injustice.” Then read through the Gospels, she wrote, and the rest of the New Testament: “Read, read, READ.” About her departure, she has said: "I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past," "I do not believe these are days for mincing words. I’m 63½ years old & I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/beth-moore-evangelical-women.html https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/03/11/bible-teacher-beth-moore-black-pastors-cut-ties-southern-baptists/4652217001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/03/09/beth-moore-southern-baptist-convention-president-donald-trump/6931983002/ The More You Know Lemuel: Imagine that you are the leader of your people. You didn't want the job, but you were given it by a powerful and impetuous tribal God who cannot be resisted, even by the most powerful empire on earth. Jehovah, the fierce God of the enslaved hebrews remembered his promise to his often delinquent people by rolling through Egypt, crushing all opposition to his will. He directed you to take his people out into the desert to their ancestral homelands. The people you are leading are not prepared for this. They are hardy from the rigors of living exclusively to work, but they are not prepared for mass migration through a hostile region filled with wild animals, and wild men. Worse than this, those people don’t remember this tribal God who rescued them! They have been in Egypt for so long they only know the Egyptian Gods, and not this strange, invisible God who is terrifying! Yes, Jehovah is terrifying! He is invisible, and he is everywhere. He could be over your shoulder, watching you when you sleep, watching you always. He has a very rigid idea of right and wrong. Do you want to anger him? Amity: Hell No! Lemuel: Jehovah turns rivers to blood! Jehovah kills firstborn children! Jehovah sets up world leaders so that he can crush them and their kingdoms into powder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-K8qi_AoXI Lemuel: In the interests of scholarship, I will point out that the scripture cited in Pulp Fiction is not genuine. The desert trek is hard on the ancient Hebrews. They have been divorced from their culture and religion for many years. While stopping at Mount Sianai, the place where Jehovah first revealed himself to Moses, and there God revealed that he would reveal himself. The mountain would become holy; people were not allowed to approach on pain of death. They had to wash their clothes, bathe, and abstain from sex. God was going to appear in thunder and lightening and something that would sound like a trumpet blast. Moses would go up the mountain and talk to him. Jehovah gives Moses a very specific set of laws. Ten of them. The first of his commandments was this: “You shall have no other gods before me. As if that was not clear enough, God explains his directive in detail: You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, while Moses was speaking to the Most High, the Hebrews were in a desert camp, terrified of the noises and clouds and thunder. When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. Jehovah warns Moses that the people have turned against him and were worshipping an idol. Moses has to convince Jehovah not to kill the israelites for the offense. Moses descends from the mountain, and discovers the worshiping the calf.. In a rage he shatters the commandments, written on slabs of stone, and demands the camp separate into separate groups, those loyal to Jehovah, and those who are not. Then he orders the priests to slaughter the disloyal. Yes, the Old Testament was all about hard men, and hard women, and a God who could not be disobeyed. I bring this story up because it illustrates something about the nature of the new conservative movement. It no longer has a clear set of morals, motives, or ideas. It is a cult, and the deity they worship is also made of gold. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Get Thee Behind Me, Felicia! I want to speak a moment about US Representative from the state of Georgia Margery Taylor Greene. This woman makes me want to say some very rude and uncharitable things but I am an adult and will do my best to engage with this subject in a mature way. Ms. Greene is a white woman from the south that subscribes to several conspiracy theories and has a long history of speaking some extremely heinous things.  On the floor of the House on February 3, she lied about changing her beliefs and whether she had said these things since being elected. She was rewarded with a standing ovation from the Republican caucus.  When it came time for the Republicans to vote whether or not to discipline her, they opted not to, prompting Nancy Pelosi to hold a vote of the entirety of the house of representatives. It was only at that point, when the people whose deaths she had actively campaigned for got a say, that she was censured and removed from her posts on the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committees. This woman should be removed from the legislature entirely. She is a danger every day she walks into the Capitol building. With no committee assignments she is now free to wreak havoc in a multitude of ways and has made statements indicating that this is what she wanted - martyrdom and free-time. Isn’t there some saying about idle hands? https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2021/jan/30/closer-look-marjorie-taylor-greene/540696/?bcsubid=5b564e43-821a-4006-a090-c7b307a93c91&pbdialog=reg-wall-login-created-tfp https://www.wsj.com/articles/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-she-regrets-qanon-comments-11612467411 https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2021/02/04/marjorie-taylor-greene-quotes https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jeffhood/congresswoman-majorie-taylor-greene-my-former-sunday-school-teacher/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=FBCP-TCL&fbclid=IwAR1uUX3A6qBv5LaluJ9mbxpbOhYFUa2bCrWtChaqELxJuJNTkXMsihAWv18 The More You Know Last time we discussed the different kinds of ideas that are classed as Creationism. In this segment we will try to understand the actual reason for all the fuss.  Let's go back to what Creationists are defending: A literal interpretation of the creation story that starts the Bible. Two stories begin the book of Genesis. One is filled with details about the origins of the universe,  a six day cycle of creation that culminates with the creation of Mankind, male and female and the serious charge that they are stewards of creation, maintaining balance and order. This story tells of  man and woman created simultaneously, of a world where there is no killing for food because all life is vegetarian.  The second story, In Chapter Two and Three, is about the origin of man, but also about the origin of evil. It starts with the creation of man, and the creation of woman from man, and their being left to tend a special garden with metaphysical trees. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes This week a touch of good news with a large group of clergy finally taking a stand on the right side of history and then we get further into our series on Creationism. Stand Up and Testify Last month, more than 370 religious leaders from around the world are calling for a global ban on conversion therapy.  The declaration, spearheaded by the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives, also calls for an end to violence and criminalization against L.G.B.T.Q. people. “We recognize that certain religious teachings have, throughout the ages, been misused to cause deep pain and offense to those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex,” the commission said in a statement. “This must change.”   https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55326461 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/world/conversion-therapy-pledge.html The More You Know The common idea is that Creationism is the belief that all of the elements of the natural world were created, in their present state, by a supernatural acts by divine forces. That is not entirely true. There is more than one kind of Creationist belief.  Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes For our first episode of the new year, we will spend a little time discussing a positive step for our country in Canon Fodder, and Lemuel visit an interest he’s had since childhood and discuss dinosaurs, and how they fit into the fundamentalist narrative in, The More You Know. Canon Fodder 2021 has already been quite a year. Within the first week, the sitting president of the United States fanned the flames of a coup attempt, aided by capitol police, that led to the flying of the Confederate flag within the halls of Congress for the first time ever and the death of at least 5 individuals. But that’s not what we are speaking on today- other than to say that this was a violent coup attempt and those that perpetrated it are traitors to the United States. We will undoubtedly speak more on the subject with the distance of time.  We want to talk of happier things today. And so I offer the name Stacy Abrams (pen name Selena Montgomery) for canonization today.  https://fairfight.com/about-stacey-abrams/ https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/the-internets-ecstatic-stacey-abrams-hero-worship-is-icky.html https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/selena-montgomery The More You Know Dinosaurs. I like dinosaurs. I started learning about them when I was young, and, as a little boy they were all I could read or talk about. I had many dinosaur books in my library, books that were geared towards children and young people because they had the best illustrations. When I was about eleven someone gifted me a book on Dinosaurs that was endorsed by the Institute for Creation Research. The book described the wrong headed thinking of secular scientists who taught evolution as a biological process, on people who denied the literal story of the flood of Noah, and, the part that attracted me the most, the idea the dinosaurs might be still with us, lurking in American rainforests, and African Jungles.  For years the ideas in the book stuck with me. I thought it was my responsibility, as a Christian, to believe the ideas in the book, and reject evolution as an idea, because it was represented as being in opposition with my faith.  Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Today we will have an open discussion about bad Supreme Court decisions and COVID in, “Not Necessarily the Good News.” Then, we learn about the prodigal son in, “The More You Know. NOT NECESSARILY THE GOOD NEWS: When we spoke last about the Supreme Court, it was in reference to the latest addition - at that time only a nominee - now a full fledged justice who is already on the wrong side of history and humanity with a couple of the court’s latest rulings. A phrase that is likely to make my heart sink numerous times over the coming years is “in a 5 to 4 decision” and it is with that phrase that we enter the deeply wrong rulings coming out from the court in favor of churches that have protested strict COVID measures. The arguments, first in a case from New York state brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America and then in a case from California brought by Pasadena-based Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry, which has churches across the state, were that the restrictions on gathering for worship were harsher than those on gathering to distribute food or provide shelter, two things that were often happening in the same buildings as where they seek to worship. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/26/politics/supreme-court-religious-restrictions-ruling-covid/index.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-california-coronavirus-church/2020/12/03/fcf4fcf8-357d-11eb-a997-1f4c53d2a747_story.html THE MORE YOU KNOW: Jesus was a story-teller. He taught very complicated ideas through simple, memorable parables. Sometimes, as we learned with, “The Good Samaritan,” the intention of his story gets lost in the re-telling, and, after so many years, acquires unintended new meanings. Most people think of the story of the Prodigal Son as the story of a lost son finding his way home. That’s just one part of the parable, and it has plot twists. The story is the last of three stories on a similar subject included in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. The parable of the lost lamb, of the lost coin, and the prodigal son, were used to address criticism from the Pharisees. The Pharisees, if you remember, were an influential religious party that mostly agreed with Jesus on matters of theology ( they believed in an afterlife, for instance ) but did not like his liberal interpretations of scriptures, or his disregard for their devotion to cultural tradition. We are told that Jesus had gathered an undesirable element in his public following. Since he would often bring crowds from the street into the temple, there may also have been the concern that these undesirables might come into the temple. The story starts this way, with a father and two sons, like the stories of Abraham and Issac/Ishmael, or Issac and Essau/Jacob. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes We have a freeform discussion about the election, the results, the meanings of both and where we go next. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Today we will have an open discussion about Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett in, “Not Necessarily the Good News.” And we will explore saviorhood, and how it does not apply to Donald Trump in, “The More You Know. NOT NECESSARILY THE GOOD NEWS: Judge Amy Coney Barrett is from the South and Midwest. Her career has been largely spent teaching while raising seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and one with Down syndrome, and living according to her faith. She has made no secret of her beliefs on divisive social issues such as abortion. A deeply religious woman, her roots are in a populist movement of charismatic Catholicism. From her formative years in Louisiana to her current life in Indiana, Judge Barrett has been shaped by an especially insular religious community, the People of Praise, which has about 1,650 adult members, including her parents, and draws on the ecstatic traditions of charismatic Christianity, like speaking in tongues. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/us/politics/amy-coney-barrett-life-career-family.html THE MORE YOU KNOW: In a recent radio interview, Donald Trump Jr made this foolish statement about his father: “He literally saved Christianity, there's a war on faith in this country by the other side. I mean, the Democratic Party, the far left, has become the party of the quote-unquote atheist, they want to attack Christianity, they want to close churches, they want to - they're totally fine keeping liquor stores open, but they want to close churches all over the country.” Does he speak for Christianity? No. *NOTE: we say Donald Trump Jr. But these quotes should have been attributed to Eric Trump. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/520090-eric-trump-claims-his-father-literally-saved-christianity https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-trump-says-donald-trump-saved-christianity-2020-10 Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes First up, on Friday, September 18th a cry went out over the land as the women of this country learned of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At 87, she had fought off colon cancer and several bouts of pancreatic cancer but was unable to overcome it one last time. On September 25th, she became the first woman and the first Jewish person to lie in state at the state capital, one more glass ceiling she broke with her tiny but inimitable frame. Then, in Stand Up and Testify, we first heard about Luyal Mayen on a segment of a CNN TV program. His story was intriguing: A Sudanese emigrant who launched his own company, Junub Games, after teaching himself coding while living in a Ugandan refugee camp. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/09/13/lual-mayen-computer-game-champions-for-change-vpx.cnn https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/postlive/wplive/former-refugee-lual-mayen-says-video-games-like-salaam-can-encourage-empathy/2020/02/06/2ce71add-7a20-480d-925a-d0cc9e9ca94a_video.html https://www.franciscanmedia.org/jesus-extraordinary-treatment-of-women/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2019/10/14/once-he-was-refugee-now-hes-ceo-making-video-games-peace/ Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Kimberley Guilfoyle is the kind of character who shows up a lot these days, and shows up a lot in American history: demagogue. Her personal history is checkered, as she has been the first lady of California, married to Democratic Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom, and is currently dating Donald Trump Junior. She doesn't have a consistent allegiance, or an agenda, other than to remain in the spotlight for as long as she can. We rebuke ger in Get Thee Behind Me, Felicia. Then, in Pilars of Strength, we discuss Queen Esther. The Book of Esther is a good read, It is short, and full of palace intrigue, and the kind of twists that made Alexander Dumas a popular author; assasination attempts against the King, secret plots, and, like the story of Daniel, a clever attack on the Hebrew People. Like the Book of Daniel, our brave and resourceful Queen is able to use her favor with the King to advantage; changing the nature of one of those unchangeable Persian edicts. It is a good, ten chapter read. God is not referenced directly, not even once. If anything, God is present and the force that directs the destiny of the orphan girl, her cousin Moredecai, and even the mighty Persian empire. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Recently, Shaun King, writer and activist , made this unusual proposition: “Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been… They are a gross form [of] white supremacy. Created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down.” This idea has gotten the kind of reception you would expect. Shaun King has been threatened, and his idea, ironically, has been labeled as racist. So in today’s episode we will explore racism, white supremacy and the depiction of Christ in our churches. Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depiction_of_Jesus Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Episode 28: Christ Jesus Not Necessarily the Good News Good ways to hold the bible: in both hands, under your arm, resting on your lap, or with a lectern. Bad ways to hold the bible: upside down in your fist over your head as though it were a bludgeoning weapon after ordering peaceful protesters and clergy tear gassed and removed so you can be photographed in front of a church that you have never set foot in and where you do not pray. Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/02/trumps-use-bible-was-obscene-he-should-try-reading-words-inside-it/ The More You Know Last time we talked about Jesus the man, separate from Jesus the Christ. The distinction being Jesus the historical figure that lived and died about 33 AD, founding a religious movement, and Jesus the Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World. To secular people the transition from Jesus to Christ is puzzling. How did this carpenter attain this exalted position? We learned, last week, about the many attempts to separate Jesus the teacher, and philosopher from the divine Christ. We also learned that it is not only difficult to do, but for practical purposes, impossible. So when did the transition take place? Here is the inside scoop: It never did. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Philippians Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Cannon Fodder Two Sikh doctors in Canada, brothers, made the difficult decision to shave their beards in order to serve their patients. Sources: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/16/health/sikh-doctors-beards-coronavirus-trnd/index.html The More You Know We can assume, safely, that Jesus existed. This is not a joke; there was a historical-critical trend that denied that Jesus existed at all. There are no documents written by Jesus himself, and the best sources outside of the gospels, are Josephus, a jewish historian whose very brief observation may have been altered, and Roman historian Tacitus, in AD 116. There are other references, one in a Talmudic commentary that mentions a bastard sorcerer who deceives jews with egyptian black magic, and a stoic philosopher who gave a flattering reference to Jesus as a wise king who lives on through his just rules. The records we have in the Gospels are religious biographies, full of miracles and exorcisms. If you don't believe in those things, you might think the whole story is a fiction. Can we extract something like a biography from a Hagiography? Separate the exorcisms, miracles, and divine plans from the Gospels? Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com Transcripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com Find out more at https://without-works.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Too Cool for Sunday SchoolMaybe you weren't really paying attention that Sunday Morning.. Maybe church wasn't a part of your upbringing at all. There are Bible stories that you may have heard referenced, but you don't know the details of. Now you can do a little catching up. Today we will talk about another Bible story so popular that it is often cited outside of a religious context, as an example of ethical behavior: A Good Samaritan! Bonus: Unboxinghttps://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/HOLY-LAND-MEMENTOS-Christmas-Greetings-Bethlehem/10235903793/bdFind us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.comTranscripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.comFind out more at https://without-works.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Your Own Personal JesusThis week we face the terrors of Covid 19, but together, bravely in an entry of Your Own Personal JesusLemuel: Bishop Gereald Glenn of the New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Chesterfield, Virginia passed away last week at the age of 66. He had tested positive for Covid 19 a month earlier, but insisted on continuing to hold services, and encouraged others to attend. Bishop Glenn, in one a post infection sermon, expressed indifference to dying from the virus. He also encouraged people to continue to congregate in defiance of the illness. The unfortunate Bishop Glenn’s response is the beginning of our conversation about some church response to the current pandemic. Sources:https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/us/bishop-gerald-glenn-daughter/index.htmlhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/video/fort-worth-televangelist-kenneth-copeland-calls-out-covid-19/vp-BB12pEhZhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kenneth-copeland-blow-coronavirus-pray-sermon-trump-televangelist-a9448561.htmlhttps://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.comTranscripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.comFind out more at https://without-works.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes The More You KnowBecause of the safety considerations that governments have put into place, Easter services will not be held at many churches around the world. Because of these safety restrictions, especially those about social distancing and gathering in groups, the regular traditional Good Friday and Easter services will be done through the internet and television without public participation. With that in mind, we thought it would be a good idea to explain what to expect if you had attended a Good Friday or Easter Service. Sources:https://religionnews.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-restrictions-on-easter-is-a-return-to-vaticans-not-so-ancient-rules/https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/coronavirus-vatican-cancels-public-participation-at-popes-easter-eventshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/03/27/churches-easter-trump-closed-coronavirus-services/Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.comTranscripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.comFind out more at https://without-works.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Canon FodderTonight we will declare a living person in a state of bliss: Jose Andres. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/03/17/jose-andres-says-people-have-to-eat-so-his-shuttered-restaurants-are-now-community-kitchens/https://wck.org/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Andr%C3%A9shttps://catholicexchange.com/jose-andres-famous-chef-catholic-humanitarianToo Cool for Sunday SchoolMaybe you weren't really paying attention that Sunday Morning. Maybe you had been watching Creature Features on Saturday night, and slept in the next morning. Maybe church wasn't a part of your upbringing at all. There are Bible stories that you may have heard referenced, but you don't know the details of. Now you can do a little catching up. This week, we learn of Daniel and the Lion's Den.Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.comTranscripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.comFind out more at https://without-works.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes The More You KnowWhen we last approached the topic, we were speaking about a recent development in the news: Paula White, presidential advisor and false prophet, had prayed for spiritual abortions for the satanic conspiracies against president trump. We know there is not a demonic master plan led by the democratic party, but this brings up an interesting topic. Why are fundamentalists so eager to see these evil conspiracies? Well, it goes back a way, and involves old acquaintances like Jack Chick. Sources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartinpreschooltrialhttps://psmag.com/social-justice/make-a-cross-with-your-fingers-its-the-satanic-panichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaurelRoseWillsonhttps://cvltnation.com/satanic-panic-brief-introduction-overview/Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.comTranscripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.comFind out more at https://without-works.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes We have discussed the National Prayer Breakfast before. It is a yearly, eccumencal event held in Washington D.C. and since 1980, in the Washington Hilton Ballroom. It is hosted by members of congress, and organized by the Fellowship Foundation, though attendance for the event is not restricted to Christians. President Trump followed the keynote speaker for the event, Professor Arthur Brooks, a conservative Catholic who in the past has contributed to dialogs with the Dalai Lama and President Barack Obama. Professor Brooks has recently published a book, “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.” After the Professor finished his address, Trump spoke to the bipartisan gathered clergy and began with by disagreeing with the premise of forgiveness - not only the subject of Professor Brooks’ book but the central tenet of the Christian faith. Sources:https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/politics/trump-love-enemies-prayer-breakfast/index.html?fbclid=IwAR10VnqLDsByY8vPZx9GIvV0iCGorUAMli5l9lbCc83if18wOiO5uQBe8https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-68th-annual-national-prayer-breakfast/https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/02/06/trumpatnationalprayerbreakfastcorruptpeopleputmethroughterrible_ordeal.htmlhttps://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-calls-schiff-and-pelosi-vicious-and-horrible-people-during-impeachment-victory-laphttps://www.mediaite.com/tv/jerry-falwell-jr-trashes-romney-over-vote-to-convict-trump-like-when-scar-betrayed-mufasa/Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.comTranscripts available at our internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.comFind out more at https://without-works.pinecast.coThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.