Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible

Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible PDF Author: Brian Rainey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351260421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible looks at some of the Bible’s most hostile and violent anti-foreigner texts and raises critical questions about how students of the Bible and ancient Near East should grapple with "ethnicity" and "foreignness" conceptually, hermeneutically and theologically. The author uses insights from social psychology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, sociology and ethnic studies to develop his own perspective on ethnicity and foreignness. Starting with legends about Mesopotamian kings from the third millennium BCE, then navigating the Deuteronomistic and Holiness traditions of the Hebrew Bible, and finally turning to Deuterocanonicals and the Apostle Paul, the book assesses the diverse and often inconsistent portrayals of foreigners in these ancient texts. This examination of the negative portrayal of foreigners in biblical and Mesopotamian texts also leads to a broader discussion about how to theorize ethnicity in biblical studies, ancient studies and the humanities. This volume will be invaluable to students of ethnicity and society in the Bible, at all levels.

Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible

Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible PDF Author: Brian Rainey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351260421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book

Book Description
Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible looks at some of the Bible’s most hostile and violent anti-foreigner texts and raises critical questions about how students of the Bible and ancient Near East should grapple with "ethnicity" and "foreignness" conceptually, hermeneutically and theologically. The author uses insights from social psychology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, sociology and ethnic studies to develop his own perspective on ethnicity and foreignness. Starting with legends about Mesopotamian kings from the third millennium BCE, then navigating the Deuteronomistic and Holiness traditions of the Hebrew Bible, and finally turning to Deuterocanonicals and the Apostle Paul, the book assesses the diverse and often inconsistent portrayals of foreigners in these ancient texts. This examination of the negative portrayal of foreigners in biblical and Mesopotamian texts also leads to a broader discussion about how to theorize ethnicity in biblical studies, ancient studies and the humanities. This volume will be invaluable to students of ethnicity and society in the Bible, at all levels.

All God's Children

All God's Children PDF Author: Steven L. McKenzie
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664256951
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
In this much-needed reminder for those struggling to live faithful lives today, Steven McKenzie insists that the Bible's true message leads Christians away from the evils of racism and narrowness of bigotry to God's vision of humanity and unity.

Prejudice and Christian Beginnings

Prejudice and Christian Beginnings PDF Author: Laura Nasrallah
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451412851
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
While scholars of the New Testament and its Roman environment have recently focused attention on ethnicity, on the one hand, and gender on the other, the two questions have often been discussed separately-and without reference to the contemporary critical study of race theory. This interdisciplinary volume addresses this lack by drawing together new essays by prominent scholars in the fields of New Testament, classics, and Jewish studies. These essays push against the marginalization of race and ethnicity studies and put the received wisdom of New Testament studies squarely in the foreground.

Intensional

Intensional PDF Author: D. A. Horton
Publisher: NavPress Publishing Group
ISBN: 1631466917
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
When it comes to the ethnic divisions in our world, we speak often of seeking racial reconciliation. But at no point have all the different ethnicities on Earth been reconciled. Animosity, distrust, and hostility among people from various ethnicities have always existed in American history. Even in the church, we have often built walls--ethnic segregation, classism, sexism, and theological tribes--to divide God's people from each other. But it shouldn't be this way. God's people are the only people on earth who have experienced true reconciliation. Who better to enter into the ethnic tensions of our day with the hope of Jesus? In Intensional, pastor D. A. Horton steps into the tension to offer vision and practical guidance for Christians longing to embrace our Kingdom ethnicity, combating the hatred in our culture with the hope of Jesus Christ.

The Bible and Racism

The Bible and Racism PDF Author: Chase Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781549630538
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Racial discord seems to be at a fever pitch currently, and people are nervous. With a polarizing U.S. president, an explosive white supremacy rally taking place in Charlottesville, constant terror attacks all across Europe, and a new racial controversy every week, most countries seem to remain constantly on a heightened state of racial anxiety and alert. Is there a solution, or is violence and more painful strife inevitable? The Bible and Racism examines what the Bible really has to say about racism. Does the Bible actually justify racism? (No!) Does the Bible justify race-based slavery? (Not at all!) Does the Bible advocate for the segregation of races on Sunday mornings (Quite the opposite!) Does the Bible justify servanthood and bond-servants? (Yes, it does - read inside to see how that is a good thing.) This book covers comprehensively every major issue of race and gives a plain-sense answer from the Word of God. You will learn how Confederate pastors twisted Scripture to justify their abhorrent and unbiblical theology. You will see how pastors and government leaders during the 1950s-1970s sought to explain their segregationist policies by abusing the clear teachings of Scripture. Ultimately, you will see that God created all humans (no matter their ethnicity, skin color, nor nationality) in His Image. You will see that Jesus prayed for His followers (Red, Yellow, Black and White) to all be unified and together in the deepest way possible. Finally, you will see that the church in Heaven is made up of every ethnicity, skin color and nationality all worshiping on level ground together, shoulder to shoulder, and you will come to understand that Jesus has called His church on earth to reflect the reality of the unified church in Heaven! My name is Chase, and I am a white, Southern-Baptist pastor from Birmingham, Alabama, USA - the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement. Just a few years ago, I realized that maintaining a quietly neutral attitude about race and racism wasn't going to cut it anymore. As a pastor, I thought that I could help out with racial issues by being nice to everybody, cultivating friendships with people of other races, and decrying racism from time to time on social media. That was a naive strategy, and it is not nearly enough. Jesus, in His Word, calls believers to PURSUE peace and oneness, and that pursuit is what this book is about. Racial harmony is possible and racial unity is possible, but there are many false, but old and dearly held beliefs, that will have to be crushed under the hammer of God's Word in order to get to a place of real peace. Please join me and let's see What the Bible REALLY Says about Racism!

God: An Anatomy

God: An Anatomy PDF Author: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525520465
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers—with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous. "[A] rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh’s body, from top to bottom (yes, that too) and from inside out ... Ms. Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun.”—The Economist The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male. Here is a portrait—arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible—of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe—and every part of the body in between—this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.

The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics

The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics PDF Author: C. L. Crouch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108473431
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Balances historical and contemporary concerns in an engaging and informative way, drawing connections between ancient and contemporary ethical problems.

Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible

Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible PDF Author: Mark G. Brett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198883048
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
A Christian imagination of colonial discovery permeated the early modern world, but legal histories developed in very different ways depending on imperial jurisdictions. Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible: From Moses to Mabo explores the contradictions and ironies that emerged in the interactions between biblical warrants and colonial theories of Indigenous natural rights. The early debates in the Americas mutated in the British colonies with a range of different outcomes after the American Revolution, and tracking the history of biblical interpretation provides an illuminating pathway through these historical complexities. A ground-breaking legal judgment in the High Court of Australia, Mabo v. Queensland (1992), demonstrates the enduring legacies of debates over the previous five centuries. The case reveals that the Australian colonies are the only jurisdiction of the English common law tradition within which no treaties were made with the First Nations. Instead, there is a peculiar development of terra nullius ideology, which can be traced back to the historic influences of the book of Genesis in Puritan thought in the seventeenth century. Having identified both similarities and differences between various colonial arguments, and their overt dependence on early modern theological reasoning, Mark G. Brett examines the paradoxical permutations of imperial and anti-imperial motifs in the biblical texts themselves. Concepts of rights shifted over the centuries from theological to secular frameworks, and more recently, from anthropocentric assumptions to ecologically embedded concepts of Indigenous rights and responsibilities. Bearing in mind the differences between ancient and modern notions of indigeneity, a fresh understanding of this history proves timely as settler colonial states reflect on the implications of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Brett's illuminating insights in this detailed study are particularly relevant for the four states which initially voted against the Declaration: the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Racism and the Weakness of Christian Identity

Racism and the Weakness of Christian Identity PDF Author: David Kline
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429589638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Despite the command from Christ to love your neighbour, Western Christianity has continued to be afflicted by the evil of racism and the acts of violence that accompany it. Through a systems theoretical and deconstructive account of religion and the political theology of St. Paul, this book traces how the racism and violence of modern Western Christianity is a symptom of its failure to secure its own myth of sovereignty within a complex world of plurality. Divided into three sections, the book begins with a philosophical and critical account of what it calls the immune system of Christian identity. Focusing on Pauline political theology as reflective of an inherent religious "autoimmunity" built into Christian community, a theory of theological-political violence is located within Western Christianity. The second section traces major theoretical aspects of the historical "apparatus" of Christian Identity. It demonstrates that it is ultimately around the figure of the black slave that racialized Christian identity becomes a system of anti-blackness and white supremacy. The book concludes by offering strategies for thinking resistance against such racialised Christian identity. It does this by constructing a "pragmatics of faith" by engaging Deleuze’s and Guattari’s use of the term pragmatics, Moten’s theory of black fugitivity, and Long’s account of African American religious production. This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary view of Christianity’s relationship to racism will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Theological Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Race Studies, American Studies, and Critical Theory.

Is Christianity the White Man's Religion?

Is Christianity the White Man's Religion? PDF Author: Antipas L. Harris
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830848258
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Among many young people of color, there is a growing wariness about organized religion and Christianity in particular. If Christianity is for everyone, why does the Bible seem to endorse slavery? Why do most popular images of Jesus feature a man with white skin and blue eyes? Is evangelical Christianity "good news" or a tool of white supremacy? As our society increases in ethnic and religious diversity, millennials and the next generation of emerging adults harbor suspicions about traditional Christianity. They're looking for a faith that makes sense for the world they see around them. They want to know how Christianity relates to race, ethnicity, and societal injustices. Many young adults have rejected the Christian faith based on what they've seen in churches, the media, and politics. For them, Christianity looks a lot like a "white man's religion." Antipas L. Harris, a theologian and community activist, believes that biblical Christianity is more affirmative of cultural diversity than many realize. In this sweeping social, theological, and historical examination of Christianity, Harris responds to a list of hot topics from young Americans who struggle with the perception that Christianity is detached from matters of justice, identity, and culture. He also looks at the ways in which American evangelicalism may have incubated the race problem. Is Christianity the White Man's Religion? affirms that ethnic diversity has played a powerful role in the formation of the Old and New Testaments and that the Bible is a book of justice, promoting equality for all people. Contrary to popular Eurocentric conceptions, biblical Christianity is not just for white Westerners. It's good news for all of us.