The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry

Proclaiming the healing of humanity in Jesus and the restorative justice of God. Also on

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

register at https://t.co/G6bjPpRqBe

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Come explore C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce with us
Starting next Tuesday, July 7th!
2 cohorts: one @ 12noon EST and one @ 12pm PST

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Here is Part 2 in our series on Romans! Sin is addictive, and God sends Jesus to heal human nature -- first in himself, then in us.
https://t.co/w3oDT9Jvze

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

"It is imperative that we teach on the emotions of Jesus – not just the actions of Jesus or the words of Jesus, but the emotions of Jesus..."
https://t.co/Re5zB0f5qG

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Got questions about the role of Christian faith in American public life?

@mako_nagasawa will be teaching a timely, 8 week course in June-July

https://t.co/yIsu4VhzuW

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

The Atonement debates, and Romans 5:10 as test case: Jesus was a medical, not penal, substitute.

https://t.co/LomJKEcRqi

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

"I am your retribution," Trump said. Against who? Apparently...

Against children who cross the border unaccompanied, and the Catholic Charities folks who serve them, who now have $11 million less in funding because Trump just cancelled it.

Against a Pope who criticized Trump's double-tap missile strikes on a Iranian school which killed over 170 people, mostly children, on the first day of his illegal and unjust war on Iran.

Meanwhile, Trump portrays himself as someone embraced by Jesus, comforted by Jesus -- after taking down an image of himself as Jesus the healer.

Lots of American Christians protested the AI image. But they didn't and don't protest the retribution.

Which shows this: Something is seriously wrong with Christian spiritual formation in the U.S.

Explore why Penal Substitutionary Atonement and the theory of divine retributive justice contributes a great deal to that spiritual malformation.

Medical Substitutionary Atonement and the Early and Eastern Christian understanding of divine restorative justice must be part of our response.

Signup: https://t.co/i8qJIj8sJd
Now 3 options: Wed 12noon, Fri 3pm, Sat 9am EST.

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Mako was on the podcast of @AllenderCenter! Thank you @danallender and Rachael Clinton Chen!

Why is scapegoating immigrants a spiritual formation problem? Why is it made worse by the theology of penal substitutionary atonement?

https://t.co/sTsXP1rpxv

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Thanks to Rachel Darnall @TrueConsolation

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

When Christianity turns militant, Christian leaders have a way of invoking the language of "spiritual" warfare, then standing back & watching while the mob does the dirty work. John Knox & the 1559 riot kick-started the Scottish Reformation. Knox's rhetoric was echoed at the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6th, 2021.
https://t.co/xiXlstndZp

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Please use this link: https://t.co/OPcnzpYQWN

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

I've kept Hell in my toolbox to teach against Christian Nationalism. This is a good example of why.

Byron de la Beckwith said, “I shall oppose any person, place, or thing that opposes segregation. And further when I die I will be buried in a segregated cemetery. When you get to heaven, you will find me in the part that has a sign saying ‘for whites only,’ and if I go to Hades, I’m going to raise hell all over Hades until I get to the white section… For the next 15 years, we here in Mississippi are going to have to do a lot of shooting to protect our wives, children, and ourselves from bad [n-word]s.” (Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, p.45 - 46)

De La Beckwith was a Mississippi white supremacist who was declared guilty of murdering Civil Rights activist and organizer Medgar Evers, a friend and associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beckwith’s fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon, a rifle. Beckwith had been a member of the White Citizens’ Council in Greenwood, Mississippi. He attended and actively served the Greenwood Episcopal Church of the Nativity. De La Beckwith made a name for himself by publishing editorials in the local newspaper that mixed Christianity and white supremacy.

When Jesus taught on Hell, he was often warning people who did not want to love their neighbor (e.g. Mt.3:10 - 12; 5:22; 13:40 - 42; 25:41; Lk.16:19 - 31). How do we explain that?

What if Heaven and Hell are the same thing - the love of God - but some people feel eternal conscious resentment about it? Because God calls us to not just receive His love, but share it with others. And feel it.

We'll be discussing C.S. Lewis' classic. Two possible cohorts.
Starting March 21 (Saturdays) and March 25 (Wednesdays)
Register https://t.co/RX8jhTCaCs

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

What if heaven and hell are the same thing - the love of God - but some people feel eternal conscious resentment about it?

Discuss C.S. Lewis' classic. Two possible cohorts.

Starting Mar.21 (Saturdays) and Mar.25 (Wednesdays)

Register at https://t.co/Fi00kP8ekR

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

As the song For Good says, "I do believe I have been changed for the better."
If character growth is really growth and not just changing opinions or shapeshifting, then we are in a framework of personal struggle between good and evil, objectively.
https://t.co/JQfQNlNccU

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

The Wicked movies show us that we are probably Post-Postmodern.
In Modernism, people made truth claims, which were really power claims in disguise.
In Postmodernism, people thought if we undermined truth, we would have more equal power.
https://t.co/JQfQNlNccU

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Postmodernism gave us fascism instead.
Maybe returning to a personal struggle between good vs. evil, truth vs. lies, and beauty vs. ugliness, can give us hope.
As Elphaba says, "We can't let good be just a word. It has to change things."

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

https://t.co/s0uOZHkxiw

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Why do White Evangelicals have a developed taste for retribution?

Retired Minnesota pastor turned commentator Pat Kahnke says, “In a nation where MAGA pseudo-Christians cheer for ICE raids, buy “Alligator Alcatraz” merch, and defend a bill that devastates the poor while fattening billionaires — we have to talk about subtext. Why do people defend cruelty as Christian virtue? Why does the GOP keep pushing policies that hurt their own voters — but go extra hard on immigrants of color? J.D. Vance just said the quiet part out loud: everything in this brutal bill is “immaterial” — except the massive increase in ICE funding. This isn’t about law and order. It’s about moral hierarchy. It’s about saying, “You deserve suffering, and I don’t,” all in Jesus’ name.""

Evangelicals' affection for Penal Substitutionary Atonement theology is one contributing factor. Why? Because if you believe that God's justice is retributive, not restorative, you're likely to believe that people have to experience fear of retribution, if not foretastes of that painful retribution itself, before they appreciate the mercy of Jesus, who supposedly absorbed that retribution to "satisfy" God. And because God is infinite, you might think divine retribution is infinite.

That formation in the belief in retribution shows up in accusing people of criminality very quickly. A century ago, White Evangelicals supported the lynching of African Americans for "stepping out of line" -- often for acts of perceived disrespect, even for just standing up straight and looking eye to eye at a White person, especially a woman.

That formation in the belief in retribution shows up in political preferences. Evangelicals favor longer prison sentences and capital punishment more than the overall population. Evangelicals are more likely than the general population to justify torture of terrorists or even suspected terrorists.

And just in case you think that the word ‘Evangelical’ is based only on a self-reported label, the Pew Research Trust says that, in their studies, they also measured BEHAVIOR: "Attend religious service at least weekly" or "monthly a few times a year" compared to "seldom or never." The percentage of people agreeing with longer prison times, the use of torture, and capital punishment even given the inequalities in the US criminal justice system, *increases with the frequency of attending a religious service.*

That formation in retribution shows up in American imperialism to deal out retribution abroad. During the 60s and 70s, White Evangelicals defended the Vietnam War when the rest of the country did not.

In the early 2000s, despite the lack of justification under just war criteria, Evangelicals rushed to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The original code name for Bush's War on Afghanistan was "Operation Infinite Justice" -- even though the Taliban offered to find Osama bin Laden and turn him over. The Southern Baptist Convention officially supported the Iraq War -- without being asked, they issued a declaration for no particular reason. They doubled down when the "weapons of mass destruction" were never found, and the GW Bush administration were proven to have lied.

In 2012, a group of religious leaders released "A Call from the Faith-Based Community to Stop Drone Killings." But by contrast, Southern Baptist flagship Liberty University -- the largest Evangelical university in the world -- offered a focus in Unmanned Aerial Systems to train drone pilots.

Maybe that helps explain why GOP voters show support for strikes on, and/or invasions of, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and Greenland -- despite Trump having campaigned on peace in 2024.

But what if this whole evangelical embrace of retribution is based on a very faulty premise? What if the difference between the Old Testament and the New is not "threat of retribution" and "legal pardon"? What if the difference between the Sinai covenant and Christ is not "law and the punishments for breaking it" and "the legal satisfaction of the retributive lawgiver"?

Then the entire edifice -- emotional and intellectual -- that White American Evangelicals have built would fall. If the Sinai covenant actually expressed God’s restorative justice, and Jesus expressed its climax in restoring human nature, then we have an entirely different paradigm to proclaim.

Might a more biblically faithful, evangelistically attractive, ecumenically honoring, and socially constructive expression of Christianity emerge?

Journey with us to recover Early and Eastern Christian restorative justice.

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

Elphaba says, "We can't let good be just a word. It has to change things."

The song For Good says, "I do believe I have been changed for the better."

Maybe a personal struggle between good vs evil, truth vs lies, beauty vs ugliness, can give us hope
https://t.co/U2sk9QXvRi

[The Anástasis Center for Christian Ed & Ministry @AnastasisCenter]

The Wicked movies show us Post-Postmodernism.

In Modernism, people made truth claims - really power claims in disguise.

In Postmodernism, people thought if we undermined truth, we would have more equal power.

Postmodernism gave us fascism instead.
https://t.co/U2sk9QXvRi