— Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

This is going to be a Christian based post so if you're not interested in reading a leftist opinion based on Christian beliefs, I invite you to just keep scrolling

I don't know how a human person can look in the eye of an oppressed person and then act in a way that continues to oppress them. The main example I'm thinking about is when the local government voted against a bill that would allow control of assault rifles WHILE SURVIVORS OF THE PARKLAND SHOOTING (literal children no less) WERE IN THE ROOM WATCHING THEM. Furthermore, an incredibly high percentage of people in power claim to be Christians, but lack even the most basic forms of empathy, one of the most fundamental parts of Christianity (and pretty much every other religion / belief system / moral compass??). How can you say you love Jesus, whose only interactions with rich people involved him telling them to sell all they had and give to the poor (the only exceptions being with those who crucified him), and then vote, lobby or otherwise advocate for policies that disenfranchise the poor?

The Acts 2 church is the epitome of the church as far as every Christian I know says, and Acts 2 says: "And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need." James 5 starts with a warning to rich people that their wealth is worthless and they will be condemned for the evils they commit just for being rich (including not paying their workers fairly) beginning with "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you" and then continues with an encouragement for poor people to not give up on the faith because their endurance will be rewarded. How can you read these passages and think that being rich is a good thing actually?

In my limited research for this short post I found multiple articles about how being rich is inherently good, one of which was literally titled "Jesus loves rich people." Like okay, technically Jesus does love everyone period, but to excuse your exorbitant wealth that you absolutely don't need while billions of people are barely surviving so that you can be Comfortable+ (which Jesus himself and various other apostles and significant figures condemn explicitly) based on that technicality? Inexcusable.

While class warfare is one of the greatest threats we face across the board, other forms of systematic oppression (which are rooted therein) are still prevalent and need to be fought. To bring a couple things into perspective, Jesus was a brown Palestinian Jew whose mother was married to a man that was not his father (who were both teenagers) who all "illegally" sought asylum in Egypt while fleeing from a government that was trying to kill them. And that just scratches the surface. Furthermore, Jesus himself said "Then he [the Father] will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

You brood of vipers. You say you love Jesus and yet you hoard wealth and disenfranchise the vulnerable. I haven't even touched on many other problems but they're evident in the Bible if you pay attention at all. Let go of what you've been taught all your life and embrace the teaching of the one who is infinitely wise and drank the cup of the wrath of God so you could be free. He said to love your neighbor, so why do you hate everyone but yourself?

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love god usa religion politics gender communism!! Jesus america power colonialism catholic bible leftist christianity capitalism socialism oppression ableism privilege rich republican democrat racism poverty imperialism liberal orthodox protestant centrist

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