Jesus and the Inversion of Social Order

Fred Laceda

They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

Mark 9:30-37 NIV

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At the Foot of the Cross: The Violent Legacy of a Theological Symbol

Fred Laceda

N.T. Wright asks why the Cross became the enduring symbol of Christianity especially if we consider its original purpose as Rome’s mechanism to literally quash dissent. In a typical Wright fashion his answer comes in a form of weaving together seemingly disparate theological threads to create a coherent metanarrative. The finished product is a comprehensive and learned theology which most Christians would agree with. What is lacking in such a theological appropriation and remembering of the Cross is the road it travelled from a violent symbol to a symbol of redemption. This road, contrary to our Christian bubble, is accompanied by antagonism, exclusion, and violent hatred. Let me tell that part of the story.

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Despicable Pharisees: Reflection on Luke 18:9-14

Nestor Ravilas

What else could we get from the story? Its lesson is plain and simple, “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted”. To dig more to it is to overdo it, and to overdo it is to spoil it. So better go and do what it says!

But for those with untrammelled imagination, follow me please into the wild.

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Poor and Strangers: The sacrificial victims among us a reflection on Mark 9:38-48

By Nestor Ravilas

They do not have to be innocent; they must be defiled with criminal stigma to deserve punishment. After all, Jesus himself was not an innocent victim as traditionally assumed. Otherwise, the crowd will not unanimously participate on his death if he was declared guiltless. His putative pretension to be the king of the Jews was the crime that had persuaded the mob to participate on his lynching. An innocent sacrifice will cause repulsion, which will jeopardize the position of those in power through a sudden gush of revolt. The case of Kian Delos Santos is a case in point. It is necessary for surrogate victims to be demonized, to be branded either as criminal or monster. There goes the argument that drug addiction and criminality are one and the same.

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Karl Marx, Apocalypticism, and Jesus the Galilean: Intersecting Theories of Social Change In the Age of Frustration

by Nestor Ravilas

I am no expert of other religions, so I am not in a position to speak on their behalf. It happens they bear the same malady I am about to spit, then let my words waft over their sacred spaces. I am quite sure of one thing, however, Christianity is an alienating force that separates us from what supposedly are integral parts of us. The body will go ruin and will be replaced by a glorious one, we will leave for a perfect world while watching this world go down decay, and our true family are those who will go with us in blessed eternity, just to mention three of the plethora of such absurdity.

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