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Jo Luehmann

9 Sep, 11 tweets, 2 min read

The book of Revelation has been one of the most debated books of the canon. Up until the reformation many theologians argued it shouldn’t be a part of the NT canon.
(1)

Martin Luther proposed removing it from the canon and John Calvin didn’t write a commentary on it even though he said he was going to write a commentary on every book of the NT. They didn’t want to add it not because it wasn’t a good book,
(2)

but because it contradicted some of the doctrines they had created and written about.

The book of Revelation is easily the most anti-empire book in the NT, it takes the ideas of Jesus w/imagery that was familiar to Jewish ppl, to extrapolate all of it and stand against
(3)

the oppression of the empire. While Jesus resisted religious oppression and Jewish elites that cared more about money and status than people, the book of Revelation resists Rome and shows how Rome is the new Babylon and it’s promises of economic stability
(4)

and military power must be opposed and resisted by the Church (the people of God).

The whole entire book is written by a marginalized person to marginalized ppl, it’s to be read from oppression and not to oppress.
(5)

It’s the kind of book that governments would ban because it incited rebellion. The Slave Bible published in 1807, three years after the Haitian Revolution omitted Revelation, omitted huge parts of the book of Exodus (referenced in Revelation),
(6)

omits a lot of the prophetic books of the OT (also referenced in Revelation). The Haitian revolution was the only slave revolt in history where enslaved ppl successfully drove out their European oppressors.
(7)

After it the US and Europe were worried that the people they oppressed all over the world would start revolutions against them, so they took measures to ensure that didn’t happen, one of them was editing the Bible to highlight obedience and submission.
(8)

When I say Christianity has been used as a weapon of oppression, this is exactly what I mean. It’s not that Christianity was meant to be oppressive, it started in the margins, w/the oppressed and abused.
(9)

It was taken from there and then co-opted and appropriated to harm those it was for. Like everything good the marginalized create.

Decolonizing faith includes remembering that for those who were being oppressed by the empire in first century Rome,
(10)

believing that heaven was possible if we cared for and centered the hurting, for them this faith wasn’t about harm, manipulation and oppression. It was about liberation.
(11)

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Jo Luehmann

@JoLuehmann

10 Sep

On the doctrine of the rapture. A thread:

Martin Luther didn’t translate the Bible into German so that ppl could engage freely w/it and get to their own personal conclusions, but instead so that they could all arrive at his conclusions.
(1)

He believed the papal office was the anti-Christ, and the Bible was the source of revelation of God. He was frustrated w/corruption inside the church and the church abusing ppl for political and financial gain, and he believed that ppl needed the Bible to see what he saw.
(2)

He was right about a lot, his frustration was justified, but his conclusions about his work were misguided. Luther believed he was living in the End Times and the story of the Bible was about him and what was happening in the world and to him could be explained w/the Bible.
(3)

Read 12 tweets

Jo Luehmann

@JoLuehmann

7 Sep

I find it very interesting when Christians say things are clear and definitive in the Bible, when they say there are absolute truths that Christianity holds and has always held, because if you study just a little bit of the history of Christianity...
(1)

you can see nothing is furthest from the truth. Doctrines have changed through the centuries, beliefs are varied about every single thing, and there is absolutely no universal agreement about anything, not one thing.
(2)

This desire and insistence on having absolute final truth about things, the need to be right, the insistence on others adopting our views and ideas, it is all rooted in supremacy complexes, in unhealed egocentrism, and deep insecurities.
(3)

Read 11 tweets

Jo Luehmann

@JoLuehmann

2 Sep

I get it, for those of us who have been harmed and abused due to toxic Christianity, it’s hard to not look at Christianity and condemn it as a whole. And as a survivor we are absolutely entitled to toss the whole thing and never look back.
(1)

I don’t care if you never open a Bible, frown every time you see one, and never want to step foot in a church again. You don’t have to like Christianity at all, you don’t ever have to engage with it, you can scoff at the mention of it.
(2)

I genuinely think what matters is moving toward healing and wholeness and neither one of those is predicated on your relationship with an ancient book, or a faith adjacency.
(3)

Read 12 tweets

Jo Luehmann

@JoLuehmann

26 Aug

Entitlement is having a right to something. We are all entitled to safety, to respect, to love. Inside of Toxic Christianity people are taught they are entitled to a lot of things they are not actually entitled too,
(1)

and that becomes psychological entitlement “a personality trait characterized by pervasive feelings of deservingness, specialness, and exaggerated expectations” according to the APA.
(2)

Christian entitlement is enforced when leaders and pastors think you have to do what they say, you don’t. Nobody entitled to your decisions.
(3)

Read 14 tweets

Jo Luehmann

@JoLuehmann

15 Aug

On Christianity and trauma
A thread:

My favorite, most simplified definition of trauma is loss of safety*. Trauma can be acute, chronic, complex or generational (google epigenetics)**.

(1)

We will all experience trauma in our lifetime, trauma is unavoidable, a part of being alive and being human. The goal is to have the best possible tools at our disposal to address trauma and heal. The goal is to ensure all humans have the best tools too.
(2)

The goal is not to avoid trauma (which can be traumatic in itself as your reality is denied or you are blamed for the trauma) but to recognize it, name it, and heal from it. To then let it teach us about ourselves and the stories we’ve been told about who we are,
(3)

Read 13 tweets

Jo Luehmann

@JoLuehmann

13 Aug

Let’s talk about impostor syndrome and Christianity.

A thread:

According to the APA, imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that causes someone to believe they are inadequate, a failure or unqualified, even though all evidence indicates the opposite.

(1)

Savior Complex is a psychological construct that makes a person feel the need to “save” other ppl*. Ppl who exhibit savior complex tendencies try to change others, can’t listen without giving advice, interrogate instead of have conversations, have codependent tendencies,

(2)

and see themselves as a teacher and expert just by virtue of being them, not because they actually are either.

* peopleskillsdecoded.com/?s=savior+comp…
Self-favoring biases, self preservation, and their self-other asymmetry in social comparisons by Vera Hoorens.
(3)

Read 17 tweets

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