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Timothy Isaiah Cho

@tisaiahcho

10 Oct

On numerous occasions, I've heard Christian leaders talk about how "people are changing the definition of racism" that's "different from what we grew up with." The "new definition," they argue, comes from Critical Race Theory/Marxism/liberalism, and therefore is bad.

The problem is that we don't do this with nearly any other sin. "Sexual immorality" from a previous generation has had to be defined more expansively to include the changing dynamics and influx of nearly ubiquitous porn, the recognition of sex trafficking and sex slavery,

as well as systems, laws, and policies that tend toward sexual licentiousness.

Likewise, our understanding of murder has had to be expanded and reshaped to include ethical questions such as abortion, euthanasia, and any systems that may tend toward unjust death.

With many

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Timothy Isaiah Cho

@tisaiahcho

1 Oct

Defining "justice" only by its negative and delimiting aspects (e.g. upholding the law, punishing evildoers, restricting evil) results in a deeply deficient view of the role of governing authorities.

"Justice" according to the Bible not only has negative aspects but it also has

positive aspects. Justice is giving people what they are due as imagebearers. It is to promote flourishing and shalom. It is to make straight that which is crooked. It is to be a support and succor to the most vulnerable.

We must affirm both the negative and positive aspects of

justice for it be justice at all, biblically speaking. Half of justice is an injustice.

Therefore, when we affirm that the Bible sets a vision of justice to be upheld by governing authorities, we must realize that this includes both bearing the sword and lifting up the

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Timothy Isaiah Cho

@tisaiahcho

30 Sep

Real divisiveness is any attempt to rebuild the wall of hostility between peoples that Christ tore down.

Racism, White supremacy, and White nationalism are ultimately theological and demonic attempts to undo the work of Christ.

Silence and inaction is floating in its current.

Fighting against those who fight against anti-gospel principalities of racism is playing into the devil's hand, who knows he cannot thwart God's ways but seeks to divide God's people and make them bite and devour one another rather than bear faithful witness in this world.

There is a time for disagreement and debate about policies, procedures, and the best way forward. But the telos of these conversations is to meet the urgent need of casting light into the darkness of White supremacy that holds many captive. Pious and studious inaction is...

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Timothy Isaiah Cho

@tisaiahcho

22 Sep

In the Bible, idolatry is identified primarily by practice first, not by what one professes. The prophets and Jesus were all too familiar with those who would say the right things while walking in darkness.

A main test of orthodoxy to the first table of the Law was not...

whether someone affirmed accurate understandings of Yahweh, but rather, the health of their practice - both religious and social. To believe rightly and to do rightly was held together. There is no division between a "head theology" and a "hands theology."

Reading the Bible...

with this in mind should shape the way we approach questions of orthodoxy in the midst of heinous heteropraxy.

We should not baptize a post-Enlightenment emphasis of the rational mind above the other faculties to create a novel category of Christians who were "theologically...

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Timothy Isaiah Cho

@tisaiahcho

21 Sep

Christian leaders with a significant amount of clout need to recognize that, for better or for worse, many Christians look up to them. Not only actions and words but also inaction and silence play a formative role on people these leaders may never see face to face.

This is especially important for Christian leaders to consider if they think that they can make necessary change simply "behind closed doors" without the need of a prophetic and public voice. When you do not speak the truth boldly and publicly, you perpetuate cycles of abuse and

injustice.

If you remain publicly associated with institutions that have a track record of damaging the witness of the gospel without voicing opposition, you are helping the institutions continue to wreak havoc.

I say these things as someone who has had conversations with

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Timothy Isaiah Cho

@tisaiahcho

19 Sep

Did you know John Winthrop, a leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony whose "A Model of Christian Charity" set forth the puritan colonists' vision of establishing a "city on a hill," was not only a slaveowner but helped to write the first law in North America legalizing slavery?

Not only that, but the Massachusetts Bay Colony often traded Native American prisoners for enslaved Africans as a way to "get rid of troublesome" Pequot Indians.

Within a few decades of the passing of the first law legalizing slavery, the Colony passed a law stating that the

children of enslaved people inherited bondage.

Yes, the language and vision of a "city on a hill" and "a model for Christian Charity" were used in the same breath as creating systems and institutions of heinous injustice, even the first of their kind in North American. American

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