Thread by @stewartdantec

I am reading in Acts this morning. The religious and political leaders are angry and afraid that teaching is happening that is threatening both their power and position. The apostles are preaching a gospel of liberation. The text says the leaders, "was overcome with jealousy."

They were not just jealous because someone was teaching a message and telling a story different than theirs. They were jealous because the apostles were, as theorist say, present a "counter-narrative". Their stories saw and loved the people and not just served the powerful.

There is something to be said about what happens when the powerful want to hold on to it and come up with all types of ways to silence and suppress others. These leaders built powerful allies, used mechanism of incarceration, and created public propaganda to protect their place.

The leaders brought the apostles before them and questioned their authority because they wanted to distance themselves from any implication in the apostle's message. Just like back then, today we are witnessing the same thing. It is a different day but it's the same play.

This is a particular story but it has universal principals. Today we are witnessing those in religious and political power who are trying to stop any type of discussion and transformation of race, racism, power, religion, gender, sexuality, history, law, theory, and theology.

We are witnessing what happens when your faith and life is more committed to power than to people, more committed to harm than healing, and more committed to lies than love. But the shout is this: the apostles did what they believed what right even when they faced resistance.

The leaders became furious and wanted to kill the apostles when they questioned the leaders authority, challenged their power, and presented, what Charles Mills calls, an "alternative epistemology". And the same is happening today. The apostles simply say, "we are witnesses."

That is what we are and what we do. Yes, they can resist a new society, a better world, a more healthy faith. They can believe talking about racism and white supremacy is more harmful than racism and white supremacy. They can create resolutions and restraints. But we wont stop.

James Baldwin was right: "..you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance."