Aight, this bout to be a long thread that’s less about Patriarchy Hannah (or whoever is behind this account) and more about what the existence of this account and the drama surrounding its exposure (and White People Business in general) tells us about ourselves as a society. 1/15

https://twitter.com/pastortrey05/status/1891667828270366927

First things first… whoever is behind that account straight up said “I was lyin” (which should have gone without saying. folks are severely lacking in discernment) and the response from some was “keep the account and turn it into parody.”

Beloved…. 2/15

I have become FASCINATED by the biblical story of Isaac. 🧵

I had a shower thought that turned into a bit of a whale hunt for me.

But here it is: if you read Isaac as intellectually disabled, nothing about him makes less sense and a whole lot of stuff makes more sense. 1/7 Isaac’s parents were old as all get out when they had him.

100 & 90. And that’s a MAJOR emphasis in the story. “These people are REALLY old.”

Nowadays, advanced maternal age is associated with all sorts of potential complications. Including fetal chromosomal abnormalities. 2/7

After the Civil War, the U.S. tried to build a multiracial democracy for the first time.

It mostly worked.

And many white southerners were LIVID. Never stopped plotting to roll it back.

They finally seized their opportunity in the aftermath of the election of 1876… 1/6

https://twitter.com/solomonmissouri/status/1859186688574079003

The results of the election were disputed, but ultimately settled when the Democrats accepted Rutherford B. Hayes as President… in exchange for federal troops being removed from the former Confederate states, marking the end of Reconstruction & multiracial democracy. 2/6

When I was 17, an adult white man learned the teenaged white girl he was dating once liked me. He got my number & spent days threatening my life.

I’m not new to racism 😂

But I’ve been called a n——r on this app more in the past 6 months than I have in my entire life. 1/6 I’m not saying this for sympathy, but to show you the goal of what is being normalized in front of our very faces.

Online. At rallies. On cable news. In churches. Everywhere.

There are people who believe that their goals are best achieved with a less compassionate populace. 2/6

I need us to realize something:

America has only resembled a democracy for less than 60 years. Since 1965. That’s when the Voting Rights Act passed.

That’s within the lifetime of both major party nominees for POTUS right now.

That’s how young this thing is.

AND… 1/7

https://twitter.com/pastortrey05/status/1829228597070180574

For a full century before that (the majority of US history) we’ve been locked into our current two party structure.

All realignments happened either before (or directly because of) 1965.

Our current system is not going to nurture your dreams of a viable 3rd party.

UNLESS… 2/7

I can understand a lot of reasons for not supporting Biden. I cannot understand any reasons for drawing false equivalencies between the weaknesses of these two candidates.

Yes, one of them is old and seems to be in decline.

And the other one does not believe in elections. 1/15 Perhaps I would understand more about the desire to draw these false equivalencies if we did not all watch January 6 happen on live TV.

But we did.

We saw one of the candidates for *this* election refuse to accept the results of the last one.

Multiple people died. 2/15

I love when people suggest that the Electoral College was created to protect rural voters from a tyranny of a majority of urban voters.

Cuz it’s true.

Now, let’s put our thinking caps on:

Who were these rural voters, and what might they have been nervous about? 🤔 1/11 What interests might someone in late 18th century North America who lived in large swaths of land with pretty low population density have had that many voters in densely populated urban areas may not have shared?

And might those interests have led to *other* compromises? 2/11

In Luke 10:29, someone (rightly) affirms to Jesus that “love your neighbor as yourself” is a critical command. However, they follow that up by asking “who is my neighbor?”

And Jesus answers with a story.

However, I see people asking another question now.

“What is love?” 1/9 I define love as “the commitment to wholeness.”

Not a feeling. A decision. A commitment. Love is that which says “I will do what it takes for you to thrive. For you to experience freedom. For you to be all that you were created to be.”

That’s what love looks like. 2/9

You know what? We gon use this as a teaching opportunity.

Time for a #LetsGetBetterAtReadingTheBible 🧵

The Bible repeatedly frowns upon angels/“sons of God”/“strange/foreign flesh” having sexual relations with actual human beings.

1/13

https://twitter.com/pastortrey05/status/1779591546855096338

The first time we see this pop up is Genesis 6. There’s people everywhere. (6:1)

And the sons of God are like “…I like how that look. Ima get me some human action.” (6:2)

They made babies. (6:4)

God is like “hell naw. Restart the phone. Put it in some rice.” (6:7) 2/13

Look… is Lee Greenwood releasing a “God Bless the USA Bible” something I could potentially get behind in the right circumstances?

No.

But is “God Bless the USA” a dope song?

Also no. Y’all want a song that actually captures the aspirational essence of America?

I can even give you one sung by white people with a good ol bluegrass feel to it.

It’s “Can You Run” by The SteelDrivers, featuring none other than Chris Stapleton.

Whether or not babies are sinners is a theological issue pondered by people who are not facing real issues and tangible sin.

If the people telling you that you were born in sin also own & traffic people who look like you, you not worried about sinner babies no more.

https://twitter.com/madryaeltong/status/1771313897938530520

I fully affirm the idea that babies are born *in sin*. But they literally can’t do anything. They’re not active participants of the thing they’re born in.

Callin babies sinners is stupid.

And it’s kinda stupid to spend real time thinkin bout it. GO FEED THAT BABY!

This is an area of legit fascination for me, and I do have thoughts. Pull up a chair if you bout that life.

Here’s the “too long; didn’t read”: Black culture is America’s first indigenous non-agrarian export.

🧵 1/18

https://twitter.com/_the_enchanter/status/1770798894550532271

America (as we perceive of it), being a colonial project, did not have much of a positive identity of its own. They were *against* plenty of stuff (a negative identity). But not *for* anything particularly original.

They were mostly just lightly estranged Europeans. 2/18

…y’all ever seen that clip of Brian Scalabrine givin casual YMCA-pickup type hoopers BUCKETS?

It’s a funny experiment on whether or not an amateur hooper could beat someone who many think is a bad/unremarkable professional player. 1/9

youtube.com/shorts/CylXSCj… Many of the people reading this don’t know who Brian Scalabrine is without Google.

But he was a professional basketball player.

Averaged 3 points a game for his career.

Not thought of as a great NBA player.

But he was *still* a PROFESSIONAL basketball player. 2/9

Aight, I’m waitin on the Comcast dude to finish installing the equipment in the office, so let’s have a conversation about “the wrath of God” and how penal substitution makes a mockery of it.

First things first: the wrath of God is real, and to be taken seriously. 1/8 HOWEVER!

The idea that the wrath of God is satiated by blood sacrifice (much less HUMAN sacrifice, which is patently against the testimony of God in the Hebrew Bible) is not soundly supported by the biblical texts.

Some dudes made that up centuries after the crucifixion. 2/8

Aight. #LetsGetBetterAtReadingTheBible

Whenever I talk about how penal substitutionary atonement misrepresents the character of God—because no “good” god would torture an innocent person to death to satiate their wrath—someone brings up Isaiah 53 like that’s gon stump me. 1/15 Firstly, I want y’all free of the addiction to prooftexting everybody to death by mercilessly ripping pieces of scripture from their context in order to support the presuppositions 16th century theologians told you to bring to the text.

But back to Isaiah 53… 2/15

Every time I talk about how penal substitutionary atonement is awful, someone reaches out to tell me they didn’t even know there were other options, and I get to preach the gospel all over again! 🙌🏾

So here goes: 1/3 “Why did Jesus have to die?”

Because in faithfully loving humanity and being committed to their wholeness, he was received with hostility.

And in that fact, we find the extent of the sin of the world.

The way of the world would torture and execute God in the flesh. BUT… 2/3

Aight… I’ll answer these questions in short up top, and then it’s time for us to have a bit of a conversation about “risking nuance” and the *performance* of safety.

The answers are “sure, I guess,” and “not really.”

Now… about that conversation: 1/22 I was raised in and ordained in church traditions that are not out & out “affirming.”

I entered adolescence and adulthood believing gay people should have the right to marry, and I maintain the same.

I’ve travelled in communities where some people agree & some do not. 2/22

If your child is queer… and they have a big ol gay wedding… don’t use the Bible as an excuse to skip.

There are no wedding ceremonies recorded in the Bible.

Banquets? Consummations? Yes.

You can blame the Bible for skipping those.

Otherwise, just tell em you don’t like em. A lot of people are not being entirely accurate with what the Bible says about marriage.

“The Bible defines marriage as between one man and one woman.”

Well… no, actually. It doesn’t.

Sure, I’ll spot you a man and a woman.

But it doesn’t specify the number.

Many arguments about abortion (often wrongly, in my opinion) center unwanted pregnancies.

But the thing about that is… literally every single unwanted pregnancy is cause by a male climaxing.

That sounds obvious, but it’s important to name that. 1/5

https://twitter.com/_nomadic_soul/status/1745994657312780557

There is nothing about pregnancy that says a female needs to have climaxed.

Or enjoyed the act.

Or consented to it.

Or been aware of it.

But just about every pregnancy requires a biological male climaxing at some point, and every single unwanted pregnancy does. 2/5

I been workin my way thru this book, and so far, the thing I been struggling the most with is…

Random white people was really out here writing J. Edgar Hoover letters like he was Americana Claus? 😭😭😭

I read A LOT about this particular time period, but this is SHOCKING 😮‍💨 Not once have I been like “man, I have a question about Christian fidelity, I wonder what the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has to say about it…”

This book has opened a whole new corridor of American history for me to explore!!!!

Aight, iono if this tweet was composed in response to my earlier tweet about Jesus being the Word of God or not, but I’m temporarily suspending my practice of blacking out identities—not to dunk on Neil—but so the full context of his question can be addressed. 1/11

https://twitter.com/neilshenvi/status/1740519526125691173

For reference, here is the tweet I sent earlier. 2/11

https://twitter.com/pastortrey05/status/1740468581295596027