The Anastasis Center for Christian Education and Ministry

What if heaven and hell are the same thing - the love of God - but some people feel eternal conscious resentment about it?

Discuss C.S. Lewis' classic. Two possible cohorts.

Starting Mar.21 (Saturdays) and Mar.25 (Wednesdays)

Register at anastasiscourses.thinkific.com

YouTube video by The Anástasis Center Are We Post-Postmodern? Back to Personally Struggling Between Good vs. Evil?

As the song For Good says, "I do believe I have been changed for the better."

If character growth is really growth and not just changing opinions or shapeshifting, then we are in a framework of personal struggle between good and evil, objectively.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV3L...

Postmodernism gave us fascism instead.

Maybe returning to a personal struggle between good vs. evil, truth vs. lies, and beauty vs. ugliness, can give us hope.

As Elphaba says, "We can't let good be just a word. It has to change things."

YouTube video by The Anástasis Center Are We Post-Postmodern? Back to Personally Struggling Between Good vs. Evil?

The Wicked movies show us that we are probably Post-Postmodern.

In Modernism, people made truth claims, which were really power claims in disguise.

In Postmodernism, people thought if we undermined truth, we would have more equal power.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV3L...

Might a more biblically faithful, evangelistically attractive, ecumenically honoring, and socially constructive expression of Christianity emerge?

Journey with us to recover Early and Eastern Christian restorative justice.

If the Sinai covenant actually expressed God’s restorative justice, and Jesus expressed its climax in restoring human nature, then we have an entirely different paradigm to proclaim.

What if the difference between the Sinai covenant and Christ is not "law and the punishments for breaking it" and "the legal satisfaction of the retributive lawgiver"?

Then the entire edifice -- emotional and intellectual -- that White American Evangelicals have built would fall.

But what if this whole evangelical embrace of retribution is based on a very faulty premise? What if the difference between the Old Testament and the New is not "threat of retribution" and "legal pardon"?

Maybe that helps explain why GOP voters show support for strikes on, and/or invasions of, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and Greenland -- despite Trump having campaigned on peace in 2024.

In 2012, a group of religious leaders released "A Call from the Faith-Based Community to Stop Drone Killings." But by contrast, Southern Baptist flagship Liberty University -- the largest Evangelical university in the world -- offered a focus in Unmanned Aerial Systems to train drone pilots.

The Southern Baptist Convention officially supported the Iraq War -- without being asked, they issued a declaration for no particular reason. They doubled down when the "weapons of mass destruction" were never found, and the GW Bush administration were proven to have lied.

In the early 2000s, despite the lack of just war justification, Evangelicals rushed to support the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq. The original code name for Bush's War on Afghanistan was Operation Infinite Justice - even though the Taliban offered to find Osama bin Laden & turn him over.

That formation in retribution shows up in American imperialism to deal out retribution abroad. During the 60s and 70s, White Evangelicals defended the Vietnam War when the rest of the country did not.

The percentage of people agreeing with longer prison times, the use of torture, and capital punishment even given the inequalities in the US criminal justice system, *increases with the frequency of attending a religious service.*

And just in case you think that the word ‘Evangelical’ is based only on a self-reported label, the Pew Research Trust says that, in their studies, they also measured BEHAVIOR: "Attend religious service at least weekly" or "monthly a few times a year" compared to "seldom or never."

That formation in the belief in retribution shows up in political preferences. Evangelicals favor longer prison sentences and capital punishment more than the overall population. Evangelicals are more likely than the general population to justify torture of terrorists or even suspected terrorists.

A century ago, White Evangelicals supported the lynching of African Americans for "stepping out of line" -- often for acts of perceived disrespect, even for just standing up straight and looking eye to eye at a White person, especially a woman.

...who supposedly absorbed that retribution to "satisfy" God. And because God is infinite, you might think divine retribution is infinite.

That formation in the belief in retribution shows up in accusing people of criminality very quickly.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement theology is one contributing factor. Why? B/c if you believe that God's justice is retributive, not restorative, you're likely to believe that people have to experience fear, if not foretastes, of painful retribution, before they appreciate the mercy of Jesus...

"Why do people defend cruelty as Christian virtue? Why does the GOP keep pushing policies that hurt their own voters — but go extra hard on immigrants of color? It’s about saying, “You deserve suffering, and I don’t,” all in Jesus’ name.""

Why do White Evangelicals have a developed taste for retribution?

Retired Minnesota pastor turned commentator Pat Kahnke says, “In a nation where MAGA pseudo-Christians cheer for ICE raids, buy “Alligator Alcatraz” merch, and defend a bill that devastates the poor while fattening billionaires...

YouTube video by The Anástasis Center Are We Post-Postmodern? Back to Personally Struggling Between Good vs. Evil?

Elphaba says, "We can't let good be just a word. It has to change things."

The song For Good says, "I do believe I have been changed for the better."

Maybe returning to a personal struggle between good vs evil, truth vs lies, beauty vs ugliness, can give us hope.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6GZ...

YouTube video by The Anástasis Center Are We Post-Postmodern? Back to Personally Struggling Between Good vs. Evil?

The Wicked movies show us Post-Postmodernism.

In Modernism, people made truth claims - really power claims in disguise.

In Postmodernism, people thought if we undermined truth, we would have more equal power.

Postmodernism gave us fascism instead.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6GZ...

* Jesus solved the problem of our misalignment with God, of our not being attuned with God. Jesus expressed the restorative justice of God to restore our human nature -- first in Jesus, then in us.

On atonement: Western vs. Early & Eastern:
* Jesus did not solve the problem of separation from God. Jesus did not satisfy the retributive justice of God - because God's justice is not retributive, and because God never actually separated Himself from us.

* But the Early and Eastern Christians tell us that we desire God in the mode of desiring goodness, love, connection, justice, beauty, order, meaning, significance. We sin when we direct our desires away from Jesus. But underneath our sins is our desire for God.

On theology, Western vs. Early & Eastern:
* Augustine told us we don't desire God (enough, at least, which then requires God to override our will to get to us)
* Calvin told us we only desire to escape God's punishment

* It retold Moses going up Mt Sinai, restoring the broken covenant, receiving the glory of God in his face. God purified Moses in partnership with him. God did not punish Moses. So the sacrificial system is not about punishment.

Main topics

The Sacrificial System:
* The Jewish sacrificial system was not God saying, "Don't come near Me or I'll kill you." It was God acting like a dialysis machine, saying, "Give Me your impurity, and I will give you back purity."

Spencer is a therapist, and we touched lightly on these topics: parenting, what internal motivations are healthy and biblical, shame vs. guilt paradigms, attachment theory, spiritual bypassing, internal family systems, empathy, women, culture wars. It's fun to see how it all integrates.