The point of that passage is to not engage in fist fights when some rando insults you. It is not a command to be a doormat, to stay in an abusive relationship, to not defend yourself from an attacker, or to allow evil to flourish unchallenged.

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[–] Ekranoplane@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I feel like Christ does want his followers to be doormats, unless I'm interpreting Romans 12 and Mathew 5 wrong. Early Christian theology was legitimately apocalyptic and mystical, it's not a set of rules you can actually build a society on.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The Jesus movement had legitimate criticism of how tax funded urbanisation moved wealth from the rural majority to a small urban minority that benefited from the Roman infrastructure projects. They rightly condemned no one more than the collaborators ("tax collectors") who worked with the Roman occupiers. Though their tactic of claiming the just society they want will soon be miraculously established by act of God, within like a few years max, didn't really pay off. Without a materialist analysis, they were crushed and failed to affect the social change they had set out to create. They wouldn't have dreamt that their story would soon be used by an urban movement in the heart of the empire and form a new hegemonic state religion. Urban Roman Christians betrayed everything the early, anti-urban, Jewish reformers around figures like John the Baptist, some others and finally Jesus had stood for.

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