Lefty view of the Bible
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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Jesus in the secular sense was a rhetorical masterpiece, and it's not a mistake that he called on his followers to be shepherds of men.
Disregard modernity. Think back to two thousand years ago. What did it mean to be a shepherd?
You protected your flock. Your livelihood. You lived and died by the resources under your command, your responsibility. You fought against and actively looked out for predators. You guarded said livelihood against thieves and potential murderers.
This was not a job for weak, cowardly men. The word 'passive' did not enter into your vocabulary, and you were anything but harmless. Gentle, maybe. But not harmless.
I admit a little bit of frustration that it's never taught that way, though. Certainly not when I was growing up.
Hardiness and will to violence were never really presented in any part of what I was taught back in my youth. It's a problem with society more generally too, but there's this notion that violence is universally malicious and protecting your interests makes you a bad person.
The Shepard archetype is a warrior as well. He fights the lion, the bear, the wolf. He lays his life on the line for the sheep, and in the case of the perfect Shepard dies to protect them eternally.
David as the Shepard King's first act is to slaughter the threat to his family by beheading.
The Good Shepard for his part, forgave and welcomed all with the caveat to "sin no more" and he STILL enacted violence when it came to protecting the purity of worship.
It's one of those things. There's a level of unaffected, zen, monk type attitude in Christianity, but it is backed up strongly with "hate that which is evil"
Hate is a strong word. And "to hate" is commanded by God.
I mean, it goes even beyond that. The modern "hippie Jesus" meme is an utter heresy. Christianity of the first three centuries was an utterly feared faith (Acts 17:6). One of the few peopl to be praised by Jesus was a centurion (Matthew 8:5-13). The first Gentile Christian was a centurion (Acts 10).