https://beroeans.net/2021/09/07/gb-as-korah/
I just have to post this link because the article is SO good!!
Thank you Meleti Vivlon!! Youβre so on point with this comparison. They are delirious and drunk on power.
A huge thing in Protestantism is the belief that everyone can directly commune with god and that intermediaries like priests and saints are pointless and it is wrong to exalt such people above everyone else.
Sounds reasonable, right? So thought Korah way back in the days of Moses. Basically Korah rebelled against Moses and Aaron, saying that god is with everyone and that everyone is holy. He claimed that it was wrong for the two to exalt themselves over everyone else. Pretty Protestant, right?
Moses got really mad, of course. So did god! Eventually, god opened the ground up under Korah and all his followers, killing them. I believe god also rained fire down on them. In addition, god killed everyone who got sad about that but this time with plague. So died the original Protestant reformation π
I just thought it was a βfunβ passage that I never heard of until deconverting.
Numbers Chapter 16. As you probably know, it details how a Korah led a heretical uprising against Moses due to him being the only one allowed to commune with God, when Korah believed that everyone should have the right to.
' 3Β They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, βYou have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lordβs assembly?β "
But, the idea of forming a close personal relationship with God, is one of the core tenets of Christianity. As is the concept of God being unchanging, as you know, the Lords not human, he does not lie nor change his mind.
Yet, previously he killed hundreds of people for believing they could have a close personal relationship with him, and when people complained about that, the Lord sent a plague that killed thousands of them.
How do you personally consolidate this biblical chapter with your belief in God? If you believed that God changed his mind, (which contradicts one of the scriptural definitions of God), why do you chose one passage over another?
The Old Testament has these interesting religious showdown narratives. One such narrative is the showdown between Moses and Aaron on one side, versus Korah, Dathan and Abiram. The Israelites are in the wilderness. They left Egypt but have not reached the promised land. So they as a society are in a state of transition from the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of the promised land. And they faced obstacles. Because of this we see a split in the people of God between those who are reactionaries and demagogues, vs those who are committed to the project of change and liberation.
Korah falsely accuses Moses of "exalting himself above the assembly of the Lord"(Numbers 16:3). This despite the fact that Moses never did anything of the kind (Numbers 16:15). Korah is a demagogue exploiting religious piety and a false populism in order to seize control of the community and the priesthood in particular. Then you have Dathan and Abiram. The accuse Moses of bring the people "out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness"(Numbers 16:13). It's not the promise land they are referring to as the "land of milk and honey". Egypt, the land where they were slaves. Where they were oppressed by an imperial superpower. Where genocide was committed against their Hebrew children. They represent a reactionary impulse to resist change and return back to an idealised past that's a fiction, despite the fact that that past was full of oppression and exploitation. An impulse the scriptures condemn when it says "Do not say 'Why are the former days better than these?' For it is not from wisdom that you ask this"(Ecclesiastes 7:10)
And we see both the demagogue Korah and reactionaries Dathan and Abiram attempting to stage what amounts to a coup against Moses in order to "return things back to how they were". In the end in the showdown God does not accept the sacrifice of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. The earth swallows them up and the fire of the Lord destroys their fire. This symbolises the fact that their reactionary project of trying to overturn the project of liberation for their own oppurtunistic and deluded purposes is consumed and judged.
This narrative as important lessons of course. To watch out for demagogues who exploit populism for their own purposes, religious and political. To beware of reactionaries who idealise a past that was not so ideal, particular for the oppressed and who say they want to "return things back to the way they were". And also a remin
... keep reading on reddit β‘
Hello,
He is going to teach some CS classes.
Is he a good professor? Is he hard?
A family member had bucked the trend and continued to associate with me, even telling me I didn't deserve to be shunned because of my stand. And while he continued to speak with me in secret, his wife eventually ratted him out. Next was a family study from his father. Forcing him to watch the Korah video from a few years ago. Now he has to cut me off. Just when you think you've gotten a hold on things, the bOrg comes back to bite you.
