Thinking about cuts to global health and how the early church provided care to lepers that even family members abandoned. I’m currently reading Walking Corpses by Miller and Nesbitt about leprosy in the 4th century. That’s a legacy the church can continue no matter what. - ThreadSky

emilybelz.bsky.social • 21 days ago

Thinking about cuts to global health and how the early church provided care to lepers that even family members abandoned. I’m currently reading Walking Corpses by Miller and Nesbitt about leprosy in the 4th century.
That’s a legacy the church can continue no matter what.

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june-6-bug.bsky.social•20 days ago

This was one of the reasons I was given for voting Republican (I mean, aside from abortion and gay people) - "Democrats are building dependence on government by taking over the church's job of caring for the poor and sick!"

june-6-bug.bsky.social•20 days ago

You will probably not be shocked to learn that the white evangelical fundamentalist churches I grew up in did next to nothing for the poor and the sick, unless they were church members, and even then support was pretty limited.

emilybelz.bsky.social•21 days ago

Gregory of Nyssa gave a sermon on caring for abandoned lepers during Lent in ~372 AD:

“Do not consider the love for such as these [lepers] something contemptible. The hand has been mutilated, but it is not too weak for an alliance. The foot is useless, but it is not hindered from running to God."

emilybelz.bsky.social•21 days ago

"Let us be first in making an offering. ... If we wish to be received by them into the eternal abodes (Luke 16:9), let us receive them now into our homes. If we wish to be healed of the wounds of our sins, let us ourselves do this for the bodies of those who are suffering."

emilybelz.bsky.social•21 days ago

"As long as you sail in safety, stretch out your hand to the one who suffers shipwreck. The sea is common to all, as are its little waves, and the great confusion of its [mighty] waves."

emilybelz.bsky.social•21 days ago

"Would that the practice in these commandments and the rudder of love be present within us, commandments through which we, set on our course, might attain the land of the promise in which stands the great city whose builder and creator is our God to whom be glory and power unto the ages of ages."

theescomo.bsky.social•21 days ago

One of the books that pushed my boundaries in seminary was The Triumph of Christianity. It described how during the plague, Christians stayed to care for the sick while others fled. They often became sick and died as well. Their willingness to suffer and die to care for others shook perceptions.

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