Greens furious as Reform UK get BBC Question Time slot before by-election | The National

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25869141.greens-furious-reform-uk-get-bbc-question-time-slot-by-election/

Does anyone actually believe the BBC is impartial?

#bbc #partiality #election #reform #greens

#14 Everything fits perfectly.

Let's be the piece, the love, the freedom in this world.
Let's be the rectangle between the circles.

Let's love the edges!

#genuary #circle #rectangle #genart #art #mastoart #fediart #p5js #noai #genuary2026 #code #math #programming #artwork #minimalism #coding #generativeart #generative #artforsale #simplify #creativecoding #random #piece #freedom #love #prejudice #partiality #together

No Partiality [Sermon]

Some of you know I am transgender. This gives me a unique perspective on how women and men are treated.

Before my transition, when I applied for technical jobs, I might be given a test on electronics, or handed a circuit board and asked questions about it.

After transitioning to live as a woman, and without telling people I was transgender, the interviews changed. They were concerned about whether I was strong enough to lift printers, or how I would work with men.

I’ve also read commentary by transgender men who saw changes in the ways they were treated:

• More respect for their work in academia,
• More respect when buying a car,
• Less commentary on their appearance.

It’s one thing to be aware of bias, and another thing to experience it from both sides.

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

Jesus was Jewish. We have no photographs of Jesus, but he probably had darker skin and very curly hair. Jesus’ closest disciples were also Jews, and not high-status Jews.

Even so, there were Samaritans, Canaanites, and even Romans who were followers of Jesus. And yet, in the time immediately following the ascension, the church was a Jewish church.

Until Peter had a vision, and visited a centurion named Cornelius, and Peter learned that God shows no partiality.

And that’s the lead-up to our reading from Acts this morning.

Over time, Christianity became organized under Rome. A split occurred between Rome and the Eastern church. Later, in Germany, Switzerland, England, and elsewhere, new Protestant denominations were started. And the members – and leadership – of those denominations were mostly pale skinned.

That’s how Christianity became a white religion. It’s why modern paintings of Jesus have him with light skin, and often blond hair and blue eyes.

In 2013, a Fox News host said Santa Claus – based on a Turkish Monk named St. Nicholas – and Jesus were white.

And there are some who feel like white people are God’s chosen people.

But Jesus wasn’t white, and his first followers were not white. They looked more like modern-day Palestinians.

Some of Christianity’s most respected saints were African:

• Augustine of Hippo, from what is now Algeria.
• Athanasius, from Egypt.
• Three popes: Victor I, Miltiades, Gelasius I .

White people were late to Christianity. And now some of us think we own it. We redraw pictures of historic Christians as white, and even draw God as a white man.

And God hates the people we hate.

As author Anne Lamott said.

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image

when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

The entire reason non-Jews can be followers of Jesus is because, as Peter tells us,

God shows no partiality,

35 but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him

Acts 10:34b-35, NRSVue

If we ignore this verse for others, we ought to ignore this verse for ourselves.

We live in a time when there are efforts to exclude people considered the other: other ethnicities, other languages, other sexualities, other genders.

We find plenty of reasons that people are not acceptable to us. When we exclude people, we may feel special. We are in the inner, acceptable group. It’s why various organizations excluded women, Jewish people, Black people, disabled people.

But we gain so much more when we include people.

Edwin Markham, former Poet Laurete of Oregon, wrote a poem entitled Outwitted:

He drew a circle that shut me out–

Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

We live in a land that was inhabited by many nations before Europeans “discovered” it. And now some white people are talking about how they want to “take our country back” from immigrants after the white people themselves immigrated here.

People are being detained because of language, skin color, or even occupation. And now people are being shot, and even killed, by those charged with this purification of this country.

How far have we come from the life and teachings of the Jesus, whose baptism we mark today.

I wish I could say that everyone in this sanctuary is safe. I cannot honestly say that.

We live in a time when the federal Justice Department is investigating domestic terrorism, described as those who use violence, or the threat of violence, to advance political and social agendas, including

“adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity.”

There is a “cash reward system” for “witnesses and citizen journalists.”

It might be helpful to remember that early followers of Jesus, when Christianity was not a state-sanctioned religion, remained faithful when persecuted.

It may be helpful to remember that we were baptized with the same baptism Jesus had.

I think it is helpful to know that God shows no partiality, even when human beings do.

My challenge to us this week is to remember that we were baptized with the same baptism Jesus was baptized with. We are called to the same work as Jesus.

We are called to show no partiality.

Amen.

Let’s sing CH 75 I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.

SERRCistä osui silmiin Neil Levyn terävä analyysi Blake Roeberin 2024 kirjasta Political Humility, joka koskee poliittisen tiedon mahdollisuutta, https://social-epistemology.com/2024/10/15/enjoying-humble-pie-reflections-on-roebers-political-humility-neil-levy/

Torppaako IDC - identity-protective cognition - tosiaankin sellaisen "in our hyperpartisan world", niin että jää vain vaihtelevan sivistyneitä arvauksia jos niitäkään, vai missä Roeber erehtyy?

#serrc #politicalKnowledge #knowledge #reasoning #motivatedReasoning #bias #socialEpistemology #partisanship #mysideBias #puolueellisuus #partiality #expertKnowledge #tieto

New Testament Reading: James 2:1-17

#James warned #Christians against #partiality and #hypocrisy.

Showing #partiality means a lot more to #God than we would care to admit. We need to remember how Jesus will be judging us - and He is paying attention to how we judge others.

The Letter of #James | James 2:8-13
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/westsidebiblestudies/episodes/The-Letter-of-James--James-28-13-e2i788v/a-ab5enlr