Eric A. Luttrell

“I don’t really understand what politics are … I’m concerned with injustice … I’m not attuned to politics, I’m just attuned to people.’ He”
― Peter Doggett, There's a Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of the 60s

“The exact identity of those oppressed souls was a matter of subjective opinion. Feminists sought the liberation of women from male dominance and aggression. African-Americans wanted an end to racism and, in many cases, the establishment of their own exclusive homeland. Students in Paris and New York fantasised about the overthrow of the restrictive educational system that, in their view, smothered free thought and expression. Committed Marxists required nothing less than the toppling of global capitalism, and thereafter an end to imperialism. Africans dreamed of the day when their colonial masters were banished from the continent. And across the world, all these forces were united in the campaign to end the Vietnam War, and exile America’s soldiers and ‘advisers’ from South-East Asia.”
― Peter Doggett, There's a Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of the 60s

“How We Approach the New Testament We Christians have been taught to approach the Bible in one of eight ways: • You look for verses that inspire you. Upon finding such verses, you either highlight, memorize, meditate upon, or put them on your refrigerator door. • You look for verses that tell you what God has promised so that you can confess it in faith and thereby obligate the Lord to do what you want. • You look for verses that tell you what God commands you to do. • You look for verses that you can quote to scare the devil out of his wits or resist him in the hour of temptation. • You look for verses that will prove your particular doctrine so that you can slice-and-dice your theological sparring partner into biblical ribbons. (Because of the proof-texting method, a vast wasteland of Christianity behaves as if the mere citation of some random, decontextualized verse of Scripture ends all discussion on virtually any subject.) • You look for verses in the Bible to control and/or correct others. • You look for verses that “preach” well and make good sermon material. (This is an ongoing addiction for many who preach and teach.) • You sometimes close your eyes, flip open the Bible randomly, stick your finger on a page, read what the text says, and then take what you have read as a personal “word” from the Lord. Now look at this list again. Which of these approaches have you used? Look again: Notice how each is highly individualistic. All of them put you, the individual Christian, at the center. Each approach ignores the fact that most of the New Testament was written to corporate bodies of people (churches), not to individuals.”
― Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices

“A heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon us. As a people, we feel ourselves to be not only deeply injured, but grossly misunderstood. Our white countrymen do not know us. They are strangers to our character, ignorant of our capacity, oblivious to our history and progress, and are misinformed as to the principles and ideas that control and guide us, as a people. The great mass of American citizens estimates us as being a characterless and purposeless people; and hence we hold up our heads, if at all, against the withering influence of a nation’s scorn and contempt.1 —Frederick Douglass, in a statement on behalf of delegates to the National Colored Convention held in Rochester, New York, in July 1853”
― Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness