this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2025
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I have recently decided to tone down my usual gaytheist schtick in favor of being a ‘red-letter Christian’. It affords many more opportunities to bag on mainstream ‘christians’ for their utter failure to even try to live up to the teachings attributed to Jesus.
It’s not a change of heart, just a change in my personal branding. Lately, I have been reminding believers that just a short time before Jesus was tortured to death, he took a whip to a bunch of crypto bros in the temple.
Now if you will excuse me, I have a brunch date with some prostitutes and Publicans.
A modern red-letter movement
It doesn't say he actually hit anyone with the whip, he could have been using it to scare people away while tipping tables and mixing all the money lenders' money (which many of them would rather have taken a few lashes instead of anyway), but your interpretation is completely valid.
I mean, the event rarely comes up in modern evangelical churches in any form. It raises too many uncomfortable questions about the real nature of Jesus as a person and a spiritual teacher. It also adds color to his whole body of teachings. That color ranges from pink to bright red and most mainstream christians would rather not acknowledge that.
The red letter movement began over one hundred years ago as a direct response to the ‘prosperity gospel’ we are tasting the rotten fruit of right now. Modern evangelical leaders have turned their churches into dens of thieves.
The only way I can see to wake up the followers is to constantly repeat the fundamental ideas Jesus taught. Many of them do have the seeds of sincere belief but their leaders have warped the teachings for profit. They desperately need to be reminded.
I absolutely agree. Even if you went to go so far as to say Jesus never physically harmed any of those money changers, which is also not supported by the Bible, they would still shy away.
A lot of people who call themselves Christians would do well to take the time to read the new testament, or even just the gospel. At least they would know what they claim to be following.
is there some significance to the color i'm missing? i have an old red letter bible, but i think we're thinking of different things
Some bibles put Jesus's words in red and everything else in black. The red letter movement is about emphasizing the words in red over the rest, with some going as far as to ignore the rest.
so like the movement is an extension of that thomas jefferson de-miracled bible or something?
Well, I believe Jefferson made his own edits; not just taking the direct quotations to Jesus Christ. So Jefferson and the red letter group work from different, but overlapping subsets of the scripture.
More like the protestant version of liberation theology
I sort of mixed some metaphors there too.
Jesus and his first followers were flaming commies, as well-demonstrated by his strong opinions about the money changers and almost everything else attributed directly to him. Thus the “pink to bright red” bit. That’s just me editorializing.
The original red letter movement was explicitly created as a counter-movement to the “prosperity gospel”, the same folks who retconned the ‘eye of the needle’ into some ahistorical bullshit about non-existent city gates with awful UX. The link in my first comment gives more context to the modern movement and wikipedia has a concise article on the historical movement too.
I left organized religion completely because I was such a naive schmuck as a child that I actually thought I was supposed to emulate Jesus in every way possible. You know, a moron.
When you keep running into the tangled maze of justifications for anti-christian social rules, it tends to create cognitive dissonance. That only resolves by doubling down on denial or by letting the whole edifice collapse.
I have learned absolutely nothing since childhood and still foolishly insist that living in a way that is compatible with Jesus’ core teachings is a good idea.