You don't need a bible verse
to be a decent human being! I think many of us use Bible verses to be selfish though.
Sometimes Christians can be the greatest humanitarians and sometimes the worst. My country has elected Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump. One freed millions of enslaved humans and the other, when he speaks from his heart, not a teleprompter, can't find a problem with white nationalists who think Lincoln was wrong.
Our country is deeply religious. But it was the religious convictions of the Christian progressive, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, who fanned the abolitionist flame into the conflagration of the Civil War. She was "progressive" because she rejected the bible proof texts that permitted slavery and empathized with the humanity of the enslaved humans in her country.
via the Naked Pastor
Some biblical proof texts that are used to end a debate are merely proof that the bible was written by humans who wrote in the context of culture they were familiar with. Some proof texts are used to justify a lack of empathy for their fellow human beings, whether they be slaves in 1861, native americans, black americans today, or LGBTQ persons, basically anyone who is not in the white majority culture or benefiting from it.
Proof texts make avoiding compassion easy. Proof texts allow biblicists to deny the circumstances minorities find themselves in. Proof texts enable christian husbands to beat their wives and children without restraint.
I originally wanted to write a post using James 2 as an example of the church rejecting privilege. Fortunately, others already have. But then I was like, "dafuq", why is this so hard to see? I think proof texts enable blindness, just like Jesus encountered over and over again. His religious opponents had all the Biblical reasons to be assholes and feel righteous. Jesus said his teaching on compassion was for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. In today's African-American vernacular, for those who are "woke."
Bible history LGBTQ love slavery
all these deaths - to what end?
I thought all lives matter - don't be a sucker