“There may not be a more dangerous weapon for violence or oppression than religion. It seems counterintuitive, but when human beings create religions, we use them to control others through their guilt and shame. True religion always moves us to serve others and to give our lives to see those oppressed find freedom. [The Apostle] Paul persecuted followers of Christ and even instigated their deaths, but then he risked his own life so that others might live. He once personified the very worst that happens when a religion becomes civilized. It moves away from God and oppresses humanity in God’s name. Paul was once consumed by religion, but then he was transformed by the living presence of God Himself.
We, too, must find the barbarian way out of civilization. How have we come to this sanitized view of the faith to which Jesus calls us? Somewhere along the way the movement of Jesus Christ became civilized as Christianity. We created a religion using the name of Jesus Christ and convinced ourselves that God’s optimal desire for our lives was to insulate us in a spiritual bubble where we risk nothing, sacrifice nothing, lose nothing, worry about nothing. Yet Jesus’ death wasn’t to free us from dying, but to free us from the fear of death. Jesus came to liberate us so that we could die up front and then live. Jesus Christ wants to take us to places where only dead men and women can go.”
Erwin Raphael McManus, "The Barbarian Way"
1 comment:
thanks jimmy, rudy's been reading the devotionals to me...so appreciate all you and katie are doing for the Lord...and for our family
all good things,
lori
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