IT'S NOT ABOUT GOOD AND EVIL
25/02/24 14:25
Having spent some time in church work and having been a member of a tutorial at university in our class on ‘Religion in Australian society’ I met people whose ‘work in the church’ was not an entirely happy one. Religion can seek to excuse this and engage in victim blaming. When the truth is that the culture of some organisations can be little more than a belief system and an ideology that dulls rather than imparts life.
MORALISM RELIGION
There are Believers in institutions who are ‘lights on a hill’. They impart life to others because they are alive in their spirit in Christ.
Others exhibit a culture of un-life and exhibit a definite meanness among those who administer and work institutionally. At worst ideological Christianity can facilitate abuse of one kind or another, while providing the illusion that the offenders are ‘doing God’s work.’
Gregory Boyd observes that this kind of ‘god’s work’ has more to do with being a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil than it does with being the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He observes that “Large segments of the body of Christ mistake their judgment - their eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil- to be love! Tragically, they promote the essence of the fall as though it were salvation.” (1) This is our natural bent when living from law, moralism and religion. Here we live judgment as bigotry or a smug content with the contract we think we have going with God. Here we are bound in judging ourselves and covertly judging others. It’s the ‘yeast’ of the knowledge of good and evil. But there is ‘no condemnation in Christ Jesus’.
MISGUIDED
We love well when Christ loves in us. The mystery of Godliness is incarnation – God woven into you and us. This morning, I read a book review that was critical of the ‘mysticism’ of an author. Mysticism simply means a real and living union with a real and personal God – the privilege of all. It’s mystical because it’s of the spirit and not the externality of the flesh.
Our union with God was won by Christ’s atonement at the cross. Our part is to agree with Christ that He has included us in His life.
SUPERFICIAL
Law based christianity produces a personal performance mentality and facilitates judgemental attitudes to others – examples of un-love. Significantly Jesus lived to make us one with God in our being – a mystical union – that weaves us into the fellowship of His love as a state of being: of being in communion with the trinity. This is John 17 in spirit and in truth. It’s a mystical union that is as real as Christ come in our flesh – Jesus as us. This is the means of loving self and loving others.
FALSE LIGHT/FALSE GRACE
We can be certain that if we do not enjoy a degree of mysticism then it’s probably that we have little real relationship with God. We may be joined to religion, the law, church customs and going to meetings. But if we have not entered oneness with Christ we are not alive in our spirits and our souls will be sick. As law-attached Believers we can convince ourselves that we are in grace when our graciousness to others and accommodation to religion is largely the result of our very poor spiritual discernment.
PIETIES
Living from externalities will give the appearance of godliness while leaving the heart unchanged. Legalistic piety can make us pedantic and irritating as well as conceited and foolish. The notion that one can live holistically from the law cannot be sustained. There’s no whole person effect in the law. We become whole and holy persons because Christ is our life. Here we are the exemplars of love, grace and truth.
NOT THEISM
“ [Many people alive in the spirit] thought about God as ‘a self-revealing God who wants us to know him in a personal way’ rather than as ‘a supreme being’ who might be conceptualised philosophically in a theistic perspective and who therefore could be conceived as an ‘ultimate reality’ with little or no involvement with us.” (2) But Christ is not an ideology. His person comes in our flesh.
DEAD MEN TALKING
Since a child Tom had been imbued with a passion for life as life AND LIFE TO THE FULL. Tom was always impatient with religious humbug and the common imputation that God is about inhibition and dullness of spirit.
Tom was dismissive of the practice of pumping up one’s inherited beliefs because they are our inherited beliefs and we think we acquire some status and identity from them. There is an identity and status here – but not one we should value. Paul warned that ‘other gospels’ attracted a curse and Jesus called them ‘paddocks of tares’ because they seem ‘Christian’ but multiply communities of robbed and withered people.
LIFE AND LIGHT
A pastor told us once that he was out on the lake with his son on a catamaran. They were slicing through the water, up on one keel and his boy shouted, ‘Dad Jesus would have enjoyed this!’ he was right about that. Jesus loves life and is life. Holiness is God incarnated in your ordinary life. This makes it extraordinary.
ROUTINE RELIGION
Many of us have been imbued with the idea that Godliness is about ‘meeting-going’ and that holiness is found in separati0n from ordinary life. Or that holiness is moralism or that serving God is best when we are connected to some church related activity. Not really. Holiness is about you incarnated with the trinity when and where you are. We are the branches of the Vine when we are rooted in the incarnation. Christ your life is you alive with the spirit and life of God. In oneness with God , spirit and life you are alive and a personal expression of the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus lived oneness with His Father and taught oneness as the new and living way. Jesus said, Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” John 6.53. This ‘eating’ is living in the incarnation. The Lord’s Table is a celebration of the reality in which we live in the post cross age – the reality of oneness with God and our ability to love.
(1) Gregory A. Boyd. Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God (Kindle Locations 22-24). Kindle Edition.
(2) Introduction to Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition. Introduction.
MORALISM RELIGION
There are Believers in institutions who are ‘lights on a hill’. They impart life to others because they are alive in their spirit in Christ.
Others exhibit a culture of un-life and exhibit a definite meanness among those who administer and work institutionally. At worst ideological Christianity can facilitate abuse of one kind or another, while providing the illusion that the offenders are ‘doing God’s work.’
Gregory Boyd observes that this kind of ‘god’s work’ has more to do with being a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil than it does with being the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He observes that “Large segments of the body of Christ mistake their judgment - their eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil- to be love! Tragically, they promote the essence of the fall as though it were salvation.” (1) This is our natural bent when living from law, moralism and religion. Here we live judgment as bigotry or a smug content with the contract we think we have going with God. Here we are bound in judging ourselves and covertly judging others. It’s the ‘yeast’ of the knowledge of good and evil. But there is ‘no condemnation in Christ Jesus’.
MISGUIDED
We love well when Christ loves in us. The mystery of Godliness is incarnation – God woven into you and us. This morning, I read a book review that was critical of the ‘mysticism’ of an author. Mysticism simply means a real and living union with a real and personal God – the privilege of all. It’s mystical because it’s of the spirit and not the externality of the flesh.
Our union with God was won by Christ’s atonement at the cross. Our part is to agree with Christ that He has included us in His life.
SUPERFICIAL
Law based christianity produces a personal performance mentality and facilitates judgemental attitudes to others – examples of un-love. Significantly Jesus lived to make us one with God in our being – a mystical union – that weaves us into the fellowship of His love as a state of being: of being in communion with the trinity. This is John 17 in spirit and in truth. It’s a mystical union that is as real as Christ come in our flesh – Jesus as us. This is the means of loving self and loving others.
FALSE LIGHT/FALSE GRACE
We can be certain that if we do not enjoy a degree of mysticism then it’s probably that we have little real relationship with God. We may be joined to religion, the law, church customs and going to meetings. But if we have not entered oneness with Christ we are not alive in our spirits and our souls will be sick. As law-attached Believers we can convince ourselves that we are in grace when our graciousness to others and accommodation to religion is largely the result of our very poor spiritual discernment.
PIETIES
Living from externalities will give the appearance of godliness while leaving the heart unchanged. Legalistic piety can make us pedantic and irritating as well as conceited and foolish. The notion that one can live holistically from the law cannot be sustained. There’s no whole person effect in the law. We become whole and holy persons because Christ is our life. Here we are the exemplars of love, grace and truth.
NOT THEISM
“ [Many people alive in the spirit] thought about God as ‘a self-revealing God who wants us to know him in a personal way’ rather than as ‘a supreme being’ who might be conceptualised philosophically in a theistic perspective and who therefore could be conceived as an ‘ultimate reality’ with little or no involvement with us.” (2) But Christ is not an ideology. His person comes in our flesh.
DEAD MEN TALKING
Since a child Tom had been imbued with a passion for life as life AND LIFE TO THE FULL. Tom was always impatient with religious humbug and the common imputation that God is about inhibition and dullness of spirit.
Tom was dismissive of the practice of pumping up one’s inherited beliefs because they are our inherited beliefs and we think we acquire some status and identity from them. There is an identity and status here – but not one we should value. Paul warned that ‘other gospels’ attracted a curse and Jesus called them ‘paddocks of tares’ because they seem ‘Christian’ but multiply communities of robbed and withered people.
LIFE AND LIGHT
A pastor told us once that he was out on the lake with his son on a catamaran. They were slicing through the water, up on one keel and his boy shouted, ‘Dad Jesus would have enjoyed this!’ he was right about that. Jesus loves life and is life. Holiness is God incarnated in your ordinary life. This makes it extraordinary.
ROUTINE RELIGION
Many of us have been imbued with the idea that Godliness is about ‘meeting-going’ and that holiness is found in separati0n from ordinary life. Or that holiness is moralism or that serving God is best when we are connected to some church related activity. Not really. Holiness is about you incarnated with the trinity when and where you are. We are the branches of the Vine when we are rooted in the incarnation. Christ your life is you alive with the spirit and life of God. In oneness with God , spirit and life you are alive and a personal expression of the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus lived oneness with His Father and taught oneness as the new and living way. Jesus said, Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” John 6.53. This ‘eating’ is living in the incarnation. The Lord’s Table is a celebration of the reality in which we live in the post cross age – the reality of oneness with God and our ability to love.
(1) Gregory A. Boyd. Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God (Kindle Locations 22-24). Kindle Edition.
(2) Introduction to Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition. Introduction.
