YOU CAN BE A RIVER OF LIFE
29/01/23 07:15
It’s curious and disappointing to witness sincere and sensible people, some of them theologians and scholars advocating for non-Biblical gospels; supporting ‘other gospels’ that have emerged as distortions of the Real. Supported because these beliefs are theirs and their identity. I mean academics who rationalise truth-telling away by resorting to specious diversionary arguments so that they can continue to promote a culture of denial* about the fraud on which their religion is based. Sadly, they insist on these fictions rather than admit that what they have based their lives on is ‘no gospel at all’.
KEEPING OUT THE TRUTH
Much of my childhood and youth was spent under the teaching of pastors who were propping up a gospel that Paul called ‘No Gospel at all.’ If you are living spirit and truth you will be in a Gospel that is self-validating
A SPECIOUS GOSPEL
We can cultivate an appearance of godliness in a Christianity that is a version of the knowledge of good and evil – which it is, if it is a religion rather than a person and is based on the perpetuation of the law into the post cross age. Of course there is order in this age but it is the effect of Christ in us – the incarnated Christ expressed as you and as all who believe. But it’s clear that there are people who find more comfort in continuing in the lie than they think they would find in living in the Truth of Christ their life.
DROPS AND RIVERS
We are graced to a degree even if our theology is wrong because Jesus is a Spirit and is who He is even if we have wrong ideas about Him. Nevertheless, Jesus was the apostle of grace and truth in Himself. He lived to undo the theft of truth and life that had been perpetrated by the Enemy of Truth and Life. Grace and truth is better than grace by itself. It’s not good enough to think you are flying to LA when you are actually on your way to San Francisco. Or worse – flying over Antarctica when you are actually going to crash into Mt Erebus.
FITS AND STARTS
Richard Rohr observes that, “Ironically, a religious culture actually works to a degree and for a time. It gives individuals and groups enough sense of cohesion and solidarity to create a partial community.” Such ‘togetherness’ as shallow as it is, can give a sense of ‘we’ even though it actually insulates people from God with layers of bent religion. “Many people continue to confuse a merely religious culture (read: law and order) with the much more subversive Reign of God .. When there is no experience of the true sacred, we will always fall into the worship of the false sacred.” (1)
It’s not hard to be a religious construct rather than a son/daughter of God.
We can, if we have been socialised into a legalistic Christian culture imagine that we have community when what we have is insulation from Christ, from ourselves and from each other. You will never get close to a friend whose Christianity is lived from the law because in separation from Christ she is not close to her true self. Intimacy with good friends is best enjoyed with those who live oneness with Christ. Why? Because in Christ we have what He has. We have His relationship with Himself, Father and Holy Spirit. We participate in the communion that God has with God. We live intimacy and amity.
*If a religious culture is built on a foundation of lies and fraud, then deceit and crooked thought will pervade it as a spirit.
(1) Rohr, Richard. Jesus' Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (p. 16-17). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.
KEEPING OUT THE TRUTH
Much of my childhood and youth was spent under the teaching of pastors who were propping up a gospel that Paul called ‘No Gospel at all.’ If you are living spirit and truth you will be in a Gospel that is self-validating
A SPECIOUS GOSPEL
We can cultivate an appearance of godliness in a Christianity that is a version of the knowledge of good and evil – which it is, if it is a religion rather than a person and is based on the perpetuation of the law into the post cross age. Of course there is order in this age but it is the effect of Christ in us – the incarnated Christ expressed as you and as all who believe. But it’s clear that there are people who find more comfort in continuing in the lie than they think they would find in living in the Truth of Christ their life.
DROPS AND RIVERS
We are graced to a degree even if our theology is wrong because Jesus is a Spirit and is who He is even if we have wrong ideas about Him. Nevertheless, Jesus was the apostle of grace and truth in Himself. He lived to undo the theft of truth and life that had been perpetrated by the Enemy of Truth and Life. Grace and truth is better than grace by itself. It’s not good enough to think you are flying to LA when you are actually on your way to San Francisco. Or worse – flying over Antarctica when you are actually going to crash into Mt Erebus.
FITS AND STARTS
Richard Rohr observes that, “Ironically, a religious culture actually works to a degree and for a time. It gives individuals and groups enough sense of cohesion and solidarity to create a partial community.” Such ‘togetherness’ as shallow as it is, can give a sense of ‘we’ even though it actually insulates people from God with layers of bent religion. “Many people continue to confuse a merely religious culture (read: law and order) with the much more subversive Reign of God .. When there is no experience of the true sacred, we will always fall into the worship of the false sacred.” (1)
It’s not hard to be a religious construct rather than a son/daughter of God.
We can, if we have been socialised into a legalistic Christian culture imagine that we have community when what we have is insulation from Christ, from ourselves and from each other. You will never get close to a friend whose Christianity is lived from the law because in separation from Christ she is not close to her true self. Intimacy with good friends is best enjoyed with those who live oneness with Christ. Why? Because in Christ we have what He has. We have His relationship with Himself, Father and Holy Spirit. We participate in the communion that God has with God. We live intimacy and amity.
*If a religious culture is built on a foundation of lies and fraud, then deceit and crooked thought will pervade it as a spirit.
(1) Rohr, Richard. Jesus' Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (p. 16-17). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.
