Touchpoints on Religious Freedom
God is Unsettling
Grace and peace from the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. Blessed to be a blessing. Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house … and I will bless you … so that you will be a blessing.’” Genesis 12:1-4a This is one of those bible passages that summarizes the life of faith for me as well or better than any others. And there are two…
Dispossessed
“Now I must say, in those churches where the Divine was the focus, it didn’t matter whether it was high church, or low church, or no church. When whatever they were doing put the focus on the Mystery, IT WAS DIVINE.”
Straighten Up!!!
“This isn’t a demon inside of her holding her down. This is a demon in the world, its systems, its cultures, that chooses to value people on something other than being children of God.”
Freedom From, Freedom For
“Christian freedom doesn’t serve us; we serve Christian freedom. And it is a freedom that frees us from trying to save ourselves, and moves us into a freedom for others.”
Crazy Jesus
You see, for Jesus, the Holy Spirit is not something you can name and claim. It is so far beyond you and me that no family or religious system can contain it. It is free to blow wherever it will and it catches up all kinds of people in its presence.
Religious Slave-dom
The Philippians passage says that we are to have the mind of Christ, and that means not counting equality with God as something to be grasped, exploited, taken advantage of. But isn’t that the goal of Christianity and religion in general. To become god-like. To be equal in purity with God. To declare that I have the righteousness of God within me and impose it on others?