#write31days
-
Time to Reform Again
•
7 min read
12. Reformers sought to end the arrogance of Catholicism with the arrogance of individualism. Reading through Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, you get the impression there’s more than a little irritation there. He’s not just a little upset. Moderately perturbed. Slightly irritated. No. The dude was pissed. He was pissed at his church. He was pissed…
-
The Idolatry of Individualism
•
8 min read
11. And our communities have driven the divine into individual pursuits. If the command is to love God and neighbor, and if Jesus is present when we are together, and the missio dei (mission of God) is to build the kin-dom, then individualism is the stumbling block, the temptation for power, and anti-Christ. Individualism defined Let…
-
Looking for God In All the Wrong Places
•
7 min read
10. Our individual pursuit of the divine leads us away from community. The Great Western Heresy When the Rt. Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori addressed the General Convention of The Episcopal Church in 2009, she spoke to a church on the front lines of our next reformation. A church which was still in conflict over its ecclesiology…
-
So We Isolate Ourselves
•
6 min read
9. But in the arrogance of Christian piety and Western intellectualism we seek isolation. Jesus wants us to be with one another. So why are we so divided? You know the problem. Or at least part of the problem. Our friends on Facebook have all lost their minds. And depending on where we sit, they’ve…
-
God is active with us
•
5 min read
8. When we feed the multitudes, welcome the stranger, and heal the sick, we are also with Jesus. There are essentially two ways Christians speak about the material of their faith. We can speak literally or metaphorically. And for those outside the faith, it can be really hard to tell the difference between the two. Just…
-
To Create Withness
•
3 min read
7. But in Jesus, we are given human responsibility to create withness with one another. The nature of God is withness. From the divine dance of the Holy Trinity to the very withness of Jesus, all of God’s glory is withness. What I mean by “withness” is presence–the eternal and constant being with someone. And this idea of…