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| image from matteo canessa |
Well, perhaps I won't be writing as frequently as I'd hoped or imagined. And maybe this is going to be a book of laments. My spirit is definitely troubled again today.
Today I'm troubled after reading Tony Kriz's account of how he was asked to leave his ministry at Reed College. Someone dared to challenge the accepted norms in American Christianity and was deemed "dangerous" and removed. What troubles me most is the fact that the supposedly "dangerous" practices/teachings look way more like Jesus' life and ministry than the "safe,"
acceptable norms we insist upon. The more I hear about things like this, the more I wonder how in the world we've reached such an extreme cognitive dissonance that we don't even recognize how opposed our American conservative evangelical ideologies and methodologies too often stand to the ways of Jesus. I can't help but be grieved again and again to see how little we look like Him and how oblivious we are to that fact.
Lord, have mercy.
I think back to our conversation in class Wednesday night about how Israel's great failure was repeatedly forgetting her identity as the people of God, which led her to neglect what had been handed down and instead to adopt the ways of the surrounding nations that did not know or trust God, nor look out for their fellow man. We today often make the same mistake, forgetting our identity as Christ-followers and neglecting what was handed down to us through Him and His church. We've adopted the ways of our culture, treasuring our independence, capitalism, and consumerism and largely ignoring the voices around us crying out for hope and healing.
How have we strayed so far, Lord? How can we be brought back? Can You restore our humility? Can You make us agents of hope and healing again?
Lord, have mercy.
Read here the Introduction, Part 1, and Part 3.
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