This was the vision and message of Jesus. The image of God as no longer separate and distant, but as Abba, as beloved nurturing parent. As El Shaddai, the well breasted one, or mountain refuge, to which the hurting flee for protection. And the early church knew this, always widening the tent stakes and opening to the outsider, the outcast, the out-group. The vision of Jesus who left none behind, who touched the unclean and unwelcome, who healed the pious, the pagan and the heretic. When Constantine's lawyers got hold of it, things changed. Suddenly the religion of the open armed outsiders became accepted. They became in-group. They learned to raise walls and barriers and rebound back into purity culture and fear of contamination.
To recover the faith of Jesus only becomes possible when the church built after his name ceases to be the handmaiden of empire. When the church resumes its status as outsider and outcast. When it receives the gift of the freedom to speak to power, not from it. The great danger is the largest word "commonly used" in the English language: Antidisestablishmentarianism. Those in hierarchies thrive on power. To dis-establish the power of the church smells like fear. The loss of power and authority feels like oppression.
But the church of Jesus Christ has never worked well within power structures. When the church gets into bed with the empire, it contracts fatal social diseases. This is why the current process of slow death in the institutional churches is a hopeful sign for this ordained minister. My career is dying but in stead of a funeral, I want a joyful wake and a celebration of the fact that the church of Jesus does not run on power or success and it does not need or work with survival. The model is death. Death and resurrection. Lets start considering a fitting epitaph that points to the renewed liberation of an outsider church with no power but the authority to die well and proclaim that God lives in and among the dying. Then the Gospel will be heard anew in a resurrected form.
This was the vision and message of Jesus. The image of God as no longer separate and distant, but as Abba, as beloved nurturing parent. As El Shaddai, the well breasted one, or mountain refuge, to which the hurting flee for protection. And the early church knew this, always widening the tent stakes and opening to the outsider, the outcast, the out-group. The vision of Jesus who left none behind, who touched the unclean and unwelcome, who healed the pious, the pagan and the heretic. When Constantine's lawyers got hold of it, things changed. Suddenly the religion of the open armed outsiders became accepted. They became in-group. They learned to raise walls and barriers and rebound back into purity culture and fear of contamination.
To recover the faith of Jesus only becomes possible when the church built after his name ceases to be the handmaiden of empire. When the church resumes its status as outsider and outcast. When it receives the gift of the freedom to speak to power, not from it. The great danger is the largest word "commonly used" in the English language: Antidisestablishmentarianism. Those in hierarchies thrive on power. To dis-establish the power of the church smells like fear. The loss of power and authority feels like oppression.
But the church of Jesus Christ has never worked well within power structures. When the church gets into bed with the empire, it contracts fatal social diseases. This is why the current process of slow death in the institutional churches is a hopeful sign for this ordained minister. My career is dying but in stead of a funeral, I want a joyful wake and a celebration of the fact that the church of Jesus does not run on power or success and it does not need or work with survival. The model is death. Death and resurrection. Lets start considering a fitting epitaph that points to the renewed liberation of an outsider church with no power but the authority to die well and proclaim that God lives in and among the dying. Then the Gospel will be heard anew in a resurrected form.
“Let’s start considering a fitting epitaph that points to the renewed liberation of an outsider church.”