Random Thoughts of a Radical Christian

Just some thoughts that have been banging around in my noggin for awhile:

-  Why do we refer to the front of the church building as “the altar?”  And why do sermons have “altar calls?”  Christ’s sacrifice did away with the need for an altar.  The altar in church buildings has a pagan background, so we should just stop referring to it as an altar.

-  It sure seems we try our best to straight-jacket the Holy Spirit.  We institutionalize, regulate, and control worship services (and so much else in the church).  We can’t allow chaos, but why don’t more churches loosen up and allow the Holy Spirit more freedom to move?

-  Speaking of the Holy Spirit… are we deliberate in helping folks to identify their spiritual gifts?  Are we intentional in creating avenues for people to use their spiritual gifts?  At a more basic level, do most of our folks even know what spiritual gifts are?

-  Do we Protestants go too far in making the sermon the central part of our worship services?  Is there a limit to how much communal worship we really accomplish during an activity where we passively sit and listen? 

-  Is there no way to improve discipleship?  Let’s face it: most of our congregations are woefully ill-educated about our own religion.  Why?  Because no one is teaching us.  The classes we do have are aimed at the lowest common denominator, rather than challenging our folks.

-  Why are so many churches stuck in the Sunday morning—Sunday evening—Wednesday evening paradigm?  Is this model (which isn’t biblical) outmoded?

-  Why don’t more folks question why we do things the way we do?  The vast majority of what goes on in church services are manmade traditions, so they aren’t sacrosanct.  Are we afraid to try something new?  Are we afraid to seek God’s guidance, because He might send us outside our comfort zone?

I figured I'd just share these for now.  May be the basis of some upcoming posts.

My Personal Jesus

Not too many years ago, many folks were searching for the “authentic Jesus.” They turned to “lost” gospels, found hidden meanings in Jesus’ recorded words, tried to find the Jesus behind the Jesus of the Gospels, and so on.  For various reasons, some folks wanted more than the Jesus that the Church had known and preached for many centuries.  They were looking--sometimes genuinely--for something deeper, yet still credible.

These days, that search for the genuine Jesus has morphed into something much different.  We now look to re-make Jesus into our own image.  He’s not just my personal Jesus. He is actually fully me, only in a robe and sandals. He believes whatever I believe.  His words in the Gospels don’t match my beliefs?  I can choose to ignore them.  I mean, I know my own personal Jesus better than someone writing 2,000 years ago.

As for Jesus’ teachings, well, those need to evolve.  Keep the love, keep the social activities, keep the wise teacher.  Drop all the hard stuff.  

• God is loving, so Jesus can’t be the only way to eternal life.  
• I need time to pursue my own interests and fun activities, so let’s lay off any references to daily bearing the cross, giving up riches, and suffering persecution.  
• We’ll keep Jesus’ command to “judge not,” but forget the rest of the chapter telling us to remove the speck from our brother’s eye and not to allow the pigs of the world to trample holy things.
• God wants me to be nothing but happy and prosperous, so quit telling me about a narrow gate and hard path to life.  
• Hell is an ugly concept, so let’s agree that all roads lead to heaven.  
• I may attend worship service and give some money to the church, to guarantee my home in heaven.  But don’t ask me to do the hard work Jesus gave us or even understand what salvation really entails.
• Jesus loves everybody, so that sin stuff has absolutely got to go.  It’s just too intolerant.

Yep, we turn imago Dei upside down and make God in our own image. Because following the real Jesus is just too hard.