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You say you're a Christian.
That Christianity is where it's at.
That your Bible is real, and your Gospel is life.
You want me to trust your faith.
You want me to believe and act as you do.
You say it's the only thing that will bring true joy, meaning, and peace to my life. You say it's the only path that will solve all my problems and give purpose to all my sufferings.
Yet, with all due love and respect, based on what you actually do and not just on what you say, if I'm to believe that your Christianity knows the truth, has the truth, and shares the truth like no other religion or belief can, then in all honesty, the one and only thing you've convinced me of is that your truth is not Jesus, and it's certainly not love.
Because, until you start acting as Jesus and living as love, your words, your worship, your buildings, your bumper stickers, and your bloviating are but clanging shrieking cymbals out of beat in a cult parade bannered with filthy rags.
Jesus once told me, “by their fruits you will know them.”
I do know.
I do see.
You.
That's why I resist.
Chris Kratzer
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE CONSERVATIVE IN A TIME OF INJUSTICE?
I am used to people implying that, as a liberal, I am not a good Christian.
It no longer bothers me to be called a heretic just because I believe religion should not be a shackle to the loving heart nor to the honest mind. But, I also know that some of you are just now stepping out of toxic Christianity and are enduring the charge of being second rate Christians or worse. I would like to say several thoughts to you.
First of all, I want to thank you for your courage. It is not easy to step out of the institutional bullying that holds abusive sectarian religion in place. I hope you are giving yourself credit for the enormous bravery it took just to get out of the metaphysical prison into which you were born.
Second of all, I want to congratulate you. The life of love is a much more joyful and truthful of a path than that of dogmatism, ritualism, or moralism. You have chosen the Sermon on the Mount, and more importantly, you have chosen love as the heart of your path. You will not be sorry but you will have much to endure.
"Liberal" or "conservative" are not ethical categories. We all seek a balance between what needs to be liberated and what needs to be conserved. But liberalism can disguise a superficiality in our values and conservatism can disguise an unwillingness to change systems that are unfair.
Obery Hendricks Jr. is a wonderful religious scholar who has tried to show how extremist forms of right wing Christianity can get stuck defending the indefensible. People can end up defending "God, Guns and the Flag" in a way that shows no commitment to the religion of love and justice. What some people of think as "apolitical" is often a defense of the status quo for power and wealth. Here are three of Hendricks' sayings you may find encouraging as you endure criticism:
“First, the good professor tells us how to spot false prophets. He says there are two telltale criteria:
“(1) they are silent about issues of social justice, and (2) they function as uncritical supporters of rulers and politicians, rather than as their moral conscience and dedicated arbiters of biblical justice.”
Secondly, he warns us:
“Right-wing evangelicals have evolved what might be called a “Jesus personality cult” that is obsessed with the person of Jesus as spiritual savior rather than with the principles for justly living in the world that he taught and died for.”
Finally, Hendricks points out that, in scripture, prophets are never called to conserve unfair systems of power and wealth. Almost by definition Prophets are calling us to change.
He says:
“In our time, when many seem to think that Christianity goes hand in hand with right-wing visions of the world. It is important to remember that there has never been a conservative prophet. Prophets have never been called to conserve social orders that have stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth; prophets have always been called to change them so all can have access to the fullest fruits of life. In fact, it was the conservative forces—those who wanted to keep things as they were—that in every instance were the most bitter opponents of the prophets and their missions for justice.”
Again, thank you for having the courage to choose the awkward and unpopular path of universal love over the popular status quo of bullying in the name of sectarian religion and narcissistic patriotism.
Jim Rigby
Self care is the seed from which love, compassion, generosity, humility, and kindness grows.
Self care is not selfish, it is the hard, painful, and sacred work of learning to love ourselves so that love can flow from us, as us, and through us onto others.
True love is a release of self from self to another. It has action, but is not action or an act alone. It is the self given to another because the self has first loved itself and can therefore fully love another.
Self care is the first, and foremost act of loving others.
Self care is the cross that leads to the resurrection of self for the giving of life to others.Self care is the seed from which love, compassion, generosity, humility, and kindness grows.
Self care is not selfish, it is the hard, painful, and sacred work of learning to love ourselves so that love can flow from us, as us, and through us onto others.
True love is a release of self from self to another. It has action, but is not action or an act alone. It is the self given to another because the self has first loved itself and can therefore fully love another.
Self care is the first, and foremost act of loving others.
Self care is the cross that leads to the resurrection of self for the giving of life to others.
Chris Kratzer
One of the most dangerous things in all the world is a Christian who reads the Bible in front of them who hasn't first learned to read the mind of Christ within them.
Nothing has freed my heart and soul more than the moment I realized that listening to the mind of Christ within me is far more important and trustworthy than reading the Bible ever could be.
From that point on, I committed myself to seeking guidance from the Light within me, far more than the opinions around me.
Game changer.
Chris Kratzer
A few thoughts about the Jesus story in the gospels:
1. The gospels were written 70-90 years after the death of Jesus, and based upon oral traditions passed along over that period. The gospel writers used these oral traditions as the foundation of their texts. It’s likely they used the most common oral traditions as a starting point.
2. There is scholarly debate about whether the gospel writers knew Jesus personally during his lifetime or the nature of their knowledge or relationship with Jesus. For example, there is debate if the Gospel of Matthew was written by the Matthew named as a disciple of Jesus. Overall, while it’s possible that some gospel writers had direct contact with Jesus, the exact nature of their relationship with him remains a subject of debate.
3. The gospel writers were editors. They had to sift through a mountain of oral traditions and decide which stories to use and which ones to leave out. The gospel writers chose a limited number of Jesus stories and teachings so as to make the work manageable and of reasonable length. They also chose stories and teachings they felt most honored the legend, message and significance of Jesus (influenced by how they understood it), and conversely left out stories they felt were unbecoming to their idea of Jesus or teachings they didn’t understand. For example, if the gospel writers believed Jesus was the one and only God in the flesh, they would have edited and rewrote oral traditions accordingly. The gospels are barely a Cliff Notes version of the life of Jesus, and leave out the childhood, teen and young adult years of Jesus.
4. It makes sense that the gospel writers would have not included the following possible stories in their work, either because they were not conveyed in the oral traditions or because the gospel writers felt these stories were not favorable to the story of Jesus they wanted to tell:
- Jesus romantic interests or intimate relationships
- Jesus taking part in everyday life, which includes parties and drinking a too much wine
- Jesus becoming unhinged, pissed, or doing and saying things that would have raised eyebrows
- Jesus’ early years and all the things a normal teenager at that time/place would think, do, say or act
- Jesus’ twisted humor and bad language
Why we fault the gospel writers for this, I don’t understand. If I told the Cliff Notes version of your story to honor your memory, I wouldn’t include your two nightmare divorces, that trip to Vegas, or that time you went off on the cashier at Target. Right?
For me, if Jesus had intimate relationships, got hammered at a wedding party, or cussed out a disciple for being stupid, I wouldn’t care. None of that would impact how or why I find meaning in the legend and story written about Jesus. Though I understand why, It’s odd to me that Jesus claimed to be divine and human, but the gospel writers left out the human part. It could simply be that they couldn’t figure out how to properly reconcile and integrate the two, and were conflicted about it. That’s fair, right? 2,000 years we are still trying to figure it out. Unfortunately ever since, we have had the idea that being human is a bad, which basically dominated Paul’s thinking about everything.
I hold space for Jesus in my heart, not because he was more than human but because he sparked a tuneless conversation about what it could mean to be human. Of course Jesus was divine, but in the same way that we all are being rooted in the same, one and only ground of being. The real challenge Jesus left the world is not about why we can’t be as divine as he is, because we are. The real question is, why we can’t be as human as he was.
Jim Palmer
One of the most pivotal things I have discovered in my spiritual journey is that if you believe in Love all the way, eventually so much of “church” becomes not only unnecessary and irrelevant, but a spiritual shackle restraining the soul.
Where so much of “church” is designed for us to land our faith and comply our lives, the universe is determined that our spirit forever flies and our faith continually evolves.
Everything one needs in order to be whole, holy, approved, and faithful to the Divine is already within them, no church or Christianity required. Period.
That's why for me, the earth is my sanctuary, humanity is my community, wholeness is my Gospel, and love is my worship.
Game changer.
Chris Kratzer
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