Quote of the week - Religion as Ideology is a WMD

"Religion as ideology is one of the most evil and destructive forces on earth. If ever Satan created a weapon of mass destruction, his greatest success was in leading people do degrade faith into religion and religion into ideology. Binding religion to politics is to secularise the Church. It is a re-crucifixion of Christ and an utter betrayal of His Gospel." 
(Vladika Lazar Puhalo)

How Far Would God Go? - Greg Albrecht

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!—Philippians 2:1-8

This passage has been one of my favorites for well over 40 years. What a beautiful and profound expression of God’s love! There seem to be many layers and many degrees of God’s grace expressed here. For that reason, I keep coming back to this second chapter of Philippians and studying it again and again—it continually yields fresh and deeper appreciation of the nature of God.

This article poses the question, How Far Will God Go? Boundaries are one of the defining characteristics of what it means to be human. As children, we probe and push until we can discover just how far our parents will go before they lower the boom on us. When we marry, we normally do a similar thing with the person we have promised to love and protect and cherish.

Pardon Me, Your Holes Are Showing - Caleb Miller

The process we all go through as we grow would be comical if it weren't so sad. We all hit these points where "we've arrived" whether they be theological, political, social or otherwise. We feel as though we have the "right" take on things. 

We might.

Or, we might not.

Every theology (what we'll focus on) has its holes - and I don't mean areas where a proof text here or there "debunks" something. That's just foolish, no singular passage of scripture really "proves" anything one way or the other, it simply provides us with the information we think we need to interpret that individual piece of text. And even that is sometimes a long shot. None of them are without areas that can be easily dissected by someone with a good education. Sadly though, we too often get locked into our particular theology and rarely see the holes in it, or ignore them because we may lose our pastorate or have to let go of some hate if we really saw the holes... 

I mean, if everyone is included and I believe that, then what right do I have to treat ANYONE as though they are anything but a child of God? When I don't, I've just poked another hole in my theology - at least for those watching. I poke holes in my own theology all the time. Any time I walk by someone begging and don't offer a hand or a dollar. Any time I judge someone by the color of their skin, the box they check on election day, or the decisions they've made in this life (i.e. regarding someone according to the flesh) I'm poking holes all over my theology. 

Listen closely, because I think I know why people don't want what we (Christendom) has to offer. 

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Calvary: Crucifixion as Torture, Cross as Hope - Brad Jersak

Trite or true, we're each and all on a journey, not quite sure whether any given year, week or moment is really ascent or descent -- the calm before a storm or the dark before dawn.

I see this tension in the biblical story of Calvary, at once a crucifixion and a Cross, the intersection of goodness and affliction, of torture and hope. At Calvary, we see the violence of religious fanaticism married to national security ... and we see the humility, forgiveness and self-giving love of God.

I hear this tension in Augustine, who is quoted in the movie, Calvary, as saying, "Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned." Calvary the movie is a profound and powerful tale of an Irish priest (played by Brendan Gleeson) who receives a death threat during confession and is warned to get his house in order over the course of a week. During that week, we see two themes intensify towards the climax.



First, we see how Gleeson represents goodness and sincerity. Even his would-be killer, the victim of long-term childhood sexual abuse by a priest, says, "There's no point in killing a bad priest ... but killing a good one. That'd be a shock." In that sense, Gleeson's character (Father James) serves as a Christ figure--and each character in the drama defines his or her own spiritual condition by their response to him. The truth of their lives become transparent through their attitudes and actions towards the priest.

The Real Beginning - Greg Albrecht



It's here! The end of another year. What a year this has been! The grumps, the curmudgeons, the gloom and doom prognosticators, the fear mongers and the Jeremiad prophecy buffs have been selling their wares. 

Thankfully, the vast majority of the party poopers who scream and shout within Christendom agree on one thing—only Jesus Christ can clean up this mess! 

It does take Jesus, doesn't it? As we end a year of endless varieties of Christ-less promotion and hype in his name, it might be helpful to compare and contrast the understated way the good news first came into our world. Jesus' birth passed with little fanfare. Books about his first coming did not dominate the Christian best-seller lists in first-century Judea. The vast majority of humanity had no idea that God had entered time and space. Did it happen that way because God didn't have the phone number of a good public relations firm? Or did God, in the person of Jesus, prefer a low-key arrival? 

God has a way of bringing good news into our corrupted world, when it seems like all is lost. I have always been fond of the way cartoonist H.T. Webster celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. In 1909, Webster depicted this anniversary by re-creating events surrounding Lincoln's birth. 

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Is Religion Breathing It's Last Breath? - Michael Hardin

I have been reading the work of Rene Girard now for a quarter century and have been applying the insights of the mimetic theory to the Bible and Christian theology for all that time. Girard is not a theologian but he has provided us with an anthropology, a way of understanding the human and human culture that explains so much of the data from so many sciences that its insights have become conclusive for me (or at least as conclusive as one can admit to in our postmodern world).

In mimetic theory, both religion and culture originate from the same place: the generative mimetic scapegoating mechanism (as Robert Hamerton-Kelly so aptly named it). As humans evolved and became more and more violent, in order to stop groups from total collapse, humans learned to turn their collective hostilities onto a single victim, thus temporarily securing ‘peace’ through cannibalistic cooperation. This cooperation is the ground for culture and the ritualizing of this mechanism is the ground of religion.

Religion is widely criticized, vilified and condemned in the world today. It is easy to see why. The interface between religion and war, politics, money and power (in other words, human culture), leaves us feeling uneasy or angry, frightened or dystopian. From ISIS in the Mid-East to the flag waving rallies of American Christianity, all around the world we see the ever present specter of a god who devours humanity, of a god who hates the other. We start and fight wars for this god, we behead others for this god, we send others to concentration and labor camps in the name of this god and we have secularized this god in the form of the modern nation-state. There is only one god in this world and its name is Violence and Death.

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When Did God Become a Christian? Connecting Covenants - Greg Albrecht

Massacre of the Infants - Rubens

They arrived in Jerusalem with their camel caravan after spending more than a month on the road. These wealthy and wise men called the Magi were clearly men of means—their style of travel was the first-century equivalent to a sleek, sophisticated Motorhome more than it was an ancient VW bus. On-the-street speculation about the purpose of this visit quickly ended when these dignitaries started to inquire about a newly born king of the Jews to whom they had come to pay homage. 

Herod (the Great) was more than a little interested when he heard what had brought these esteemed men all the way to his kingdom. Appointed by the Roman Senate as king of Judea, Herod was popularly known as “King of the Jews,” though he was a non-practicing convert. As King of the Jews Herod naturally viewed any baby considered to be an heir to his throne as an eventual threat. Herod called some of the same Jewish scholars with whom the Magi consulted, and learned that the baby king had been prophesied to be born in the little town of Bethlehem, a suburb of Jerusalem. Pretending that he too wanted to worship this baby in Bethlehem, Herod told the Magi to let him know when and if they found him. 

We know the rest of the story, don’t we? The story of Herod’s absolute, iron-fisted sovereign power over Judea takes one through a maze of plots, lies, treacheries, corruption, backroom deals, political chicanery and executions. Herod’s willingness to do whatever was necessary to serve his own interests makes modern day, ruthless gangsters like the fictional Godfather seem almost charming by comparison. Herod was a first century despot every bit the equal of 21st century madmen, intent on violently obliterating any and all potential threats to their selfish desires.

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