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I just finished wathcing the movie of Gahndi. Amazing. He was more Christian than I will ever be - which is weird as he was a Hindu and all. He had subject and verb agreement. His words of peace matched his actions. Peace was his subject; peace was his verb.
The problem with Christianity is not our subject, Jesus, but it is our verb. Look at church budgets to find their verb. Look at their end "user" of ministry to find their verb. Look at that to which the resources of time, money and education are channeled to find their verb.
In short, a study on how Jesus used his resources comapred to how the church uses its resources will expose no true sense of harmony. Rather there is little similarity whatsoever. When we buy more bricks for ourselves than we do for the homeless, when we spend less than 1% of our budget (if that) to feed to hungry while accumulating expensive curriculums, when we support defining ourselves over developiong freindships with pre-christians...when we spend ourselves into these things, yet say we are all about what Jesus was all about, our subject and verb do not agree.
If we were not so wrapped up, sealed up, and packaged in this problem we would see clearly how ridiculous we appear to those looking for Jesus among the Christians, but not finding Him.
We need to find a way to decentralize everything that is not Jesus. The building is not central. The worships service is not central. The doctrine is not central. Even morality, for as valuable as it is, is not central. Jesus is central or he's nothing.
We need to choose verbs that match our subject. But since our churches refuse to do so, I wonder if we really know our subject.
5 comments:
I totally agree. But it also begs the question -- what do we do about it?
We are the church- so the question is, Do we know our subject?
What are we doing today, right now, to BE Jesus?
I don't think commenting on a blog read mostly by other Christians, even though I am listening to Contemperary Christian music counts....does it??
Aaron, that's not begging the question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy that Chris uses in this column but to only a faint effect. In short, while Chris begs questions, they are not controversial or points of strong disagreement among his readers. However, the question you bring up is not begged by Chris' column, but rather brought to your mind or illuminated by it.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/begquest.html
Excellent post, Fajita. I might re-print it sometime, with your permission, of course. Thanks for your thoughts, brother!
Absolutely a GREAT post, brother!
Keep beggin those good questions. I didn't know questions had to be controversial to be good. I guess I learn something everyday! :)
God bless,
DU
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