Reading a different way

In my home town, there are two streets that go from one end to the other. They are both one way streets, but when I was in high school, these streets were two way streets for 1/2 of the length of the streets. It was a difficult thing to change my direction of travel and change my thinking when the city changed the streets into one way the entire distance of the streets. Many times I found myself driving the wrong way on the one way street, and I was not the only one!

I believe this is the situation with the church. We have been reading the scriptures one way for so long that to change that way of thinking is almost impossible. We like it. We are comfortable with it. Why should be change? Well, I think maybe we have been reading the wrong way and that is the reason to change. As I continue to rethink the Christian faith, along with Brian Mclaren and others, I find it exciting to think of new possibilities.

As Mclaren indicates, from the time of the Roman take over of the church, we have been reading and making our theology by looking back to Jesus through other people and how they understand Jesus. Think about it, we read theologian's understandings of Jesus and think that is the way we are supposed to understand him. Our grasp of Jesus is one mediated by Luther through Augustine through Paul, but what if that is the wrong way? What if we are driving the wrong way on a one way street?

What if the plan of God was to understand Jesus by reading the scriptures from Genesis through Exodus through the prophets to Jesus? What if Jesus did not fulfill the prophets words but lived the prophets words? Doesn't that make more sense? To understand Jesus in the context of his own religion and his own background and his own life? Instead of trying to make Jesus fit with a theological system that has been tainted with other philosophical and theological garbage and allow Jesus to speak to us on his own terms, in his own way, and through his own love of God? It just seems so natural to me!

I think I have been driving the wrong way on the streets of life. Maybe we all have!

Tearing Down and Building Up

I am reading a book by Brain Mclaren. It is called "A New Kind of Christianity." This book is over due. I have read Mclaren's books before, but this book particularly speaks to my soul. I finished the book this afternoon and started re-reading it this evening because I what to digest exactly what he is trying to propose.

It seems to me that Mclaren is speaking for many in the church who see how the soul of the Body of Jesus has been stolen. It happened a long time ago when the movement that took upon it the name of Jesus of Nazareth also took upon it the organizational structure of the Roman Empire. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan have spoken of this in some of their books, and the more I read about this, the more I see it is true.

What started as a movement to help people see how the Roman rulers were missing the point, i.e. sinning, how people were following the wrong path and needed to turn around, i.e. repenting, turned into something alien to its founder. Rome was violent and Jesus was non violent. Rome was turned in on itself and Jesus was turned out to others. Rome worshipped power and financial gain and sex, and Jesus worshipped the LORD.

The church even took into itself the Greco-Roman theology--Neoplatonism mixed with a little of Aristotle. The immortality of the soul, the fall, heaven or hell are products of Greek philosophy and theology and not Hebraic. I have always wondered about this being since my undergraduate studies in Greek reasoning and Philosophy. What we need is a revolution in Christian thought, and it is on the way. I am excited to see what happens next!