...that I must get this book. Why? because of this except.
"It seems that a whole lot of people, both Christians and non-Christians, are under the impression that you can’t be a Christian and vote for a Democrat, you can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution, you can’t be a Christian and be gay, you can’t be a Christian and have questions about the Bible, you can’t be a Christian and be tolerant of other religions, you can’t be a Christian and be a feminist, you can’t be a Christian and drink or smoke, you can’t be a Christian and read The New York Times, you can’t be a Christian and support gay rights, you can’t be a Christian and get depressed, you can’t be a Christian and doubt.
I am convinced that what drives most people away from Christianity is not the cost of discipleship but rather the cost of false fundamentals. False fundamentals make it impossible for faith to adapt to change. The longer the list of requirements and contingencies and prerequisites, the more vulnerable faith becomes to shifting environments and the more likely it is to fade slowly into extinction. When the gospel gets all entangled with extras, dangerous ultimatums threaten to take it down with them. The yoke gets too heavy and we stumble beneath it…
...Once, a guy asked Jesus about his yoke, or teaching. He asked Jesus what he thought was the most important of all the Jewish laws. Jesus, who often responded to one question with another, chose this time to answer the man directly. He said, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:37-40).
Love. It’s that simple and that profound. It’s that easy and that hard.
Taking the yoke of Jesus is not about signing a doctrinal statement or making an intellectual commitment to a set of propositions. It isn’t about being right or getting our facts straight. It is about loving God and loving other people. The yoke is hard because the teachings of Jesus are radical: enemy love, unconditional forgiveness, extreme generosity. The yoke is easy because it is accessible to all—the studied and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, the religious and the nonreligious. Whether we like it or not, love is available to all people everywhere to be interpreted differently, applied differently, screwed up differently, and manifested differently. Love is bigger than faith, and it’s bigger than works, for it inhabits and transcends both…"
4 comments:
i. love. this.
again, you interpret my soul questions
:tear: =) how have you been? WRITE MORE ON YOUR BLOG! I Should as well. I need to practice collecting my thoughts into cohesion...
Thank you!! I hear so much from certain family members about how being gay/marrying a different race/getting piercings/drinking/etc. are against God and you're going to hell if you support ______ <--- insert "wrong life choice" here.
It makes me sad to think about it. :( I believe that every person deserves to be loved and accepted no matter what personal choices they make in life. (With a few exceptions, of course..)
Lately I let my list of "few" exceptions grow into "lots" =( I've started thinking (per a discussion with my brothers wife) more about how the people in the 1st century church worshiped God. They didn't have a Bible, but really just those letters. And maybe they'd just have one letter. Or the Pentateuch, or some of Solomons writings and a couple letters from Paul that their local church leaders had. It's really interesting to think about how Jesus boiled it down to Love to make it easy for us but we still want to qualify everthing into write and wrong. Of which I'm first to admit I'm HORRIBLE at wanting write/wrong to guide me.
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