Monday, January 30, 2006
Christianity as a "Sunday religion"
I'd also like to argue that the mainstream of Christianity throughout the last 1,500 years, and particularly evident in the last 200 years, has been for the majority of practitioners, not a practice-oriented religion, but a Sunday religion, a religion of "do what you want as long as you subscribe to the right things and you show up on Sunday to keep the institution going." It has fostered an extraordinarily limited view of human capacity. It has, in a sense, been co-opted by its own attitude and approach, by materialism. I know this is not necessarily a nice thing to say, and as I said in the beginning, I'm not asking you to agree with it. I'm just asking you to consider it."
- Peter Senge, management expert and author of the Fifth Discipline.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Quotes from the End of the Religion
It's been a few weeks since I've posted. Life has been busy, and blogging has taken a back seat.
A few months ago I posted on a book that I was anxious to read: The End of Religion: An Introduction to the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus, by Bruxy Cavey. Because the book is not available through normal channels, I had to order through Cavey's church in Canada. That delay coupled with a full-reading agenda already, kept me from completing the book until just recently.
In a few days I will post a complete review of the book, but for now let me pass along a few noteworthy quotes:
"... the actions of Jesus reveal the irreligious heart of God" (p. 43)
"The Jesus of the Bible lived by a simple philosophy: if love guides our hearts, rules become redundant. Love, embraced as a principles of other-centeredness, will always lead us to do the right thing." (p. 48)
"Jesus' message of God's love was radically inclusive in a world where religions were anything but. ... Jesus invited his own people to give up their claims of exclusivity and to join him in ushering in the universal sisterhood and brotherhood that faith can bring." (pp. 56f)
"When any system of salvation or organization of belief becomes our conduit to God, it is not a large step for that system to become our God." (p. 90)
"For too long, people have assumed that religion is how we connect with God and relationship is how we connect with people. The original lesson of the Bible is that our connection with God should be a lot more like our relationships with other people - intimate, unscripted, authentic." (p. 94)
"Jesus did not come to offer an alternative religion but an alternative to religion. He did not call people to leave one lifeless shell for another but to live life beyond the borders of religious rules, regulations, rituals, and routines." (pp. 100f)
"... the enemy is not tradition itself but the complete dependence upon tradition and routine to the point where we disengage from thoughtful, purposeful, intentional intimacy." (p. 107)
"The only 'religion' that God accepts is faith (a trusting relationship with the Person of God) expressing itself in practical loving action" (p. 116)
