Several years ago I began to read books by authors that opened-up a pathway through the forest of my existence that led me through the deep shade of despair.
These folks instead of ignoring the presence of despair, embraced it, some gave vivid depictions of sitting on the curb in front of a de-tox center, drunk and in the ministry. Others have written of monumental changes in ministry focus that removed them from the company of intellectuals to those whose spirits caught the winds of creation that their enfeebled minds could not. Others yet spoke to the pugilistic indulgence of modern Christianity which uses the Gospel as a battering ram to crash the gates of society, of invading the person like a beachhead.
The conquering church of the Crusades is alive and well from their point of view misguided in a quest yet again to Christianize the culture and dilute the gospel. Revelations as Philip Yancey writes has little to speak of Rome other than to term it "The great whore of Babylon" yet names the churches of Asia and their specific sins and calls them individually to repentance. He concludes that if the gates of hell can't prevail against the church why bother about the peccadilloes of a culture.
The church has lost its way in being salt and light; salt as it seeps into the meat of society gives it flavor and preserves it, light illumines and relives us of fears. I sat in church the other evening as our pastor spoke to the issues raised by the cultural phenomena of "The DaVinci Code". He wasn't an antagonist, he was an explorer reminiscent of Copernicus, or Michelangelo, or others who've bridged the frontiers of belief and the cosmos. In contrast it seems to me we Christians whip out the microscope and in reductionist mendacity divine how finely we have split the hairs of religious arcania. Or we telescope our existence into an eschatological fantasy land, sell tickets to same and wait in long lines for the ride to begin; meanwhile life passes us by.
My journey and hence journal has notations and stops along the way that have been refreshingly real, and sometimes unpleasantly awakening. My illusions, my attachments, and my creation of Castles in Spain take on a Quixote-esque proportion of windmill crusades. Though despair isn’t the “100 acre wood” I dwell in it is also not a foe any longer; but as Milne left a pot of Hunny, so I’ve found a repast, a table set in the wilderness by the Father.
These folks instead of ignoring the presence of despair, embraced it, some gave vivid depictions of sitting on the curb in front of a de-tox center, drunk and in the ministry. Others have written of monumental changes in ministry focus that removed them from the company of intellectuals to those whose spirits caught the winds of creation that their enfeebled minds could not. Others yet spoke to the pugilistic indulgence of modern Christianity which uses the Gospel as a battering ram to crash the gates of society, of invading the person like a beachhead.
The conquering church of the Crusades is alive and well from their point of view misguided in a quest yet again to Christianize the culture and dilute the gospel. Revelations as Philip Yancey writes has little to speak of Rome other than to term it "The great whore of Babylon" yet names the churches of Asia and their specific sins and calls them individually to repentance. He concludes that if the gates of hell can't prevail against the church why bother about the peccadilloes of a culture.
The church has lost its way in being salt and light; salt as it seeps into the meat of society gives it flavor and preserves it, light illumines and relives us of fears. I sat in church the other evening as our pastor spoke to the issues raised by the cultural phenomena of "The DaVinci Code". He wasn't an antagonist, he was an explorer reminiscent of Copernicus, or Michelangelo, or others who've bridged the frontiers of belief and the cosmos. In contrast it seems to me we Christians whip out the microscope and in reductionist mendacity divine how finely we have split the hairs of religious arcania. Or we telescope our existence into an eschatological fantasy land, sell tickets to same and wait in long lines for the ride to begin; meanwhile life passes us by.
My journey and hence journal has notations and stops along the way that have been refreshingly real, and sometimes unpleasantly awakening. My illusions, my attachments, and my creation of Castles in Spain take on a Quixote-esque proportion of windmill crusades. Though despair isn’t the “100 acre wood” I dwell in it is also not a foe any longer; but as Milne left a pot of Hunny, so I’ve found a repast, a table set in the wilderness by the Father.
John
posted by John R. Jones at 5:08 PM
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