Saving Jesus from the Church by Robin R. Meyers

Author:Robin R. Meyers [Meyers, Robin R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061973062
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

When I was a kid growing up, the message “Jesus is the Answer” was ubiquitous—painted on barns, outcroppings of rock, or as the final installment of a Burma Shave sign. The message, however, is distinctly unbiblical. The message should be “Jesus is the Assignment.”

Considering our current obsession with what my boyhood church called “sound” theology (correct theology, as opposed to “unsound,” or incorrect, theology), I was led to believe that the Bible was a kind of encyclopedia of theological propositions. It was somewhat shocking to discover how conspicuously absent are theological systems in the earliest strands of the gospel. Mostly illiterate, uneducated peasant laborers are recruited and sent out to practice spiritual healing without a license. They are told that in the practice of such healing and in the radical freedom they will experience by moving unencumbered from house to house, giving freely and taking nothing, the windows of heaven will open. But let’s be honest. What would you do if such a motley crew showed up on your doorstep?

Sadly, to worship Christ in our time is to believe that the healing was made possible by the supernatural quality of the healer. Following Jesus in our time would only require that you believe in the power of love to heal a broken world. What’s more, the tone of much preaching today is not invitational, but condemnatory. It lashes out rather than binding up. “I have condemned, therefore I am” is not the maxim of the Galilean sage. Neither is “Be it resolved the world is a mess.” Condemnation feels good, and it is now a staple of religion, politics, and the media (both left and right), but it changes nothing. Compassion, on the other hand, changes everything.

The gap between rich and poor is widening. Food riots are increasing around the world. Polls show that young people view organized religion with suspicion, even contempt, but have a compelling interest in the ways of Jesus. High-profile fundamentalists have exploited our growing fears of living with less or reaping the whirlwind of terrorism, while high-profile liberals have exploited our hatred of fundamentalists. TV preachers on the right tell us to get saved and then wait for the rapture, while change agents on the left mock the sea of abysmal ignorance in which we are drowning and fund lifeboats for the chosen.

In Oklahoma, the more overtly “Christian” politicians claim to be, the more likely they are to pass mean-spirited legislation, especially with regard to our treatment of the stranger. Anti-immigrant and English-only fever is running high, all in the name of Jesus. Among the more progressive crowd, a fatal flaw continues to paralyze the work of those who believe that, in the end, logic and eloquence will usher in the reign of God or “honking for peace” will end the war. I have grown equally weary of prosperity gospel preachers and Gucci hippies, for each group is trying to have its ideological cake and eat it too.

The Chamber of Commerce crowd pretends to back

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