It's a frightful thing - thinking you have to get God right in order to get God to love you, thinking you're always one error away from damnation. It's a kind of legalism, really... How ironic. The very condition of humanity is to be wrong about God. The moment we...
I still love the church. I love the church universal, as well as the church local (red brick, white-columned with deacons smoking in the parking lot). With all of its dysfunction and flesh marks, with all of its confusion and humanity, it is still the best thing God...
The good news is that there are no gatekeepers to Jesus. People try to be. Pastors, theologians, churches, and others police theology, enforce legalism, and criticize people's faith. But God loves everyone even when Christians don't.
The inherent legalism of the Western Church trains our eyes on Jesus' suffering as the judgment of God upon our sin & virtually blinds us to the more obvious point that Jesus suffered from the wickedness of humanity. It was the human race, not the Father, who...