Seth Barnes Jan 12, 2007 7:00 PM

Why Jesus is the ultimate radical reformer

I don’t understand how Jesus, who is the ultimate radical reformer, has been homogenized and made safe for the masses. I don’t understand how his ...

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I don’t understand how Jesus, who is the ultimate radical reformer, has been homogenized and made safe for the masses. I don’t understand how his followers have become synonymous with legalism, when his principle beef was with the legalists of his day. I don’t understand how this man who said such inflammatory things about leaving family and friends has been homogenized. I struggle to find common ground with Christians who are playing it safe when Jesus described and walked on a narrow faith path.

Richard Rohr said this about these kinds of questions: "It is not moral unworthiness that keeps people from God, but moral righteousness and self-sufficiency. It is that simple recognition, which is almost his constant message, that makes Jesus the ultimate, perennial, and radical reformer of religion. And why religious people oppose him. It makes one wonder if such a foundational critique can ever fashion itself into a proper religion at all. I agree with Simone Weil who said that the problem with Christianity is that it insists on seeing itself as a separate religion, instead of a healing message for all religions. I am afraid that is what will always emerge when you have religion without spirituality, or pious practices without inner experience. The very best thing will then become the very worst thing, and the only way through is to be awakened and astonished by a divine love that is of an utterly new dimension."

 

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