More on religion

I wanted to continue the conversation from yesterday about us being religious creatures...

It’s true that religion - derived from the Latin word legare which, as I mentioned, we also get the word ligament from - holds us together in a chaotic and uncertain world. 

There are good things about this. But it can also tip over into toxicity, hatred, and even violence. 

All of those religious tenets I mentioned yesterday - the elitist spirituality, the performative activism, the worship of corporations, the vitriol against ethnic minorities and people who live differently than we do, etc...

These are all false ways in which we find our rightness. They are ways in which we find our specialness. As good as this rightness feels to the ego, it also divides us from our neighbors, ourselves, and... God. 

In our religious rightness, we can justify all sorts of sordid behavior and ways of being in the world. They wall us in and isolate us from the other. 

Christianity, at its most authentic level, is a Religion that is meant to keep our bad religious impulses in check. It is an anti-idolatrous technology, if you will. 

I’d argue that, in Christianity, our God is not a shiny object of our desire. Rather, our God is the crucified one. The one who has cried out from the cross in dereliction when all idols have failed. This is where Christ meets us.

I’ll explain more in the days ahead. Until then...

Grace + Godspeed,
Jonas