I wish I had seen this yesterday; it would have made a great post for Christmas.
Rev. Federici of the United Church of Christ in Vienna, Virginia wants his Jesus back.
This sermon was posted on his church’s web site (all lower case there, too):
i want my jesus back.
i want my radical jesus back.
i want my christianity back.
i want my radical christianity back.
i do not understand how jesus became the spokesperson for a christianity that is afraid.
i do not understand how jesus became the spokesperson for a christianity that honors judgement, condemnation and smallness of mind and heart.
i do not understand how jesus became so graceless, so heavy handed, so like an unpopular kid who suddenly becomes a classroom monitor, a tattle tale jesus telling his father god who is good, who is bad, who is fooling around, a wet blanket , blue chip, risk free jesus backed up with a secret swiss bank account.
how did jesus get so boring?
how did christianity get so embarassing?
I want Rev. Federici to have that Jesus back, too.
jesus and christianity need to be rescued from those who are using it in the service of fear, control, oppression, the keeping of the status quo.
jesus and christianity need to be rescued from being in service of the travesty of their counterfeit versions. those versions that pervert the heart of the gospel.
the wolf wearing sheep’s clothing.
underneath is simply an aberrant strain of hatred, cruelty and arrogance.
i want my jesus back.
i want my radical jesus and my radical christianity back.
right now.
Yes, this is the same UCC who’s ads were turned down by a couple of the broadcast networks recently because they were divisive (essentially chiding other churches for their hypocrisy on racial and sexual issues). That was the reason given for the ads being blocked, but really, the ads were pretty good and not the little Molotov Cocktails that they were described as.
It is unrealistic to ever expect faith and politics to truly be disconnected. This is why there is so much weight put on the Constitution’s First Amendment. Since faith and politics are so closely bound, it is important that the faith and politics of the minority is protected against repression by the political majority.
The separation of church and state also exists to keep the political majority from cramming their faith down the rest of the population's throat. The majority is allowed to be guided by their faith, but legislating it is strictly off limits, let alone using their political power to evangelize it.
Anyway, I found this link on the blog GOTV. It was the Christmas post there.
Glory to God
“the foyer of wickedness”
UPDATE: December 26, 2005 - 3:00 PM
Elsewhere on the web, I found a link to this site. According to the message board post that made me aware of this link, it "attempts to distinguish what Jesus actually taught from what the Church teaches."
I have not had a chance to review the site yet, but I wanted to post the link anyway because it sounds very interesting to me.
Jesus Seminar Fourm
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