Read on Twitter
When our ideas of Christian faith is built on fear of others, fear of loss of power, and our understanding of our place in the world as a “Holy War”, we often bring Jesus on the side of lies, violence, and exploitation. Our religion won’t love compassion but it will love control.
We will often see our terrible ways of being human, of being Christian, of being a citizen, and of being a neighbor as God’s will and the proper moral response to our created enemies. It is a powerful fiction and profound delusion. It uses Jesus but it does not know Jesus.
This is always the danger of religion and particularly one as ours that is in social, political, and economic power—often times ill-gotten. When we say we need to have the love of Christ, it’s not about concepts, but commitments we have to our neighbors and the world we live in.
Let us remember: “Jesus committed his very life,” writes M. Shawn Copeland, “to the cause of those who endured relentless violence, economic exploitation, powerlessness..He became one with them and challenged whatever and whoever caused their needless misery and pain.”
