Too often the Roman Catholic Church projects a calcified image of Christianity as stiff and as rigid as the plaster saints we used to pray to as opposed to a fluid vibrant and dynamic concept of what it means to be a Christian… an arthrosclerotic institutional Jesus fan club lacking any vitality versus an engaged Christianity based on the teachings on this Jesus fellow and the way he lived his life.
Ours should be a church of engaged compassion and compassionate engagement, one where our faith is based on living lives grounded in the values represented in the person of Jesus Christ rather than belief in a set of concrete facts that have little relevance to how we relate with our god… however we conceive that phenomenon. We should be focused on how we live this faith day to day rather than on how many brownie points we can rack up to carry us over after we croak.
Jesus should be a model rather than an absolute, representing a way to live our lives rather than the front man and face of an institutional system of legalisms coming from a vindictive god who lies in wait for us to screw up. Likewise our church should not be a bastion of money and power; rather, it should be a refuge based on kindness and love, a collective of joining, of healing of compassionate collegiality and cooperation rather than a machine sucking money out of the meager assets of its adherents, often in support of a lavish and inordinate life style for its self-anointed leaders.
Ours is a church in need of reform, one more concerned with Christianity rather than corporate opulence. It is then that we’ll be entitled to call it the Church of Jesus Christ rather than an institution dedicated to the worship of Mammon.
We should not be a hierarchal church that seeks to develop power over its adherents through shame, belittling and fear, rather it should be a mutual organization that encourages it’s adherents to grow and thrive in emulating the life of this Christ person who should be looked to as an inspiration rather than as the advance man for a small mean-spirited and vindictive god who is just waiting for one of his followers to screw up.
Engaged and dynamic institutional Jesus… we have a long way to go.
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