GroshLink

Cool Jesus was forwarded to me by an IVCF staff friend. I found this Roman Catholic angle of critique expressed much of how I would have reacted if I fallen into such a subculture:

For more than two decades Cool Jesus has been right by my side. He's got a big toothy smile, he hates my Church, and he's always telling me I've got it all wrong. But he never tells me what's right.

But, I have not and I find sermons such as the one delivered by our current local congregation, Elizabethtown Brethren-in-Christ providing the much needed structure and direction for the daily walk with The One True God. For some sermon notes which I took from Sunday are posted below . . .

The Jesus Creed

Matthew 22:37-39 (Deut. 6:5-6, Lev. 19:18)

Spiritual formation is the reformation of our spirits in which we come to see God deeply desires us and has done everything necessary for us.

Scott McKnight's The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others considers the 2 greatest commandments as the foundation of Jesus' teaching and our lives as followers of Christ. A creed is necessary to be held alongside the Bible and the Spirit [note: we celebrated The Lord's Supper on Sunday which also emphasizes the People of God as the Body of Christ] as certain details do matter and are necessary to not only frame our perspective, but also raise the next generation as followers of Christ.

All you need is love. The Beatles were wrong. Love must encompass more than sentimentality. The love of God is demonstrated by Christ's life and death. Christian commitment is not some religious thing to help us fit in w/others and make our lives nice. Life with Jesus is spiritual transformation to the core of our being and our only happiness is found in loving Him. Paradoxically, our love of Him and a realization of what hurts/concerns Him, fills the emptiness w/in us enabling us to receive the transformative joy and true love which leads to loving ourselves, our neighbors.

Pastor Hall then, took time to consider a piece by Roy Hattersley entitled, Faith does breed charity: We atheists have to accept that most believers are better human beings which was provoked by the Salvation Army's relief work in response to Katrina. The whole piece is a must read, but especially the conclusion, It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. The Bible is so full of contradictions that we can accept or reject its moral advice according to taste. Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night.

The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army.

Because he is Love, He calls us, makes love possible through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus the Christ. We are not devoted to a work or movement but to Jesus Christ who is worked into/expressed/reproduced in all of our lives [as individuals and the People God].