broad brushstrokes

The disciples I mentioned in the last blog went on to establish the Christian religion we know of today. One which I will argue later on, has refused to renew itself since its humble beginnings in the first century. As Paul Davies observed ‘The trivial God we meet in church is no longer big enough to be able to be the God of this world anymore’. ‘After religion, try Jesus’ is now the cry as the church continues to refuse to budge on fundamental dogma. In messing with the simple and central theme of ‘There's nothing you can do and nothing you can be that would place you outside the boundaries of the love of God’, the church only succeeds in muddying the waters by adding unnecessary layers.

The church needs to realise that the Bible cannot be taken literally or assumed inerrant anymore as its words and images are limited by the age that produced them. Our 20th century vision of this God of antiquity has been culturally conditioned, socially moulded as well as linguistically restrained. We need to journey beyond these restrictions and into the experience that shaped the bible and put it into a context that we can understand in our day and age.

A summary of Jesus by the early Christians:

The coming of Christ has fulfilled the ancient prophecies. He was born of David's family, died according to the Scriptures in order to deliver us from the present evil age. He was buried, rose again on the 3rd day as Scripture foretold, and is now exalted at God's right hand as the Son of God and Lord of the living and the dead. He has given His Holy Spirit to His followers as an assurance of His Lordship and as a foretaste of his return to be the Judge and Saviour of men at the Last Day.