Rooted + Radical

4 notes

Jesus wasn’t driven by impact. His desire wasn’t to attract an ever-increasing crowd of people. In fact, episodes like the events of Holy Week and his teaching to the crowds reveal a Jesus who intentionally weeds out those who are attracted to him for the wrong reasons. Something as rudimentary as assembling a crowd was a goal far below his calling. Late-night television has proven that a man crushing beer cans on his forehead can draw a crowd. A two-liter of Diet Coke and a pack of Mentos mints can draw a crowd. For Jesus impact did not define legitimacy; bigger was not intrinsically better.

10 notes

Having been embraced by God, we must make space for others in ourselves and invite them in—even our enemies. This is what we enact as we celebrate the Eucharist. In receiving Christ’s broken body, we, in a sense, receive all those whom Christ received by suffering.

23 notes

Almost every atheist I’ve spoken to doesn’t understand what we mean by “God”. So, what an atheist is denying I would deny too. Most atheists deny that there is a ‘supreme being’ or an ‘item’ in or above the world, and I would deny that too. Or a distant object that wound things up and went into retirement - I would deny that too. Also, most atheists construe God as a ‘competitor’, he’s in competition with us. Somehow, if God gets the glory, I get less glory. If God is in charge, I can’t be in charge. [But according to] St. Thomas Aquinas if God is the ground of our being, the more we give glory to God, the more we are elevated. I tend to agree with most atheists. I think they are right in denying this ‘false god’. But the ‘true God’ I think they just have as much hunger for.

534 notes

Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.

14 notes

The message is clear: history belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being. This is not simply a religious statement. It is also true of Communists or capitalists or anarchists as it is of Christians. The future belongs to whoever can envision a new and desirable possibility, which faith then fixes upon as inevitable. This is the politics of hope. Hope envisages its future and then acts as if that future is now irresistible, thus helping to create the reality for which it longs. The future is not closed. There are fields of forces whose actions are somewhat predictable. But how they will interact is not. Even a small number of people, firmly committed to the new inevitability on which they have fixed their imaginations, can decisively affect the shape the future takes. These shapers of the future are the intercessors, who call out of the future the longed-for new present. In the New Testament, the name and texture and aura of that future is God’s domination-free order, the reign of God…

15 notes

What are you really living for? It’s crucial to realize that you either glorify God, or you glorify something or someone else. You’re always making something look big. If you don’t glorify God when you’re involved in a conflict, you inevitably show that someone or something else rules your heart.

6 notes

The genuine, positive, and truly inexpressible joy of the one who loves consists simply in this, that he may love as one loved by God, as God’s child … That means exaltation and gain, peace and joy. It is a reason for laughing, even when our eyes are full of tears.

13 notes

Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.