“Defending Marriage” is one of these. Defending Jesus in the Eucharist is another. Chillul HaShem is the technical term in Judaism. The Infamous Danish Cartoons, the Satanic Verses…

Christians, at least, are *supposed* to follow a God who doesn’t defend himself even against spitting, nails and lashes. I usually enjoy the ironic twist of Catholic Crusaders leaping with legal swords to defend an image of God nailed to a tree.

And after reading a lot of theology on God’s lack of human passions, I find the idea that the Almighty of Sinai could be “offended” to be ancient, tribal and humorous superstition.

Attacking your ideas about God (which are up for debate at all times) is not the same thing as attacking God. And if someone wants to attack God – directly, full on, hatred – then I think that’s between God and the Attacker. But, secretly, I think God can handle it.

• Ruth 1:1-18
• Psalm 146
• Deuteronomy 6:1-9
• Psalm 119:1-8
• Hebrews 9:11-14
• Mark 12:28-34

Love God, Love Neighbour.

This sermon title should drive up the hits a bit!

One point in my personal theological journey, one on which I harp over and over again, is the connection of this word, αγαπε agape – love, with its root verb, αγαπαω apagpao – to welcome or entertain. Although it’s used as a command in our passage today, “Love the Lord your God”, we don’t get αγαπε at all, we go straight for αγαπαω. Jesus tells us straight out to “welcome the Lord God” and to “Welcome our neighbour”.

Ride that train of meaning for a while in your throughts.

This past week one of my housemates met two guys on the street who were asking for money to buy food. Instead she invited them back to the house. They said they would come by later, but they needed the money now, so she said the could come by now and help prepare the food… So they did and, when I came home from errands, I found them in the kitchen, all three working hard to prepare supper for me and for our 13 other housemates. These two guys ended up spending a couple of nights with us, sleeping on the guest bed, and they went their way, hitchhiking to wherever it is they are going. Travellers.

The first night I came to supper at the house that was to become my home… an invited guest of one of the members of the community… there was far far too much food (in the eyes of the person who had cooked) and so she went outside to the bus stop and invited in a bunch of folks who were waiting for the bus. One woman was so hungry, so worried about what would happen when she got home, than she was crying for joy at the invite.

Mindful, also, of the Christian teaching of the incarnation and the implications thereof – that welcoming our neighbour is the same thing as welcoming our God – I want to wrap up this preliminary meditation with some thoughts on this quote from Bishop Kallistos Ware (which I’ve blogged before):

The whole person is not just a self-contained, self-centered unity. The whole person is a person who is on the one side open to God, and on the other side open to other human persons. The human being without God is not truly human. We were created to enter into a relationship with God, to be in dialogue with Him, and if that relationship is not present something essential is lacking from our personhood. Equally, we are created to relate to other human persons. It has been said that there is no true man unless there are two men entering into communication with one another. The isolated individual is not a real person. A real person is one who lives in and for others. And the more personal relationships we form with others, the more truly we realize ourselves as persons. This idea of openness to God, openness to other persons, could be summed up under the word “love.” We become truly personal by loving God and by loving other humans. By love I don’t mean merely an emotional feeling, but a fundamental attitude. In its deepest sense, love is the life, the energy, of God Himself in us.

We are not at all a full person without this hospitality. We are not real. So much of our culture is wrapped up in things that “I do because I enjoy doing them”. I had a conversation recently with a friend about horror movies: exciting our body’s flight-or-fight system just for the sheer rush of doing so. We “Cry wolf” to our body at every turn – roller coasters, scary news stories about H1N1 or AIDS or terrorists or “the other political party”. We hype up our systems every chance we get. I suggest the real problem with our culture is our failure to open up: we have emotions now, and hormones, just exactly for ourselves alone. We are in a closed loop – dealing with only our own feelings instead of others. Our culture – from horror movies to political commentary – one of onanistic enjoyment of our hormones in which all other things (including people treated as things) serve as pornography.

This is the opposite, I would suggest, of our commanded hospitality.

Last night our community here, in Buffalo, had the monthly singing of the Akathist of Thanksgiving (6PM on the Last Wednesday of Every Month!. I was struck by the Seventh Ikos:

IKOS 7
The breath of Your Holy Spirit inspires artists, poets, scientists. The power of Your supreme knowledge makes them prophets and interpreters of Your laws, who reveal the depths of Your creative wisdom. Their works speak unwittingly of You. How great are You in Your creation! How great are You in man!

Glory to You, showing Your unsurpassable power in the laws of the universe.
Glory to You, for all nature is filled with Your laws.
Glory to You for what You have revealed to us in Your mercy.
Glory to You for what you have hidden from us in Your wisdom.

Glory to You for the inventiveness of the human mind.
Glory to You for the dignity of man’s labor.
Glory to You for the tongues of fire that bring inspiration.

Glory to You, O God, from age to age.

Remember: even your most anti-religious friend is, like it or not, an icon of God in your life. This includes the scientists you imagine to “hate” your faith. Our job as Christians is to find God in the Truth we hear – from wherever we hear it. Scientists – like clergy and philosophers – can reveal deeper truths about God or the universe if we are open to it. All truth is Truth, Himself. Fr Gregory reminds us,

Orthodox Christians with this faith do not suppose that science or the arts are alternative truth perceptions to theology. The more we discover and know about the world the stronger and deeper in Christ revealed in the very sinews and flesh of our humanity and in the very physicality of Creation itself; its terrible and majestic glory … signatures of God, vehicles of God indeed.

The universe is the first Bible, in fact, it is the only Bible written by God’s own hand. Any faithful exploration of that text is sure to reveal deeper meanings.

We should also remember that “teach the controversy” is a technique beloved of American creationists, and of antivaccination campaigners (with whom Fraser Nelson has also, oddly, flirted). These groups know that in our modern media, where truth is halfway between the two most extreme views, to insert doubt is to win.

As a purveyor of faith… what is doubt?

I am amused by recent discussions with non-religious and anti-religious people who seem to imply that facts are some sort of concrete base on which they can build a world-view and thus doubt, per se, is ample reason to discard something and move along. The same tactic seems to come up among people who don’t want to get their children vaccinated or people who don’t want to eat meat. There’s ample science supporting most folks’ POV – meaning there are tests – verifiable tests – and white coated experts who will interpret the tests to back you up. But there is almost no way to make the claim that something is “really” true beyond a reasonable doubt.

And I wonder if the problem goes to the equation cited in the little quote above: is truth always “halfway between the two most extreme views”?

Is it possible that Truth might be terribly extreme, limiting and even exclusionary? And that in such extreme conditions doubt is not simply a lack of assent to an extreme claim, but rather a failure to act despite assent?

When one is at work – especially in a menial or subservient position – one is often told to do stuff without knowing the whys or wherefores. Only after the fact can one see a big enough picture to understand what all was up. If one were to sit at one’s desk waiting for the perfect reason (other than “because the boss said so”), or if one were to attempt a counter-argument from lack of knowledge, one would be displaying a distinct lack of faith based on one’s doubts. (This assumes one has good reason to trust one’s boss.) Most of us act on the boss’ request assuming that she knows the big picture even if we do not. This is faith in dialogue with doubt. Sitting at one’s desk, the failure to act, is not “doubt” but rather “resistance”.

Likewise, a failure to Trust the Church on things she has historically got right – whilst at the same time doubting her on other things – and yet still going to Church, praying, participating… this is Faith in dialogue with doubt. Sitting at home because “none of that stuff could be true…” is giving up on both faith and doubt and settling for that media equation of “how to be lukewarm” halfway between two extremes.

1) The first portion on Ecclesiology needs to be blogged in toto because it is so very much at variance with any American Protestant ideas about church and most American Catholic ideas about church. And yet, despite what some parties might think about me and my crazy journey, it is exactly what I think about Church.

2) I wonder if there is a philosophical parallel (even if not a direct historical connexion) between, on the one hand, the Christian idea of the person as ontologically whole, free and absolute by virtue of being created in the “image and likeness of God”, as expressed by the Cappadocian Fathers and, on the other hand, the American idea of man as “created equal and endowed by his creator with certain inalienable rights” as expressed by the Founding Fathers.

When one is born, he has “Soma”. But Jesus describes the “more abundant life” he says “Zoe”. It is to this Zoe that we are “Born from Above” or “Born Again”, if you’ll pardon the use of something with a lot of baggage.

The Saints of the Early Church speak and write about the transformation of Soma into Zoe.

So: to make a neologism of greek roots… (would that be a Neohelenism?)

The Christian, living her life in this world, yet trying to be living God’s life in this world as well, is to be Zoesomatic.

The Outlaw preachers are, very generally, a group of GenX and GenY-aged pastors (there may be some millenials and one or two boomers in there as well) who preach a Gospel of God’s Grace and, essentially, minding one’s own business in Christ. I think it’s more important what their detractors say about them, however: return to the google search to see what I mean. The biggest problem most conservatives have is that the Outlaws welcome gay and lesbian folks and trans people into their churches.

The most well-known of the Outlaws is Jay Bakker, (son of Jim and Tammy Fae) whose six-part documentary, One Punk Under God, tells the story of his coming to grips with what he thinks Grace means in the Christian story. In some of the most-moving scenes in the series, Jay and his then-wife come to realise they can’t exclude gay people from their lives or their church in the name of Jesus. Then we watch as, one by one, many of Jay’s supporters pull out or disassociate themselves. There is one amazing sermon where you watch his congregation fall apart. Having been with him on grace, salvation, Jesus and more – shouting “Amen!” and so on – they suddenly fall silent as Jay draws the conclusion that they should stop beating up on their gay brothers and sisters. Some literally turn the other way in their pews. Jay is the one many folks have heard of but, I’m sure his experience is paralleled by the other Outlaw folks.

The counter arguments usually focus on gays, of course. They worry that these folks are slithering in among the youth. (Of course that’s not really the issue: it’s just that younger people support gay rights more than older folks. This scares people. And makes them feel old and out of step. But anyway…)

Increasingly, however, I think this whole outlaw thing is missing something: ironically it’s the same thing the “inlaw” side is missing.

Take a look at my (only a wee-bit tongue in cheek) summary of Hell-fire preaching:

1. God will punish us with eternal hell for our sins.
2. God will judge us for even the slightest imperfection.
3. Jesus had to sacrifice himself to God the Father to make peace between humans and God.
4. Jesus is the only means of “getting saved”.
5. Salvation means only having your sins “forgiven” and then not being sent to hell after you die.
6. Once saved God will count your debt “paid for” and you can get into heaven when you’re dead.

Or, take a look at the “Four Spiritual Laws“. (Here’s a flash version!) It’s not at all tongue in cheek and there are millions of people who believe it’s the truth about how God and Humans relate. As you click through you’ll realise there are more than 4 laws. It’s rather a lot: please note, when we’re sinful, not only is man unable to reach God; God is not at all trying to reach man. Jesus makes it possible through is sacrificial death for God to reach man again; for God to even want to.

Protestantism, in all its forms, it’s simply a reaction to an earlier aberration, a focus-on-one-thing to the denial of others, prevalent in the West, but present in the East as well. This bad idea was a calculation: we were in debt so deep that we could not pay it. Jesus paid it. Therefore there must be a way to pay the debt – known by Jesus but also by the Saints of participate in a mystical way in the life of Jesus. So whatever the method for the payment of this debt, the theologians called it “merit”.

Somehow, through Jesus and his agents (the priests, the saints, whatever) we had to each, individually, acquire enough merit to pay off our debts. If possible we should earn a few extra merits and pass them into the treasury of the Church – the official theological name for this point-system.

Protestants come along and say there is nothing you can do to gain these merit points. But it all functions the same way – except through the merit of Jesus only. Calvinism says that some people will be given enough points by God to get through. Others won’t. Arminianism says that those who choose to ask for them will be given enough points.

The Outlaw preachers accept this very same equation. They simply do the math differently.

We’re still broken, unable to get to God… but Jesus has done something and fixed us, paid all our debts. And so now… it’s seemingly ok to sin – including the Only Sin Left for the other folks because just as there is no way for us to earn God’s grace by our actions, so also there is no way for us to fall from God’s grace by our actions. There are no merits: nor are there demerits. It is, essentially, a sort of universalist Calvinism: everyone who shows up at Church is good to go, part of the chosen few. In fact, it’s possible that everyone is.

Against this is contrasted the most-traditional understanding present in east and west that, somehow, sin is division from God and what divides us is sin. That division is death (we were never intended to die). Jesus opens a door, provides the path to that door, and even empowers us to walk the path. But the path, itself, has little to do with orthodoxy, per se, and more to do with Orthopraxy: housing the poor, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, serving all those around us as if each were himself, Jesus Christ, present in the flesh. We don’t do this to earn our salvation. This finding of Jesus in everyone is our salvation in that eventually, others might see Jesus in us. That is exactly the point of salvation: to become Jesus and participate in the salvation of the world.

Grace, in this most-ancient theology, is not something God does to you or something God does in spite of you or doesn’t do to you because Jesus distracted him. Grace, in this most-ancient school of Christian thought, is neither something we earn or buy, or can’t earn or can’t buy. Grace, here, is God himself, present and active in our lives. That salvation, that action of Grace, does something in us, changes us, opens new doors of mission. It’s not that we have to do something in order to be worthy of God’s grace. Rather, God’s grace makes us do certain things, and denying those things is a denial of God’s grace in our lives.

To the outlaws, it seems that the sort of Grace that pays for our ticket out of hell into heaven is too expensive. They want to opine that the ticket is free, perhaps already in each of our back pockets. You can escape hell and get into heaven. It’s still about Jesus as a fire escape.

But according to the ancient teachings: our human descriptions of hell and heaven are just mythological analogies for the same place. Our God is a Consuming Fire. We shall each spend eternity with God and for some of us it will be sheer torture to be known so intimately, to be pierced so deeply by love – not just from God, mind you, but from everyone else basking in his love. Turn aside from that all-consuming, all-encompassing fire and you shall be burned up. In each-in-community working out our salvation in fear and trembling, the purpose is to became wholly fire. In doing so we dance the perichoretic dance of God, burning up our earthly dross and replacing it with the energies of Divine Grace: God living in our life.

I don’t want to blame this on an east-west issue. It is, as I noted, present in the East as well, especially after the writings of Simeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas. It’s present liturgically in the Canons of Matins, which can sound like late Mediæval meditations on divine body parts. We see it in the attachment one week of Jesus life rather than seeing everything Jesus did (and does) as part of the scope of salvation. I wonder if there is a chronological, causal connection between the “Image of Pity”

And the icon called “Extreme Humility” or “The Bridegroom”

The Outlaw preachers seem to just be another manifestation of the same problem – trying to make a simple, economic calculation out of what is a divine mystery and a mystery of divinisation, of theosis. When grace becomes something that Jesus bought for us but nothing we do or participate in then we loose all consequence of sin and salvation. It matters not if that Grace is universal or particular. If we are robbed of our duty and responsibility to dance with God, then we are not saved at all.

Of course I’m not traditionally Orthodox, but in my heart that tradition of theology has taken root. In the economic version, I either risk my soul by acting on my gay desires and impulses or in the outlaw preaching version, I don’t. In the other, more traditional model, I must find a way to let Christ’s life into even my Gay world, and let him reduce, reuse and recycle, remodel, remake, reform, whatever. It is possible to work out ones salvation in fear and trembling, even being Gay.

1. God will punish us with eternal hell for our sins.
2. God will judge us for even the slightest imperfection.
3. Salvation means only having your sins “forgiven” and not being sent to hell after you die.
4. Jesus is the only means of “getting saved”.
5. Once saved God will count your debt “paid for” and you can get into heaven when you’re dead.

If you reject that equation or a majority of its points what’s the point of being a Christian? What did Jesus come to do or do for us?

HRISTIANS HAVE Made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.

Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.

It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ… who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.

Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.

Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.

What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.

In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.

We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically…

1. The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.

2. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.

3. God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ… both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.

4. Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation–the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch—is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?

To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.

5. The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.

6. It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.

7. Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.

8. It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.

Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.

The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success… not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.

9. Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)

The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.

10. In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”

If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.

The two of us may disagree about many things—be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.

But in our two most recent books—From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful—we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ— “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:

Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.

Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.

Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.

Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.

Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:

Ask ye what great thing I know,

that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win?

Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the crucified.

This is that great thing I know;

this delights and stirs me so:
faith in him who died to save,

His who triumphed o’er the grave:
Jesus Christ, the crucified.

—

Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.

He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.

Amen.