HAPPY NEW YEAR
Is It Heresy or Insight?
The Path to “Salvation” Isn’t as Straight and Narrow as So Much of the Church Seems to Believe
This essay is in response to the “Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?” writing prompt from Our Human Family.
Like many people, I’ve been struggling for several years with what the church has come to represent to so much of the world — rigid, judgmental, intellectually barren, heartless, and clannish. As I told a friend recently, it’s really difficult to claim Christianity when so much of it looks so ugly.
Yet, I am a Christian, and I believe the God I worship has the power to transform individuals, nations, and the world. That’s why I was delighted this year to find two books that will go a long way toward resurrecting a simple idea: God is love, and those who follow God will work to bring and expand love to the world. I’ll definitely be bringing these books into 2023 and beyond.
The first is Brian D. McLaren’s Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned. The second is John Pavlovitz’s If God Is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk.
Even though he is a pastor by training, McLaren doesn’t try to buffalo anyone into staying in a church, or even staying Christian. He…
