Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 October 2005 09:10:05
Have recently discovered Leaving Munster , which is a bit of a serious, grown up exploration of stuff, but v.worth reading if you are quite awake at the time.
On the post which I've linked to the guy expresses, (in a far more in-depth way than I can ever manage to verbalise), some of the key problems about Christianity. However, he does reduce Chrisitianity as a term down to being merely a sociological and historical construction. I have problems with that, in some ways.
Yes it is a term which has been historically, sociologically and politically constructed, but it is more than that. If used in its most general sense it sums up something more. Christianity I believe as a term / structure sums up the expression of God at his most loving, but also man at his worse and if we look at Christianity it shows us why we need some form of salvation / connection with God.
Christianity has been a vehicle which has been used to create the other and oppress and murder thousands / millions (?) of people over the centuries (and this is something the Chuch corporately needs to acknowledge and ask forgiveness both of God and those peoples / cultures it has oppressed for) , but it has also been a vehicle for transformation and change of millions of lives for the better, when people have connected with the spirituality and truly counter-cultural aspects of the religion, through a connection with God and his spirit.
As such it is an illustration of Gods redemptive power, because God takes an institution which can be seen as ultimately sinful and destructive when left to the wills of men, but turn it into something which truly changes lives for the better when it honestly and openly connects with Him, (that is father/parent, son/child and spirit).