I am happy to welcome you to my blog. No matter who you are or where you come from, or what background you have, whether you’re a person of faith or not, I am glad you stopped by. I started this blog because there is a growing movement of people in the Christian tradition who are in a period of transition. We believe that there is more to Christianity….more to Jesus…more to following Jesus…more to the love of God we find in Jesus…more to loving our neighbors as ourselves…than we are presently experiencing.
We want to be honest about the conflicts we have with present systems of Christian thought and life (whether in our churches, Bible colleges, and other faith based institutions). We want to be true to the questions we have, though they are difficult and painful, and will invite a storm of controversy if we ask them.
We want to go where the questions lead, asking them with humility, with open hearts to God and each other, willing to disagree with people, practice respectful tolerance, recognizing that everyone is on a journey of faith and needs enough space to explore for themselves their deepest questions (just as others gave us the space to do the same).
AND more than anything, we want to follow Jesus where he is leading.
To follow Jesus is not to remain idle, is not to have a nice neat theology that is safe and comfortable, and maintain lives that are free from conflict. No, the God we meet in the face of Jesus enters into the mess and conflict of life. If you don’t believe me just read the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all the way through. What you will discover is that to follow Jesus is to go in a particular direction and to live into a whole new way of life while not pretending our issues, pain, suffering, and conflict are absent.
To be a Christian is about a whole new way of being human in our world (not just in our faith communities) that faces life with dignity and courage, honesty and hope.
This is just some of what is packed into those 3 simple but challenging words that make up my blog site theme: “Authentic Christianity Matters”.
My prayer is that this blog might be a part of this ongoing conversation and movement.
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