Thursday, February 26, 2015

Witness to Jesus Becomes Christianity

Jesus freed us human beings from religion. He freed us from the six false gods of power, from the religious worldview based on them, and from the sacred world expressing that. The writers of the New Testament all bear faithful witness to this.
    
Gradually, however, their faithful witness to Jesus was subverted and became Christianity.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Olympianity as Religion and Sacred World

Olympianity is humankind’s principle religion. It is where we always begin and, eventually, always end up.
   
From a biblical point of view, Olympianity as a religion began in 4004 BC. That was when Adam and Eve ruptured humankind’s relationship with the one true god of freedom, truth, love, and vitality. When that happened, six conventional gods of power, falsehood, indifference, and death rushed in, enslaved us, and corrupted us enough to get us to devote ourselves to them. These six false gods are (1) Jupiter, god of politics; (2) Mars, god of war; (3) Vulcan, god of technology; (4) Venus, goddess of sex; (5) Pluto, god of money; and (6) Bacchus, god of consumption.
   
Since that time, God has always freed some individuals from those false gods to live as dynamic witnesses to him.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Subversion through Success: An Obsession with Unity

The very success enjoyed by the early Church led to its subversion. By the 300s, a once qualitatively  Christian Church had become primarily Olympian through its growth in power, people, and property. This had consequences.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

With All Our Mind: Thinking Paradoxically

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986).
 
Strangely enough, conversion to Jesus, and repentance from the six Olympian gods, involves radical changes not only in what we know but in how we think. To love Jesus with our whole mind means following the biblical witnesses in their way of thinking. It means learning to think of things paradoxically.