Y’know, I do too. I have long held the hope that the Christian church would transform itself from being a religion about Jesus into the religion of Jesus. A church where the doctrines taught by Jesus himself are held to be the standard by which all other doctrines are judged. And when I say all other doctrines, I mean it literally, including other doctrines one sees in the scriptures and ones currently taught in the church.

The nice thing is, I am beginning to see it happening. People are slowly beginning to reject forms of Christianity that use quotes from the Old Testament to justify hatred and injustice and other things which clearly go against Jesus’ teachings. People are beginning to use not just science, but what we can discern of the actual teachings of Jesus himself to exorcise the mindless, irrelevant superstitions and political influences which have so severely retarded mankind’s understanding of God’s kingdom thus far.

Give it another couple thousand years.

P.S. Nice blog you have there.

As for the whole debt thing - that’s just plain stupid to do. I like the message of sharing that is inherent in the gospel and my biggest hope for the church one day is that it becomes a place of programs and sharing for the ‘least of these’ - thus including the whole community and all of the church family. I see something great for the church but as of now - I have yet to see how that institution can become a place of ‘refuge and charity’.