Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Is God imprisoned or active in the church gathering?

At the reformation, the hordes gathered, ready to tear down the walls and traditions of the church, because men had imprisoned God inside them, and God must be free to be in the world. And rightly so. We, however, do not live in the time of the reformation. The hordes stand ready to tear down the walls and traditions, not to free God, but because they are offended by the freedom he has within those walls. Those christians who long for the turbulent days, who imagine themselves as liberators as they attack the church and her practices, are deluded. Those christians who join the hordes and clamour for the church to be like the nations (for the sake of evangelism of course), wearing reformation banners, are the trigger happy adolescent soldiers, merrily raping and pillaging whoever happens to be nearby. Dare I say that this is even behind the cry 'all of life is worship'? If by this you mean God spills over from the contemplation, communion with God's presence, praise and joyful response of the gathering, soaking your days with the sacred and swelling into an even greater wave of praise the next sunday, then I say Amen. If, however, you mean I should stop thinking the gathering is special and treat it as a drudging lecture and horizontal cattle prod devoid of mystery because thats how the 'real world' is, and we need to reach the 'real world', I think you have joined the wrong hordes.

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