As Marianne Williamson says: "Evil is the power of God inverted". I would actually modify that a bit, and say: "Evil is the love of God inverted -- or absent".
This is what so called "religious" (read: pharisaical and people opposed to the goodness of God in Jesus Christ) people do -- they use holy, life-giving words and concepts to divide, destroy, demean, discriminate and decimate all those they see as "other".
Witness the recent 14-point Nashville Statement.
Jesus, though, didn't give one whiff what the fundamentalists of his day thought or said. He challenged them on their exclusive interpretation of scripture, broke their laws right in front of them, overturned their corrupt power and economic systems and called them names to their faces. (That whole "brood of vipers" thing is something that continually runs in my head on the occasion of the pharisees using holy words to alienate human beings from the love of God known in Jesus Christ.)
Jesus never tried to conform his life to the religious mores of his day. Instead, he went about doing God's work of bringing more love into this world -- that is, after all, the work of reconciliation invested with the Church. To keep up what Jesus started. He began his own community where there was only one rule: "Love one another as I have loved you". He wasn't concerned if his disciples had their doctrines and dogmas right. He didn't particularly seem too obsessed with the outward purity (or even inward purity) that so pervades in certain segments of "religious" folks today. In fact, he knew they'd muck it all up and he loved them anyway (have any of these folks ever really read the Old Testament prophets?). He didn't build a church, or hire musicians with a smoke machine, or start auxiliary ministries or denominations. He certainly didn't issue any religious statements meant to alienate and divide humanity. (On the one occasion, in the New Testament, when Peter thought he had just such a mandate -- a la Acts 10 -- boy, did he discover he'd gotten it all wrong.)
Instead Jesus spent his time loving, healing and building relationships with those considered as "others" and "outsiders". This is the calling of anyone who wants to build an inclusive society -- let alone an inclusive religion or spirituality. This is the calling of anyone working in the Kingdom.
To work contrariwise, is to work against the Kingdom. This is the spirit of anti-Christ.
This is what so called "religious" (read: pharisaical and people opposed to the goodness of God in Jesus Christ) people do -- they use holy, life-giving words and concepts to divide, destroy, demean, discriminate and decimate all those they see as "other".
Witness the recent 14-point Nashville Statement.
Jesus, though, didn't give one whiff what the fundamentalists of his day thought or said. He challenged them on their exclusive interpretation of scripture, broke their laws right in front of them, overturned their corrupt power and economic systems and called them names to their faces. (That whole "brood of vipers" thing is something that continually runs in my head on the occasion of the pharisees using holy words to alienate human beings from the love of God known in Jesus Christ.)
Jesus never tried to conform his life to the religious mores of his day. Instead, he went about doing God's work of bringing more love into this world -- that is, after all, the work of reconciliation invested with the Church. To keep up what Jesus started. He began his own community where there was only one rule: "Love one another as I have loved you". He wasn't concerned if his disciples had their doctrines and dogmas right. He didn't particularly seem too obsessed with the outward purity (or even inward purity) that so pervades in certain segments of "religious" folks today. In fact, he knew they'd muck it all up and he loved them anyway (have any of these folks ever really read the Old Testament prophets?). He didn't build a church, or hire musicians with a smoke machine, or start auxiliary ministries or denominations. He certainly didn't issue any religious statements meant to alienate and divide humanity. (On the one occasion, in the New Testament, when Peter thought he had just such a mandate -- a la Acts 10 -- boy, did he discover he'd gotten it all wrong.)
Instead Jesus spent his time loving, healing and building relationships with those considered as "others" and "outsiders". This is the calling of anyone who wants to build an inclusive society -- let alone an inclusive religion or spirituality. This is the calling of anyone working in the Kingdom.
To work contrariwise, is to work against the Kingdom. This is the spirit of anti-Christ.