Christianity for the Next 1000 Years: Church Changes

In the beginning, God created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  I pray you are well and you return here because this word from me gives you comfort in your life journey.  I have been writing about changes I see in church.

I think it’s gospel, that is, “good news,” that church is changing.  When we see the Pope washing women’s’ feet and declaring God’s love, that is a sign of the coming God-rule. 

An evangelical professor is kicked out of seminary because he does not believe a God of love would create a hell.  That is gospel.  When Marcus Borg says that it is the nature of God that God is more humane to us than we are to each other, that is gospel.  When our country moves away from second class citizenship for any group of Americans, that is gospel.  When Syrians stop killing one another, that is gospel. 

I see intimations of an emerging Christianity for the next one thousand years.  That is the Christianity we should have seen from every single Christian who ever lived in the past.

If history had been filled with such Christians, that is, men and women who love, then our species could have turned its attention to science instead of war and healing instead of power. 

We could have gone to Mars instead of Vietnam.  We might have cured Alzheimer’s Disease instead of manufacturing napalm.  We could have waged a war on poverty instead of people.

If there had been such Christians who love, there would be no argument from adherents of other religions about bloody Christians entering their lands in order to conquer, or worse, wipe them out.  We would be welcomed for where ever we are lives are nurtured.

If there had been such Christians who love, doctrine would have bowed to service.  God’s rule would have created a more just and civilized world.  Christians would not have murdered each other. 

Catholics and Protestants who murdered each other would have lived.  Thomas More could have died a natural death.  Joan of Arc could have led a church instead of an army.  

      Servetus would not have been burned at the stake.  Copernicus could have published his writings while he was alive.  Galileo would never have been under house arrest.  Darwin could have loved God and explained natural selection.  

      The only crusades would have been mass attempts to reach out to Muslims in their time of need.  The only conversion for Muslims and any other adherent of any other religion would be to a loving God by any other name.  

If bread and fish had been the weapons of the church, the theological conversation among men and women that clamored in the past would not have resulted in death and hatred.

I see signs that the Christianity that endures is coming.  It is all good.  I would love to live a thousand years just to learn what becomes of it.

Thanks for visiting.  I hope to see you here tomorrow.  Blessings…