We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

A Jesus Kind of Church
The church can only be the conduit of God’s love if it stops judging others (See yesterday’s post). This means that it will stop being concerned about its reputation in the eyes of those who practice this religious judgment. The only reputation we need be concerned with is to have the one Jesus had. He was known for his unprecedented love, by those who would receive it, and scorned for his irreligious attitudes, by those who would not.
Jesus’ religious reputation was tarnished in the eyes of religious people because he did not honor many of the religious taboos of his day. Walking in unity with the Father, Jesus possessed a joyful freedom—a kind of recklessness—that was scandalous to those whose worth was derived from their supposed ability to judge good and evil. Jesus hung out with women, some of whom had tarnished reputations. He fellowshipped with tax collectors, drunkards, and other sinners. He healed and fellowshipped with lepers. He praised Gentiles, Samaritans, and even prostitutes and tax collectors over respected Jewish religious leaders.
Among the religious, Jesus’ reputation was dishonorable. But Jesus wasn’t concerned about his reputation. Jesus came to heal the sick, not to placate the religious sensibilities of those who thought they were healthy (Mark 2:17). To heal the sick, you have to love the sick. And this means you have to ignore what those who (mistakenly) think they’re healthy think about you!
The singular task of the church is to replicate this eternal, reckless love to the world. One indication that we are doing our job well is that sinners on the fringes of society will be enjoying fellowship with us, as they did with Jesus. Another indication, directly resulting from this, is that those who judge by religious standards (they eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) will judge us.
If, for example, a church treats the LGBT community with the same compassion religious judges extend toward divorced folks or people who struggle with weight issues, its leaders will likely be condemned as “compromising the Word of God” by these judges. Such a church is sinning against the (self-serving) knowledge of good and evil from which the religious judges feed. Consequently, the judges will likely feel as though their god has been assaulted, and, as a matter a fact, it has! As idolatrous people often do when their gods are threatened, they may rage. They did so with Jesus, and they will do so today when a church looks like Jesus.
A church that celebrates the cessation of judgment and loves as God loves has to be willing to have their reckless love scorned as compromising, relativistic, liberal, soft on doctrine, or antireligious. After all, what kind of church attracts and embraces prostitutes, drunkards, gays, and drug addicts? What kind of church routinely has smokers, drinkers, gamblers, and bums ushering in their services, hanging out in their small groups, singing in their choir, signing up for classes, etc.—without anyone immediately confronting their sin? What kind of church would accept a woman who was still living with a man out of wedlock after having gone through five marriages? (See John 4:1-26). What kind of church blurs the boundary between those who are “in” and those who are “out” to this degree?
The answer is a Jesus kind of church.
—Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 196-198.
Photo credit: racineur via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-ND
Category: General
Tags: Church, Judgment, Love, Religious Idolatry
Topics: The Church
Related Reading

Does the Doctrine of the Trinity Matter?
Jesus reveals the greatest, most beautiful, and mysterious aspect of God when he, despite being himself God Incarnate, relates to God as his “Father” and refers to God as “the Holy Spirit.” There is, of course, only one God (1 Cor 8:6). Yet Jesus reveals that God somehow exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.…

God in Our Image
zen Sutherland via Compfight We came across this piece written by Jonathan Storment earlier this month and we had to share it here. The title of the piece is Everyday Idolatry: My God. He does a great job of outlining the ways that we twist God into whatever we need him to be to prop up…

The “Christus Victor” View of the Atonement
God accomplished many things by having his Son become incarnate and die on Calvary. Through Christ God revealed the definitive truth about himself (Rom 5:8, cf. Jn 14:7-10); reconciled all things, including humans, to himself (2 Cor 5:18-19; Col 1:20-22), forgave us our sins (Ac 13:38; Eph 1:7); healed us from our sin-diseased nature (1…

A Brief Theology of God’s Love
The most profound truth of the Bible is that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). This is the most fundamental thing to be said about God, for it encompasses everything else that can be said about God. Peter Kreft explains this passage it this way: Love is God’s essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express…

World Vision, Gay Marriage & Judgment
Courtney “Coco” Mault via Compfight Yesterday World Vision announced that it is now allowing gay Christians in legal same-sex marriages to be hired as well as gay Christians who follow their policy of abstinence outside of marriage. The social media reaction is quite varied as you might expect, ranging from support to extreme statements of…

Dismembered: The Church and Individualism
Those God has saved are called to be the church, not go to church. This distinction is vitally important. The church consists of all those who entered into the new covenant that Jesus inaugurated by putting their trust in him and surrendering their life over to him. Yet, the church is much more than a…