Great Thoughts from McManus

Relevant has an interesting interview with Erwin McManus up. Here's a quote that I thought was very thought provoking:

I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism—whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion. The defining difference is not that you have to do these things to be loved by God, it’s that God loves you, and if you would just turn around, you’d run right into His love. The Scriptures tell us that we are unconditionally loved, and we cannot lose that love. That’s a huge risk because now God can’t motivate us through fear, or judgment, or wrath—I mean He has actually leveraged everything where He believes in the power of love to change us. That’s a huge risk.

Learning From the Past

I came upon this article in Newsweek this week. It looks at the current crisis of evangelicals in the US.

It lays out the historical development of the Evangelical movement in the US and looks at the current tensions. I found it a pretty insightful analysis of what's going on right now between the "Christian right" and new movements that incorporate more social justice traditions. I think they correctly point out that we're at another key moment of change, so I think it's a good time to look at the issues and figure out where we stand, especially in light of my small group's current study of the Sermon on the Mount.

Unfortunately, it seems like we don't learn from our mistakes and continue pursuing political power and the expense of the truth.