'We started with the question, "What place does Christ have in modern society?" But we cannot end without asking the same question on a personal level: "What place does Christ have in my life?"....
To say "Jesus is Lord!" means making a genuine decision.'
So I'm finishing up the first chapter (!) of Remember Jesus Christ, and it comes down to the question of "What place does Christ have in my life?" To proclaim kērygma is to make an offensive statement - that a man is God is offensive to most of the world. But that statement is a definitive absolute in the midst of wishy-washy, touchy-feely ambiguousness. It means stating: "I believe in someone other than myself, I believe in something greater than anything I could ever conceive of and I believe that Someone came here on earth to establish a relationship with us, a personal, intimate relationship."
And that is offensive. That is crazy talk. But there is no going back with that statement. Those who want an impersonal God, someone who stands back to watch you suffer, go somewhere else. I have God who was willing to come down and suffer with us, and asks us to unite our sufferings to himself.
So I ask myself, have I made that decision? And I must answer yes. Because an impersonal God, a god who stands back and watches, is a cruel god, and I can't believe in an 'all-loving' Creator would do that to his people. There is something in me that rebels against such an idea, I think, for good reason.
Because such an idea is ludicrous. If God created us to know Him in this life to love Him in the next, why would He step away from us, when that would only serve to drive us away from Him and not closer to Him? That seems so silly, doesn't it?
In my opinion, it's all or nothing. Either you are an atheist or you are a Christian. There is no middle ground. 'Be either hot or cold but not lukewarm, else I will spit you out.'
I have chosen my course.
Next and last post on chapter one will be about intentions.
Update: BadCatholic wants us to Go Hard.
great!
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