(The photograph above, from Wikipedia Commons, is by Reinherdhauke.)I am an atheist, and have been for more than thirty years now. But that does not mean there are any christians that I respect -- especially those who have rejected the fundamentalist gospel of hate, and still try to live up to the gospel of love that Jesus preached in the Bible. One of those christians is Jim Rigby, a minister in Austin, Texas. Rev. Rigby has a blog that I have become very fond of, and on it he is not afraid to ask the hard questions about christianity and examine his own faith. Here is one of his recent posts demonstrating this:
Is Christianity Honest Enough To Survive?
It is a living question. Is Christianity honest enough to survive?
Religions die just like people do. Usually religions die after plucking out their own eyes so that their beliefs will not be offended by reality. They die after severing their lifeline to the common good to protect their special claims of exclusivity. They die after warm blooded creativity is replaced by heart numbing ritual. If you look carefully at any living religion, you will see it was built from the broken bones of earlier religious forms. The Ten Commandments are a remake of the Code of Hammurabi, the traditional Christian image of the devil is clearly a remake of the god Pan, and so on. Religion is always a bridge we build between the past and the future. Can Christianity be radically honest about its own multicultural beginnings? Can we recognize the stories and images in our text that were taken from other religions, or will we continue to pretend we have been given a special revelation? Will Christianity be radically honest about the superiority of science in testing reality claims, or will we continue to turn to science only when it confirms what we already believe? Will we consecrate ourselves to the common good or will we continue to try to cast the world in our own image? Is the church honest enough to survive? This is a living question. The church will answer that question by how we respond to the crises that confront us. If the church can surrender claims of certainty and of superiority, then, even if it dies, the church will be reborn like the phoenix. But if we lack this courage to be radically honest and authentically humble, the question is answered: we are already dead.
