Knowing Nothing But Christ

I had an old blog that I started keeping during the summer of 2010, but I just wasn't consistent with it. I decided to go ahead and delete that one and get a fresh start with this blog and see if I can keep it up, but I did find some old posts I had written that I'd like to go ahead and share again here. I'll probably post some of these in the next week or so.

This is one of the posts I wrote in 2010. It's on an issue I still think is really important now:

I feel really concerned by people, particularly in my age group, who are Christians but when asked about their "religious views" (on Facebook or anywhere else!) they say/ write something like the following:

• LOVE
• peace
• Social justice is my religion.
• I have a broad and inclusive perspective.
• God is too big to fit into any one religion.
• It's all about love...
• And you get the idea.

Frankly, I think that to only say these things while making no mention of Christ or anything related to him is a cop-out. If you are really a Christian, say so! Don't cover it up with some confusing, broad, feel-good, politically correct terms that don't really mean anything without Christ. (By the way, since when did my generation come to think that even our faith must be politically correct?)

If you read 1 Corinthians 1, you'll find that without the cross and the resurrection of Christ, vague notions of "love" and "justice" would probably honestly fit into Paul's category of the "wisdom of this world" and the philosophy of the present age--a wisdom he says is made foolish by the message of Christ! Now don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to say anything bad about love, justice, peace, or anything else I referenced on that list above. But those ideas have NO power devoid or separated from the power of the crucified and resurrected Christ! The early apostles did not sit around talking or preaching about those things. No, they preached the message of Christ and --empowered by that message--went out and LIVED those things. They were out living love so powerfully that thousands of people were coming to Christ every day! We can't just speak about feel-good concepts that don't really have a lot of meaning without Christ. In fact, Paul writes that he determined to know and preach NOTHING but Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. Maybe that is offensive, but sometimes, the truth is offensive.

As Paul did, we as Christians need to recognize the message of Christ which literally ruptures the flaky "wisdom" of our world and has the power to make us overturn our ideologies, change our commitments, relinquish our privileges, and dismantle our hierarchies. All I'm asking is that we not water down Christ to some wishy-washy, vague notion of peace, love, tolerance, justice, etc. And no worries--I'm guilty of doing this too and need to be reminded of it too! We need a little more of Paul's language of the interruption, offense, and new creation found in Christ to enter into our modern Christian discourse. We need to be praying that God will raise up people in His church who are not afraid to speak the truth. Love and justice can and should stem from our lives as saved people--but they are not our salvation, Jesus is! We need a rupture in our philosophy, like 1 Corinthians 1 gives witness to. We need to speak of Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God.

So go. Be guilty of turning the world upside down. You won't be the first.