From Moses to the prophets to Jesus to Paul, throughout the bible there are stories and passages that, as Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch would write, “… uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow…” I’ll call them the 10 de-s.
- de-stabilize: There is at work a destabilization of the powers, sometimes the very powers religion enthrones and endorses.
- de-nationalize: Blessing is not focused upon one nation, nor does it come from one nation.
- de-centralize: All attempts to keep the true religion centralized are challenged, overthrown and dispersed.
- de-culturize: The Holy resists getting comfortable within any one culture because being entrenched in one dominant culture goes against the very core of the truth.
- de-colonize: The mission is not to dominate and absorb the other, but to acknowledge, bless and inform the truth the other already possesses.
- de-religiousize: The arrogant assumptions of religion and its religious are exposed and emptied.
- de-textualize: Possessors of the text and its interpreters are constantly critiqued as narrow and fatally legalistic, for there is life outside the text.
- de-intellectualize: Although right thinking is necessary, in the end It’s not what you know but how you live that counts.
- de-theologize: We are constantly being pulled down out of our theological ivory towers to put into practice that which we believe.
- de-spiritualize: Love overthrows fantasy, for the idea of The All in All demands that we see all things as reconciled, one and therefore working together for good.
illustrating spiritual paths
So creative, unique, and oh, so true! I love your “de”s, especially #9. Thanks for a thought-provoking post, David!
Blessings!
thanks Martha!
Disturbing, but soul setting free De-’s.
Faithful is He that Promised! Heb. 10:23
Brilliant David, thanks
Thanks for that nakedpastor – challenging and really great to read.
I’ve been reading this blog for a year or so, thanks for all you’ve written and drawn, you’ve had a real impact on my thinking. I’m a youthworker in Liverpool (working near Penny Lane, which some may have heard of….) working for 3 churches. Sometimes the pain that comes across when you write about the “institution” of the church really hits home – and I can relate to it. One book has helped me in mythinking about the church – have you seen this before? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Church-Century-Liberation-Theology/dp/1441199926
Can a conscious system (individual, culture) CHANGE without de-moralization? Die and go to hello, so to speak, in manners of speaking? To be born again and again and again. I’m just asking.
Ooo it hurts: must be doing something right.
Thank you for this. It helps me remember to focus on the ways people of faith are the same all over the world.
Differences are so often Pharisee stuff – and a stumbling block rather than a stepping stone on our spiritual journeys.