The Foundation of Love
Let’s start with the essence of God: love. Not wrath, not judgment, not a
divine ledger of sins, but love. If God is truly love, as scripture proclaims,
then everything we believe about God must be filtered through that lens. And
yet, so much of evangelical orthodoxy clings to the idea of penal
substitutionary atonement—the belief that Jesus had to endure unimaginable
suffering and death to satisfy God’s wrath.
What if, instead, the “fall” of humanity was not about guilt
and punishment, but about forgetfulness? What if our true sin is forgetting our
divine origin, our inherent connection to God? Jesus came to remind us, to
awaken us to the truth that we are beloved children of God. He lived and died
not to appease a wrathful deity, but to show us the way back to our own
divinity through love, grace, and remembrance.
A Forgotten and Fragmented History
When we consider the historical formation of the Christian faith, it becomes
clear how much has been lost—or silenced. The canon of scripture was not
settled until four centuries after Christ. In that time, countless voices were
dismissed, many of them from groups in the second century who offered mystical
and transformative perspectives on Jesus and his teachings. Their works were
deemed heretical, their insights burned or buried.
And yet, in 1945, the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts
brought some of these voices back to light. These texts, though not without
their own complexities, offer a vision of Christianity that emphasizes our
divine potential and the transformative power of knowledge (gnosis). They
remind us that much of what we’ve inherited as orthodoxy is only a fraction of
the rich and diverse early Christian thought.
Cultural Lenses and Iron Age Paradigms
Let’s also acknowledge the cultural context of the scriptures. Many of the
practices and laws outlined in the Bible were shaped by an Iron Age society,
steeped in a worldview that included animal sacrifice as a way to appease God.
Are we to believe that the divine Creator of the universe is forever bound by
the rituals and assumptions of that time?
God’s grace and love transcend culture, time, and tradition.
To cling to ancient practices and interpretations as though they are eternally
unchangeable is to limit God’s infinite wisdom and adaptability to meet
humanity where it is now.
A New Narrative for a New World
Today, we live in a world of eight billion souls, less than a billion of whom
identify as evangelicals and only 2.1 billion as Christians. If our message is
that God’s grace is reserved for a narrow segment of humanity, then we have
missed the point entirely. The Christian narrative needs a radical
reimagining—not to undermine its mystical revelations, but to reveal them in
their fullest, most inclusive light.
To overcome the darkness in the world, we don’t need more
fear, judgment, or dogma. We need an awakening to our divinity, a rediscovery
of God’s grace, and an embrace of redeeming love. Evil exists, yes, but the
most powerful way to combat it is not through condemnation but through
transformation—by embodying the love that Jesus demonstrated.
A Vision for Liberation
My heart longs for a Christianity that liberates rather than confines, that
inspires rather than controls. A faith that invites every person, regardless of
creed, to see themselves as a beloved child of God. We are not fallen in the
sense of being irredeemable; we are forgetful. And the journey of faith is one
of remembering who we are and who God is—a journey that leads to love, grace,
and peace.
It is time to break free from the chains of dogma and
reimagine a faith that reflects the boundless love of God. This is not a
rejection of scripture, but a call to see it with fresh eyes—eyes that are open
to the Spirit’s movement in our modern, global world. Only then can we truly
embody the message of Christ and share it with a world that so desperately
needs it.
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