Humans and history both grow slowly. We expect people to show up at our doors fully transformed and holy before they can be welcomed in. But growth language says it is appropriate to wait, trusting that metanoeite, or change of consciousness, can only come with time—and this patience ends up being the very shape of love. Without it, church becomes the mere enforcing of laws and requirements. “Pastors,” instead of serving as caretakers of God’s lambs and sheep, are told they should be guards, word police, and dealers in holy antiques. Without an evolutionary worldview, Christianity does not
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