Kindle Notes & Highlights
thought Christianity could be kinder, more loving, intellectually honest, welcoming to others, and contemplative. You know, more like Jesus.
Unconsciously applied dualistic thinking can be seductive because it seems to provide clarity. But with complicated subjects, this oversimplification comes at the expense of greater wisdom and truth. Over time, it increases tribalism and breeds intolerance.
People with greater consciousness can be more equanimous, are better able to relax in life’s uncertainties, resist the temptation of fighting for extreme positions, and experience the “peace that passes understanding” during life’s storms.
Being more conscious does not mean we have to have everything figured out. It only requires the wisdom and humility to be able to say three simple words: “I don’t know.”
The tension between religion and spirituality is ongoing because the nature of each is different. Religion strives for control, whereas spirituality pursues freedom. When organized religion becomes more powerful, its leaders are tempted to strive for greater control, and this ends up killing the spirituality that fueled the faith to begin with.
By openly questioning the faith, Christian deconstruction has the potential to help Christians and some churches reconnect spirituality and religion. This brings with it the potential to help people live better and more Jesus-centric lives in a more systematic way.
Christianity as a religion can help people accomplish together what they cannot achieve as individuals. Though Jesus battled with the religious leaders of the day and was eventually killed because of it, he never suggested that people give up on religion. He simply encouraged religious leaders to transcend their rigid, religious rules.
Dogma can be understood as an effort to abstract from its narrative specific beliefs the community has come to cherish.
While it’s possible that apologists believe what they are saying, the apologetic practice is deceitful in the sense that deceit is neither true nor false but an obscure combination of both. Ironically, Satan was called the great deceiver for similar reasons.
Believing unprovable dogma is not a sign of faith: it is a refusal to pursue truth wherever it leads.
Christianity exists in the present moment. It is not about dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. It requires connecting to life as it exists right now. It is not about needing to be certain but about embracing life’s mysteries with spiritual enthusiasm. We don’t need to think we have all the right answers. We simply need to be able to ask increasingly better questions.
There are more than 200 Christian denominations in the United States alone. They all interpret the Bible a little differently—except in one respect: their church’s doctrine is superior to all others.
Even though dogma helped to build the Christian faith in ancient times, it seems to be destroying it in modern times. Using the love that Jesus modeled as a spiritual compass, shouldn’t the church’s role be to transform lives, not to convert people to accept unprovable dogmatic beliefs? Isn’t this what a love-based Christian faith should do? Shouldn’t the goal be to transform individuals, families, and communities through love, connection, and service?
According to Brotherhood Mutual (2017), the largest insurer of churches in the USA, 42% of church contributions went to salaries, 18% to buildings, and 17% was lost to fraud. Only 2% went to international missions and relief programs.48
