This was a very enjoyable overview of that sane, sensible, life-transforming and liberating faith that I recognise as Christianity. Lots of good bits in it – including an enlightening discussion of first century rabbinical practice that I’m going to borrow for my sermon tomorrow – thought I suspect that if push came to shove he’d be a bit too much of a fan of Marcus Borg for my taste. Excellent all the same. For obvious reasons this bit spoke to me:

“Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.” (He’s quoting someone else there)

He goes on:

“Superpastor is always available to everyone and accomplishes great things but always has time to stop and talk and never misses anyone’s birthday and if you are sick he’s at the hospital and you can call him at home whenever you need advice and he loves meetings and spends hours studying and praying and yet you can interrupt him if you need something – did I mention he always puts his family first?
…I had this false sense of guilt and subsequent shame because I believed deep down that I wasn’t working hard enough. And I believed the not-working-hard-enough lie because I didn’t function like superpastor, who isn’t real anyway.
So I had one choice – I had to kill superpastor.
I had to take him out back and end his pathetic existence.”

I also liked: Christian is a good noun but a lousy adjective. That whole discussion made a lot of sense. And ‘Brickianity’ – marvellous image. I’ll have to investigate these NOOMA things.

Strongly recommended, especially to people on the fringes – or even outside the fringes. Christianity is not about curating a museum but creating heaven on earth here and now. Yeah!