BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

In his book, Guilt and Grace,  Swiss physician Paul Tournier writes:

I cannot study this very serious problem of guilt with you without raising the very obvious and tragic fact that religion — my own as well as that of all believers — can crush instead of liberate.

I grew up with a version of Christianity which crushed.  It was all about the things I was NOT to do:  no smoking, no drinking, no unwholesome reading, no dancing, no fun on a Sunday.  And don’t be caught doing something questionable anytime, because Jesus could return at any moment — the idea being that if that were to happen, He wouldn’t be taking me with him!  God, according to those who taught me, was the “great eye in the sky,” always watching to see when I messed up, and quick to send punishment, swift and sure as a lightning bolt,  for any and all indiscretions. 

Thank God, I moved from the religion that crushes to the religion that liberates.  As I teach year-long Disciple classes, majoring on dispelling the childhood images of God so many adults still retain,  my most often-heard comment at the end of the study is something like this: “I feel so free, as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders.”  What the student has finally realized is…grace.  God’s free, unconditional, undeserved, amazing grace.

What disturbs me so is the number of folks who cling to a faith that crushes, holding on to it as if it were a life preserver in the stormy seas of human existence, and never realizing it’s made of lead.�

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday