"You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in... so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come".
Henri Nouwen (taken from Richard Foster Money, Sex and Power p248)
4 comments:
Who has bewitched you....'Only a Christian' based on 'behaviour'...tisst..tisst...shame, shame - signed the Grace Police.
Nouwen is talking about how we live in the world - he is not defining "being a Christian" in the same way that so many do... in fact he is doing exactly the opposite - he is saying that the Christian is the one who has a holy disassisfaction with this world, who recognizes that the Kingdom is not yet here, but is coming, and so questions the society (dare I say... the church)
"You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in... so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come".
I read and hear..'you are a Christian only so long as you (do)'
Sounds conditional...to me
There is a conditional aspect to being a Christian. Jesus in John 15:4 talked about "abiding / resting /remaining in him." Paul in Col 1:21-23 talks about "continuing in the faith." I think what Nouwen is doing is saying that one of the ways of remaining / continuing is to keep on recognizing that to use a cliche "this world is not our home" - one of the ways we do this is by asking "critical questions" of the world / the church / ourselves - so that we make room for God to break in and do what he wants to do in and through us and others
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