It must be apparent to anyone that there’s no religion or ideology that in the name of progress, in the pursuit of power, with the goal of “winning,” in perfect assurance of its rightness, will not sacrifice the human race or the creation in exchange for its self-justifiable ends.
It makes no difference if a culture is in its origins atheist or Islamic or Buddhist or Christian or whatever.
We have seen that unconscious or conscientious hatred or indifference toward humanity and the material world, that any number of well-meaning but ultimately lethal do-goodisms, will lead us to destroy ourselves and the eternal habitat God intends for us.
The Christians leading America now believe that this world ends in a cataclysmic destruction from which Christians escape.
This “vision” (God help us) informs their policy and governance. It seems in this respect that it matters little who holds public office in our democracy. History teaches us that human religion and ideology leads to self-destruction.
Only the humanity of the God we find nestled in the wood of the feed box, only the divinity of the human nailed to the wood of the cross, is able to save us and the world the triune Life loves.
This Love is made perfect not in power but in weakness. This Love reveals that humility and vulnerability are stronger than death. The weakness of this God is stronger than all worldly principalities.
Those who are baptized into the life of this human God, buried in his sacrifice, and raised from death by the Spirit renounce “winning,” renounce “power,” renounce “progress” and every other worldly euphemism for death.
They understand that the Life we encounter in the manger and on the cross and in the resurrection is the true strength that holds the universe together, that gives breath to every creature; that all other political and religious systems of power lead to dissolution and lifelessness.
Wood of the feed box, wood of the cross, wood of the Tree of Life, we look to the God whom you hold, the God whom you bear, the God who makes your leaves the healing of the nations, your fruit eternal life, for rescue, restoration, and reconciliation. We look to no other.
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