Gospel love means divesting oneself for God
of all that is not God – all earthly attachments –
particularly to the self, but even to the Church.
Conservative Christians believe the Church
is the Kingdom of God in the world.
Liberal Christians believe the Queendom/Kingdom of God
is to be built outside the Church in the World.
However, one needs humility and detachment to see
that both are transient. The Church and the World are not God.
If one arrogantly makes the Church or the World eternal
one ends in idolatry. Like everything, the Church and the World
had a beginning and so will have an end.
Theology is an attempt to integrate God/Church/World
without reducing one to the others.
When theologians stop asking questions
and start making dogmatic statements
the spiritual search ends.
Artists can break through the captivity
of our dominant paradigm – idolatry
by exposing the dysfunction/pain/terror
covered up and denied.
Then healing may begin.
A similar dominant paradigm is insularism –
self-protection, like idolatry, takes many forms:
individualism (me first)
tribalism (my family or tribe first)
nationalism (my country before other countries/the planet)
historicism (ignoring human history – 1000s of years
or the history of the universe – billions of years).
Insularism loves sexism/racism/ageism/ablism –
people with disabilities are often terribly lonely
and show us our own loneliness
and how we all have a deep need to break out of insularism
and find community/friends/love.
A Christian woman and man, who thru the marriage covenant
of conjugal love are one flesh, render mutual service
to one another through this intimate union
and show us how the Church and the World ought to be –
united in Christ and reaching out to help everyone.
Intelligent Christian Spirituality 