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Four Signs of a Formulaic Christianity
Christianity, like any other religion, has its formulas. I am not talking about the basic foundation of the church on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is not a formula. That is a fact. I am talking about the ways in which Christians strive for right answers or formulas to apply, myself included. Religion is a seductive siren. She promises all sorts of answers to the unanswerable. Religion offers a way out of wrestling with God. And wrestling with God will happen if you are trying to follow Him carefully. I am going to tackle the four formulas most often promoted. And my issue with these is not…
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The Axis Mundi: Why Christians are Revolutionaries
The term, axis mundi, isn’t used much in common parlance. Just so we are on the same page, I include the Wikipedia definition which is accurate enough for my purposes: The axis mundi (also cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, the center of the world, world tree), in certain beliefs and philosophies, is the world center, or the connection between Heaven and Earth. Nearly every major religion has such an intersection. The Old Testament has Mount Zion where Moses saw God. Jacob’s ladder is also such an intersection. Mount Kailash is sacred to the Hindu, the Innuit create totem poles, and even Feng Shui attempts to orient the home towards the sky in a practice called geomancy. Christianity…
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How Language Changed Our Relationship with God
The power of life and death is in the tongue says Proverbs 18:21 but the sentiment does not translate well into our modern language. The reason why is because the ancients had quite a different relationship with language than we do. For them, words were power. In the first couple thousand years of known history, language had the ability to change the minds of the gods. In fact, one could hold them in one’s power if only the right spell or incantation was spoken. I am not arguing with the Bible verse, just our contemporary interaction with it. No separation between the word and the object it described existed. This…
Healing Through Art & Words
