{"id":16307,"date":"2017-12-26T09:29:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T14:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16307"},"modified":"2017-12-26T09:34:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T14:34:57","slug":"from-the-bottom-up-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16307","title":{"rendered":"From the Bottom Up: Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the Bottom Up: Summary<\/p>\n<p>Richard Rohr<br \/>\nContinuing Conversion<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jd4qtmDGIWQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nTuesday, December 26, 2017<br \/>\nMy friend Brian McLaren expertly maps the process of rebuilding Christianity in his book The Great Spiritual Migration. In the introduction, Brian explains how humans are people in motion, as evidenced by anthropology, the biblical Exodus, and Jesus\u2019 disciples who were to \u201cgo into all the world\u201d [Mark 16:15]. Brian\u2019s own story moved from fundamentalist Christianity to Evangelicalism and now is more of a pilgrimage than a static place:<br \/>\nI\u2019ve come to see that what matters most is not our status but our trajectory, not where we are but where we\u2019re going, not where we stand but where we\u2019re headed. . . . [Religion] is at its best when it leads us forward, when it guides us on our spiritual growth as individuals and in our cultural evolution as a species. Unfortunately, religion often becomes more of a cage than a guide, holding us back rather than summoning us onward, a buffer to constructive change rather than a catalyst for it.<br \/>\nIn times of rapid and ambiguous change, such a regressive turn in religion may be understandable, but it is even more tragic: when a culture needs wise spiritual guidance the most, all it gets from religious leaders is anxious condemnation and critique, along with a big dose of nostalgia for the lost golden age of the good old days. We see this regressive pull in many sectors of Christianity, along with sectors of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and other religions too.<br \/>\nIn that light, it\u2019s no surprise that people by the millions are moving away from traditional religions entirely, often into secularism, often into experimental forms of spirituality that are not yet supported by religious traditions. But at this pivotal moment, something else is happening. Within each tradition, unsettling but needed voices are arising\u2014prophetic voices, we might call them, voices of change, hope, imagination, and new beginnings. They say there\u2019s an alternative to static or rigid religion on the one hand and religion-free secularism on the other. They claim that the Spirit is calling us, not to dig in our heels, but rather to pack up our tents and get moving again.<br \/>\nBrian doesn\u2019t try to whitewash Christianity\u2019s history of oppression; the church has often led or supported war, colonization, segregation, slavery, sexism, and many other abuses. But, he says:<br \/>\nThank God that Christianity has a rich tradition of changing course! The Catholic theologian Gustavo Gutierrez agreed: \u201cConversion is a permanent process,\u201d he said, \u201cin which very often the obstacles we meet make us lose all we had gained and start anew.\u201d [1] Or as Martin Luther said in the first of his oft-mentioned but seldom-read ninety-five theses, repentance, rethinking, and yes, experiencing ongoing migration and conversion are absolute necessities, not just at the beginning of one\u2019s faith journey but at every step of the way. Without continuing conversion, our traditions grow proud and corrupt, self-seeking and ingrown, rigid and constricting. Without continuing conversion, we can be faithful neither to Christ nor to ourselves and the world around us.<br \/>\nGateway to Silence:<br \/>\nYou make all things new.<\/p>\n<p>________________________________________<\/p>\n<div class=\"row title-row\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"utmost-devo-title col col-sm-12 col-xs-12\">\n<h2 class=\"entry-title\">\u201cWalk in the Light\u201d<\/h2>\n<h4>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><strong>If we walk in the light as He is in the light\u2026the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=1+John+1%3A7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1 John 1:7<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"row entry-meta\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<div class=\"top-sharing\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>To mistake freedom from sin only on the conscious level of our lives for complete deliverance from sin by the atonement through the Cross of Christ is a great error. No one fully knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced at Calvary. The evidence that I have been delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me. For a person to really know what sin is requires the full work and deep touch of the atonement of Jesus Christ, that is, the imparting of His absolute perfection.<\/p>\n<p>The Holy Spirit applies or administers the work of the atonement to us in the deep unconscious realm as well as in the conscious realm. And it is not until we truly perceive the unrivaled power of the Spirit in us that we understand the meaning of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1+John+1:7\">1 John 1:7<\/a>\u00a0, which says, \u201c<em>\u2026the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin<\/em>.\u201d This verse does not refer only to conscious sin, but also to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Spirit in me can accomplish.<\/p>\n<p>I must \u201cwalk in the light as He is in the light\u2026\u201d\u2014 not in the light of my own conscience, but in God\u2019s light. If I will walk there, with nothing held back or hidden, then this amazing truth is revealed to me: \u201c\u2026the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses [me] from all sin\u201d so that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke in me. On the conscious level it produces a keen, sorrowful knowledge of what sin really is. The love of God working in me causes me to hate, with the Holy Spirit\u2019s hatred for sin, anything that is not in keeping with God\u2019s holiness. To \u201cwalk in the light\u201d means that everything that is of the darkness actually drives me closer to the center of the light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Bottom Up: Summary Richard Rohr Continuing Conversion Tuesday, December 26, 2017 My friend Brian McLaren expertly maps the process of rebuilding Christianity in his book The Great Spiritual Migration. In the introduction, Brian explains how humans are people in motion, as evidenced by anthropology, the biblical Exodus, and Jesus\u2019 disciples who were to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16307"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16311,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16307\/revisions\/16311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}