Michael Spencer, of Internet Monk, has written a fabulous piece on viewing God, Jesus, and the Bible the way they were meant to be viewed. The method of changing your thinking? Deconstruction.
He says:
I am deconstructing everything in my life that is not vitally connected to Jesus as King and Messiah.
How do you go about doing this? What’s the point?
Deconstruction means taking apart the CULTURAL misappropriation of Jesus that
goes on all around us. Jesus is used as a symbol by everyone for everything. This is just as much a problem for Christians as it is for the secular world. We have to cut through that, peel off that paint and find Jesus in the Gospels.Deconstruction means taking apart the SOCIAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL versions of Jesus. Many of us grew up in families and churches that gave us almost everything we believe about Jesus. How do you think Jesus views interracial dating? How do you think he views the use of alcohol? How do you think Jesus feels about tattoos? Chances are that many of us were interacting, not with what we know about Jesus, but with what we’ve taken in from well-meaning parents and church members.
It means deconstructing the RELIGIOUS contexts in which we have created our version of Jesus. You may be at Passion, Promise Keepers, Beth Moore and concerts by all your favorite artists. You are still called to follow Jesus into the pages of scripture to see if you are getting the real deal. What’s being left out? What are the blind spots?
This is good stuff. Go read the whole thing.
