Honestly, it has always been here, just under the surface of what most of the world sees as Christianity or evangelicalism. It ain’t pretty or polished, but it is real. This is the church of questioners, doubters, and skeptics. This is the church of the oppressed, the questionable, the misfit. This is the church of those who question the sanity of the modern church structure and hierarchy. This is the church for those who might have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and are searching for God scum-ring of the tub. This is the church for the ’sinner’ who will struggle the rest of their life, like the rest of humanity, but can admit it. This is the church for those who hope, those who go unnamed, those who don’t matter, the poor, the widow, the orphan. This is the church of the sick. And its a good thing, since Jesus said he came for the sick and dying.
We just decided to give it a blog and eventually a website.
We were tired of being labeled and decided to preempt anyone from doing so. Subversive is a strong word, but it means nothing if there are no actions backing up those words. So whether you believe that Jesus fulfilled scripture in his death or if his death was merely remembered by early believers with a Psalm, it remains that he was showing people another way of living was possible, and he was willing to go to a horrible execution device to prove it. Whether Jesus would have considered himself subversive is moot because the government and religious leaders of the time did. Some say up to half of his disciples came from the Sicarii. If that’s the case, it’s no wonder he was arrested with the backing of the priests and later executed. I don’t expect death for this site, but I do want to live up to the standards Jesus put out there and Paul and the others elaborated on.
Just as Jesus was trying to restore the Jewish nation to a system of equality and solidarity in the face of oppression, we too are trying to bring to light what it means exactly to have and extend grace. So while this site/blog might come across as overly harsh, Jesus wasn’t exactly toeing the line himself to make a point and be loved by everyone. And hopefully in the end, the idea of unconditional love and grace of our Creator will be allowed to shine unfiltered on us once again.
I’ll stop there and see if Chris would like to agree, disagree, or expound on my comments.
You can email me: mike at subversivechurch dot com to see when Chris and I are going to be out and about.
-M
