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Showing posts from April 7, 2013

When Religion is Attacked...for the Right Reasons

Religion, if it’s any good at all, has always been under attack.  Not because of its claim of righteousness, or its attempts at some lofty holiness, or because of its fundamentalism.  Historically, the best religion, the healthiest and courageous and most dangerous religion, has been attacked because of its struggle against systems of corruption, of injustice, of brutality, of exploitation and other crimes against humanity. Jesus was crucified for these very reasons.  People of religion over the years created these elaborate and complicated and puzzling and sometimes preposterous doctrines and ideologies about salvation and atonement and the rapture and the second coming and eternal damnation and so forth as a way of attempting to interpret scripture.  But Jesus was not killed for any of that.  He was killed for attempting to stand against the cruelty and injustices and inhumanity of the Roman Empire.  He was killed for his impatience with institutional religion and his call to r