EL’s Dribble

A quote from comedian John Cleese from Monty Python fame :

“I think that the real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature. But in order to do that, we have to slice away at our egos and try to get them down to a manageable size, and then still work some practiced light meditation. So real religion is about reducing our egos, whereas all the churches are interested in is egotistical activities, like getting as many members and raising as much money and becoming as important and high-profile and influential as possible. All of which are egotistical attitudes. So how can you have an egotistical organization trying to teach a non-egotistical ideal? It makes no sense, unless you regard religion as crowd control. What I think most organized religion—simply crowd control.”

I rarely do a lot of ranting via the blog – and God has slowly worked down a lot of bitterness in me. So this is not so much a rant against the church, but an acknowledgment that the world sees the disconnect between the message and the method [medium]. We think we can use whatever means to communicate the Gospel… as long as it goes out. But our method is contradicting our message and everyone knows it.

It’s in line with what John says in his Gospel that the Word was God… the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us [1:1,14]. Jesus wasn’t just communicating a message – he was the message. He embodied the message – how he lived, who he was, his identity, his purpose, his being was as much the message as the words that came out of his mouth.

We need to recognize how our method is contradicting our message… and begin to repent and reform.