The Spirit of God is most often described (in various religions) as that which is always on the move. The animating spirit that God is has been described as the WIND or a STREAM and yet the church has settled for being a man-made lake: a body (of water) that is neither moving nor being FED by and streams. Too often churches are more like the DEAD SEA! There is little if any FRESH WATER.
The bottom line is that the church is a protector of the STATUS QUO. Theirs!
Ever since the radical and world-changing church became a partner with Constantine, became the official "state religion", and took a seat at the table of secular governance, it's destiny has been changed. When the church was IN the world but not OF the world, it challenged the powers of man and advocated the essence and life of the Spirit.
After 325CE and the Council of Nicea, the church (then it was just the Catholic church) fell into an incestuous religious mode where everything had to be of the same mind set, the same doctrine, and the same approach as the leaders (can you say papal patriarchal party line) advocated. Carl Jung described the process as a "shadow" of the real spirit.
The church most often blessed and advocated so-called "just wars" to save itself which was just the opposite of the teaching of Jesus.
Karl Marx took described it in a more DIABOLICAL way, "The ruling elites have rejoiced as religion has too often served as the opiate of the masses, promising rewards (not just 72 virgins in an after-life mind you) as the sweetener for enduring the injustices of the present." Unfortunately the young, innocent, and naive men went off to war at the instruction of the old, comfortable, and religious leaders dictated.
If one can truly read the spirit and life of Jesus, it would become apparent that there has to be a tension between true spirituality and any political or social status quo. I mean, how can anyone see the world as it truly exists today and say, let's keep things as they are? The church is not to be a political party but a spiritual life stream that flows through the fabric of every aspect of life: like leaven, altering the substance of all that it touches.
Are you FLOWING with the steam or sitting comfortably in the lake?
