TAKE ME TO CHURCH

Here's a message you probably won't hear in church this morning--burn it down, all of it.

So much of what's been made of "church" is a blasphemous degradation of the Jesus it pimps. Oozing rivers of pus-ladened evil upon a hurting world.

What God meant for healing is used to inflict pain. What God meant for inclusivity is used to assert supremacy. What God meant for peace is used to declare war. What God meant for love is used to justify hate.

Burn it down, all of it.

Every part that condemns the different. Every part that attracts the religious and scatters the broken. Every part that lifts men over women. Every part that oppresses the least-of-these and excites the privileged. Every part that creates conditions, restrictions, rules, and limits where God created none.

The world doesn't need more buildings, campuses, stages, light shows, soundboards, celebrity pastors, conferences, committees, coalitions of the self-righteous, and cults with crosses on top. 

Jesus doesn't need more Membership 101 classes, mission statements, prayer formulas, name-engraved Bibles, devotionals on coffee tables, "be blessed" memes on social media, or to be branded and franchised for the masses.

Burn it down, all of it.

If church is a place you go, you'll never get there.

If church is a pastor you follow, you're already lost.

If church is a belief to which you subscribe, you're in prison.

If church is a lense through which to see and judge the world, you're blind.

If church is a gathering of the like-minded, like-living, and like-agreeing, trust me, you're in hell. 

For when your highest budget item is the pastor and staff, you don't have a church, you have a business with a side hustle in Jesus.

When your highest aspiration is to nationalize your faith, gain power over society, and force your beliefs and values into the lives of all others, you don't have a church, you have a bulldozer with Jesus as a hood ornament.

When your most important day of the week is Sunday, and your most important activity is a worship service, and your most important measure is the attendance, and your most important calculation is the offering, and your most important person is the pastor, and your most important communication is the sermon, and your most important mission is to colonize the world, and your most important leverage is fear, hell, sin, and the devil, and your most important message is "God loves you, but…" You don't have a church, you have an abomination. 

It's the poison, not the cure.

It's greed, not generosity.

It's power, not sacrifice.

It's control, not freedom.

It's condemnation, not Grace.

It's your way, not the Way

It's deception, not Truth.

It's death, not Life

It's darkness, not Light.

It's fear, not Love.

It's you, not Jesus.

Burn it down, all of it.

Jesus says so.

.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

~ C.Kratzer