“the great sin of white north-american middle-class protestantism is shallow hopelessness, ‘cheap hope.’ we cannot be said to have a gospel because we refuse to know enough of the bad news to prepare our collective soul for the good. our insistence upon being and remaining positive and optomistic is what prevents us from exploring deeply the meaning of hope, biblically understood. we want to have easter sunday without good friday- or better, we desire a friday so ‘good’ that it is no longer for us a sybolic mode of identification with the suffering world.” [douglas j. hall, confessing the faith- 1998.]

“Somehow Christianity has become a nonmystical religion. It’s about a reasonable faith. If we believe the right things, then we are orthodox. Frankly whether we ever actually connect to God or experience His undeniable presence has become incidental, if not irrelevant. We have become believers rather than experiencers. To know God in Scriptures always went beyond information to intimacy. We may find ourselves uncomfortable with this reality, but the faith of the Scriptures is a mystical faith. It leads us beyond the material world into an invisible reality. We become connected to the God of eternity. Who you are at the core is spirit. God is Spirit. To walk with God is to journey in the spiritual realm. ”

Erwin McManus “The Barbarian Way”

Any thoughts?