History has revealed too many people who have tried to be spiritual before they have learned how to be human! It is a major problem. Maybe this is why Jesus came to model humanity for us—much more than divinity. Once we get the simplest human parts down (stop slamming doors and start loving rocks), God will most assuredly take it all from there. Get the ordinary human thing down, and you will have all the spirituality that you can handle.

The precise message of the Raised Up Christ is that God is available everywhere, as his body moved beyond any limits of space and time. For some reason we like to keep God “elsewhere” or “just here,” where we can control God by our theologies, tabernacles, and services. We often tell God whom he can love or not love. Poor God must conform to our moral systems and judgments.

If you want to do something you have never done before,
you have to do something you have never done before.
If you want to go somewhere you have never gone before,
you have to go somewhere you have never gone before.

You cannot do something new by doing old things.
If you want your life to change, you have to change your life.
So go ahead. It’s safe. And it’s also…about time.

I have no interest in megachurches with jocular millionaire pastors. I think what happens in them is sociopolitical, not spiritual. I believe the prosperity gospel tries to pass through the eye of the needle. I believe it is easier for a Republican to pass through the eye of a needle than for a camel to get into heaven. I have no patience for churches that evangelize aggressively. I have no interest in being instructed in what I must do to be saved. I prefer vertical prayers, directed up toward heaven, rather than horizontal prayers, directed sideways toward me,” he continued. “If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must regard their beliefs with the same respect our own deserve.