Christianity Is Our Transformation, Not My Dogmatism

Words may say I’m Christian. Actions too often show I’m not. I’ve conspired to heap up sanctioned fears and privileged prejudices to overwhelm and bury you. I’ve ridiculed, demonized, and threatened, cutting with innumerable strikes at your soul.

Somehow the old book in my hand and the pointed building behind me have justified condemnation of your trust and hope, your relationships, and your world. Somehow a superlative projection, a would-be God, has inspired me to damn you.

Yet Christ is not my prejudice that assumes sin upon observing difference. Christ is our trust.

Christ is not my arrogance that pretends to grace without projecting it. Christ is our hope.

Christ is not my politics that fears and covets obedience. Christ is our love.

Christ is not my ignorance that rejects knowledge for superstition. Christ is our light.

Christ is not my escapism that wastes Earth while waiting for God. Christ is our work.

Christ is not my nihilism that concedes heaven to death. Christ is our life.

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” (Gandhi)

Neither in mine nor in me alone, and not even merely in us, Christianity is in our transformation.

If, with Jesus, we would trust in, change toward, and fully immerse our bodies and minds in the role of Christ; if we would be messiahs and saviors, consoling and healing and raising each other together; if we would be eternal reconcilers, radically compassionate creators, real as light and warm as life, true to the Earth and each other; if we would be Christ then, only then, Christianity is in us.