Do you feel in your gut that the current Empire Faith proclaimed by the rich and powerful only benefits the rich and powerful and doesn’t align with the teachings of Jesus?
Does every fiber of your being tell you that we are seeing a resurgence of white male dominated government, where the women put in leadership positions are mere caricatures on the strong women who built this country, won the right to vote, continually struggle for equal pay, and fought for the rights every modern woman enjoys?
Do you feel like these white men are willing to sweep sexual misconduct under the rug, that maybe they think the right to dominate women is a right of being rich, white, and powerful?
If you are feeling this way, congratulation, you are internally tapped into the seismic shift in the Christian tradition.
No, you are not imagining things. The push to control government and define the dominant religion is part of the Christian Reformation Cycle.
The Christian Reformation Cycle
Every 500 years the Christian Church (the big C Christian Church) “reforms” itself based on changes in human culture and political alliances (more on this later). For reference, the last reformation, the Protestant Reformation, occurred in the 1500’s.
While the Protestant Reformation did not create a more diverse and equitable society, this particular reformation made room for the growth of a more diverse and equitable society by removing Rome as the center for biblical interpretation. Christian denominations gained the freedom to grow according to the Holy Spirit without having to seek consent from the controlling organization that held both political and religious power.
The Protestant Reformation created the space to separate the trappings of Empire from the God-centered lifestyle of the Christian faith. Before the Protestant Reformation, the last time Empire and Christianity were separated was the early church (before Constantine and the Holy Roman Empire).
Unfortunately, the need for Empire to control religion never really goes away.
As the Star Wars saga goes, when you attack the empire and think you’ve escaped for good, The Empire Strikes Back.
You are feeling the shift in religion back to a time when then interpretation of the bible made male-dominated behaviors (good and bad) ordained by God and therefore permissible by God. We are all witnessing the time when the forces of empire want to take control of Christianity through a new David-like cult leader.
The people running the Empire faith are fighting against the modern age in an attempt to make the middle ages great again. Way back then, European men controlled the world and believed in the manifest destiny of euro-centric religious traditions, that Europe would make the world great by making everyone subject to the leadership of Kings. They spread the Word of the warrior God. They asked Jesus to bless cruelty and conflict.
The Gospel of AND
There is good news. No matter how much the rich and powerful push the world back to the middle ages, the world is moving forward. The world is passing out of the scientific age that supports the monarchy approach and into a time when diversity rules. The Gospel of AND is the new revival, the grand inclusive faith that returns God to the rightful place over empire, not in service of it.
While the Empire Faith wants to push Christianity backwards the Gospel of AND invites Christians to move forward.