A Silent Lover Is One Who Doesn't

Christianity Is Not A Religion; It Is The Proclamation Of The End Of Religion. Religion Is A Human Activity Dedicated To The Job Of Reconciling God To Humanity And Humanity To Itself. The Gospel, However - The Good News Of Our Lord And Savior, Jesus Christ, Is The Astonishing Announcement That God Has Done The Whole Work Of Reconciliation Without A Scrap Of Human Assistance. It Is The Bizarre Proclamation That Religion Is Over - Period.

We Are So Impressed By Scientific Clank That We Feel We Ought Not To Say That The Sunflower Turns Because It Knows Where The Sun Is. It Is Almost Second Nature To Us To Prefer Explanations . . . With A Large Vocabulary. We Are Much More Comfortable When We Are Assured That The Sunflower Turns Because It Is Heliotropic. The Trouble With That Kind Of Talk Is That It Tempts Us To Think That We Know What The Sunflower Is Up To. But We Don't. The Sunflower Is A Mystery, Just As Every Single Thing In The Universe Is.

Jesus Came To Raise The Dead. He Did Not Come To Teach The Teachable; He Did Not Come To Improve The Improvable; He Did Not Come To Reform The Reformable. None Of Those Things Works.

If God Seems To Be In No Hurry To Make The Problem Of Evil Go Away, Maybe We Shouldn't Be, Either. Maybe Our Compulsion To Wash God's Hands For Him Is A Service He Doesn't Appreciate. Maybe - All Theodicies And Nearly All Theologians To The Contrary - Evil Is Where We Meet God. Maybe He Isn't Bothered By Showing Up Dirty For His Dates With Creation. Maybe - Just Maybe - If We Ever Solved The Problem, We'd Have Talked Ourselves Out Of A Lover.

The Reason For Not Going Out And Sinning All You Like Is The Same As The Reason For Not Going Out And Putting Your Nose In A Slicing Machine: Its Dumb, Stupid, And No Fun. Some Individual Sins May Have Pleasure Still Attached To Them Because Of The Residual Goodness Of The Realities They Are Abusing: Adultery Can Indeed Be Pleasant And Tying One On Can Amuse. But Betrayal, Jealousy, Love Grown Cold, And The Gray Dawn Of The Morning After Are Nobody's Idea Of A Good Time.