Someone, clue the man in.

I love getting e-mail from Sojourners. The voice of the liberal rationalizing the Gospel. They're latest e-mail was trolling for donations, and hawking a book by Brian McLaren, "The Secret Message of Jesus". The title screams volumes about gnostic aspirations and how christians have gotten it wrong throughout the ages. What is it about human pride that insists on using the Gospel to help inflate it? Here's a sampling of the obtuse premise

"What if Jesus' secret message reveals a secret plan? What if he didn't come to start a new religion - but rather came to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world?"

Earth to Brian, this is Earth calling Brian. Where've you been the last 2000 years? Sure, there've been many christians that have been less able to keep to the plan, and many are selective in their practice of the Faith (nudge nudge), but you have to look at the bigger picture altogether. The religion and dogma, that are so repellant to the liberal mind, are there to keep us on the path to the right gate, the one Jesus described as "narrow". If you read the bible, you'll see something mentioned about a Holy Spirit, which is to provide guidance to those who are baptized and follow Christ. The author, as so many protestants before him, cannot reconcile the Church and the Holy Spirit, so they just assume the sophia de jour is correct, and the Church is wrong.

The message of Jesus was never a secret, it was just hidden from the learned and clever, just as it remains today. The message is simple, and it demands faith and obedience, neither of which most modern theologians are disposed to do. They, instead, believe in Carbon-14 dating, linguistics, and archeo-sociology. Anything BUT the message. It's too hard to deal with, they cannot understand it. The message of Jesus is no secret, they're just willfully ignorant.

Back to the book, it's call for "the Kingdom of God, here and now" is not really new. Go to any Catholic Church, and He is there, the King, enthroned in the tabernacle (or, if you're lucky, a monstrance). Jesus is already our King, right now, but in the course of recognizing His authority, we must acknowlege our duty to serve. And our duty is not limited to social justice and peace, as the Sojourners crowd would have you believe, but of conforming our lives to the Cross. I still love getting those e-mails, though.