the two functions of religion

Richard Rohr was writing last week about the two functions of religion.

The first is to help one's self find it's true identity in God.  We are created by him and loved by him.  We are alive in Christ.  We have a true identity, its in him.

The second function of religion is to eradicate the self.  Rohr quotes Ken Wilbur,  "the second function of religion does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it.  Mature spirituality offers not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution.  Rather than bolster our habitual patterns of thinking, it radically transforms our consciousness and gives us what Paul calls the mind of Christ."

It is sad that so many Christians identify themselves by their position, their power, and their possessions.  None of those things matter.  We are all souls on a journey toward God.  We find our identify "in Christ."

Unfortunately, since we find our identity in the wrong things, we hold tightly to the self.  We protect it, even when Jesus calls on us to lose our selves and to die to our selves.

The world would be a much happier place if Christians discovered their true identity and allowed their lives to be spent each day, living each moment as the hands and feet of Christ.

Today is a new day.  Let's give it a try.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.