The Gospel of Inclusion

My friend Dave over at 42 says he is sliding down the slippery slope of thinking that Christianity proclaims a Gospel of inclusion.

Dave writes:

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to whether you think the gospel is more about inclusion or exclusion. For me that is no contest. Jesus made it clear that the two greatest commandments were about love and according to the gospels he reserved his anger for those who abused religion to exclude others. So if there is a knife edge with slippery slopes on both sides then I am always going to err on the side of love and inclusion as that appears to bring me closer to the Jesus we meet in Scripture. Now that he something to be joyful about as we slide down that slope - wheeeee!

Preach it, brother!

Sermons - Us and Them and One World Sunday

Over on my sermon blog, I've just published:

• Last week's sermon: Us and Them and
• This week's sermon for One World Sunday

The themes of both these sermons are rather similar.

What People Said Today

I paraphrase two things that were said to me today:

At a Funeral Visit Mum was a good person. We don't believe you have to go to church to believe. Church people aren't any better than anyone else and a lot of times they are worse. (Female, estimated age 40)

At a Communion Service in a Residential Home All this business about 'inclusion' is something you didn't hear 30 years ago or even 15 years ago. I wish I could say that it's Christians who are promoting 'inclusion' but it isn't. Christians, by and large, are still promoting 'exclusion' and 'inclusion' is being promoted by the government and the world at large. (Female, estimated age 80+, staunch church-goer)

These remarks reminded me of a comment on this blog post on the ‘Preaching Peace’ blog:

I can't seem to go to worship any longer or be anything but a fringe participant in my semi-former faith community because of exactly what you say here, that institutional religion is designed to contain violence; and, I'd add, from my observation and experience, it often (maybe always?) does so by mandating and maintaining circles of exclusion and inclusion. I don't want to scapegoat 'church' and yet I don't see how I can be part of it, either, because of the way it operates and its intention in so operating.

I see that a separate blog entry on the 'Preaching Peace' blog is attempting to address this question.

As a minister, this is an important question for me and one which I find that I don't have a coherent answer to. I know why a faith community is important to me, but it's hard to answer the question as to 'Why church if it is an excluding institution?

Sermon - Dishonourable God

I've posted today's sermon, Dishonourable God over on my sermon blog. It's based on Luke 14:1, 7-14.

Sermon - Spirit Values

I've posted this morning's sermon, Spirit Values, over on my Sermon blog. This sermon is intentionally thematic rather than exegetical. It takes this morning's lectionary reading from Acts as an inspiration for this particular church's forthcoming Church Anniversary.

The sermon probably qualifies as a 'peace post' as well.