spiritual journey

I'm on a spiritual quest, marked by increased dissatisfaction with the moralizing, comfortably wealthy Jesus who pounds the drums for our government, who treats immigrants with suspicion, views the Spanish language in America as a threat to our culture and the English language, and who defends the powerful, the middle-class and promises salvation when we die.

I'm wondering more and more what the real Jesus is like, how to view a Bible that seems to show God progressing from a tribal deity who orders the genocide of an indigenous people and whose prophet calls for the slaughter of prisoners who already surrendered, up to a transcendent God who desires all nations to come to him. I've never liked the gloss-overs I've heard in churches, and I'm no longer willing to push it to the side while I deal with other questions and purposes.

I'm also wondering what the proper response to war is, particularly the Iraq war.

Is war between nations in Christ's nature? Our government -- our nation -- we -- committed a horrible injustice when we invaded Iraq without provocation, in defiance of international law. How do we, as Christ's representatives on earth, respond to that?

The Kingdom of God -- when we beat our swords into plowshares, lay down our swords and shields by the riverside, and study war no longer -- isn't a far-off event. Jesus said it has come, it is here, it is in him as we are in him. If we believe that to be the case, then what response to war should we have?

Some can claim it's necessary but I think that's because war is easier than peace and we'd rather not expend the energy it'll take to find ways to wage peace wisely and intelligently, and no one's offered a proposal that seeks peace as much as a proposal that calls for more war, or for abandoning Iraq to the mess that we made.

If the Kingdom of God began in my life when I decided to follow Jesus, what does that mean for how I respond to the war? What does that mean for how I respond to poverty? To the guy on the street who asks me for fifty cents, or who asks for train fare, when I know all he really wants is beer, cigarettes or drugs?

Because the Kingdom of God has arrived, and what happens in eternity has echoes in what I do here in my life.