It is time for a revolution. Christ Enlight is leading the way in that revolution for people who have rejected mainstream, mainline, institutional Churchianity. We stand in union with all those who have rejected Church as usual. We stand in recognition of the fact that as he walked on earth Jesus was not some namby-pamby voice of the establishment. Neither was he a proponent of violence, however. He did not support the status quo, either in religion or in politics – and, oh yes, Jesus was and is a political figure. Jesus isn’t a political figure in the way the religious right would have him be a political figure, by having him blindly and thoughtlessly support political conservatism. Quite the contrary, in fact. Jesus was politically motivated by non-violence and his primary issue was that of social justice. I am going to borrow a term from contemporary Buddhism and call that non-violent call for social justice Engaged Christianity. If we claim to follow Jesus, and here at Christ Enlight that is precisely what we claim to do, then we need to allow our beliefs to lead us to Engage society and speak out against what it wrong – and if we are claiming to be Engaged Christians, then we need to address the issues that Jesus held near and dear to his heart.

Admittedly, there is no shortage of people willing to tell us what they believe Jesus held near and dear. They usually lead with human sexual orientation and abortion, two issues that are not addressed by Jesus (or anyone else) in scripture. This leads me to ask, where in the world did those people ever get the idea that Jesus even knew about those two issues? The truth is, when he walked on earth those two issues didn’t exist, so he couldn’t possibly have taken a stand on them. If you want to know what issues were near and dear to Jesus’ heart, you have to read the Bible. More precisely, if you want to know what issues were near and dear to Jesus’ heart, you need to read the Bible with secular eyes. You need to throw away the doctrine and dogma that you bring to the text, the meanings you have been taught to see in the text, so that you can see what is really present.

We here at Christ Enlight are in the early phases of production on a DVD and CD series that uses the Gospel of Luke to examine the things important to Jesus. We will keep you abreast of our progress, and hope to have this wonderful program ready for distribution by Summer. If you would like to learn more about how to reserve a copy, email us at ChristEnlight@gmail.com