I read this on a facebook post this morning and I wanted to share it and expand on it a little.

Religion of all varieties starts with the assumption that God is angry with us and we need to dodge the punishment that is coming our way. Each religion has its own slant on what we need to do. In Islam there are prescribed times of prayer and so on. In Evangelicalism we fix the problem by "asking Jesus into my heart."

This could be represented by:

Sin —> punishment —> repentance —> transformation

(99% of history/theology)

But Jesus bring in something remarkably different:

Sin —> unconditional love —> transformation —> repentance

 From  Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, p. 42

'With Jesus acceptance precedes repentance; for the Pharisees – ancient and modern – it's the other way around'

~ John Claypool

 

I wonder what the world would look like if the church really grabbed hold of the gospel of grace and preached (and lived) it.