The Underground -- Keeping the Faith: Born to be Wild

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 10:26 AM PDT

When primitive Christianity first began to take root, it wasn’t known as “Christianity.”

That was more or less a term coined by onlookers. The first Christians referred to their movement as “The Way.”

The earliest disciples saw themselves, not as part of new religion, but as travelers on and in the Way of Jesus.

This “Way,” consequently, was something active and dynamic, bound to the living Christ. It was not some dead religion seized with rigor mortis. The passing of the centuries, however, has seriously muted this fact. The years have suppressed the wild and dangerous roots of the Christian faith, and in some cases, have beaten the living daylights out of it. This has not been lost on a large and growing number of believers.

According to researcher William Hendricks, over a million Christian adults leave the church each and every year.

Many do so “not because the church is too spiritual,” he says, “but because the church is not spiritual enough.” Large swathes of official Christianity have traded the untamed vitality of its Founder for something far more domesticated.

Somewhere deep within us, we know this is a tragedy. We don’t need researchers or statistics to confirm the obvious: Our spiritual instincts tell us that there is something more, something deeper, more radical and more alive than the safe, sterile, status quo of the religious institution. We know (with apologies to Steppenwolf) we were born to be wild.

An example: Last autumn I was fortunate enough to visit Jackson, Wyoming, the Grand Tetons, and the Yellowstone area. No pictures can do the region justice.

It is landscape that must be seen and savored firsthand. Yet, the highlight of my trip was not the dramatic scenery. It was what happened on a cold, snowy day in the National Elk Refuge.

The National Elk Refuge is a 25,000 acre plot of land that in the fall and winter becomes home to thousands of migrating elk. The elk come down out of the mountains to harbor there, but it is not a completely safe harbor.

The administrators of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service have a policy that allows hunting on the Refuge, a policy not without controversy. I saw a bit of this hunting up close and personal.

While on a wildlife expedition I observed a party of hunters stalking several hundred elk. These animals circled and panicked like proverbial fish in a barrel as the hunters closed in on them. It didn’t seem very gaming to me, and I braced myself for the slaughter.

It was then that one of the big bulls in the herd decided that he had had enough. So, nearly a ton of wild, thundering animals-on-hooves stampeded toward the hunters.

At the last minute, the bull shot between two of the would-be-trophy-takers, the space no wider than a sidewalk. And when he did, the entire herd followed.

Hundreds and hundreds of animals ran for daylight, and in a matter of minutes, the herd had not only escaped their predators – who looked at one another with a mixture of awe and shame – they had completely disappeared into the Wyoming woods. Not a single animal could be seen.

These beautiful animals have lost a good deal of their habitat, but they have not lost their instincts.

They still heed the wild and wonderful call of the wilderness, forsaking the false safety of the “refuge” for life with fewer fences. Granted, life in the wild is full of predatory dangers as well; but at least it is life outside of a man-made cage.

Jesus, it appears to me, wants us to have this kind of freedom, for he did not come to start a religion. He came to start a spiritual revolution. Jesus did not come to show us how to build cathedrals or ecclesiastical refuges.

He came to show us how to live. Jesus did not come to fence us in, but to set us wildly and wonderfully free. We were never born for captivity. We were born to be wild.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

Atheist group sues over “World Trade Center Cross”

Posted: 31 Jul 2011 10:16 AM PDT

An atheist organization filed recently a lawsuit in New York to bar the presentation of the “World Trade Center Cross” as part of a memorial exhibition to commemorate 9/11.

The American Atheists, which filed its lawsuit last week, said in its suit that the cross is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, and that atheists “are being subjected to and injured in consequence of having a religious tradition not their own imposed upon them.”

Atheist group sues over “World Trade Center Cross”

Dan Blair, communications director of AA, told the Wall Street Journal, “We can appreciate people’s emotional attachment to this [memorial] but that shouldn’t override the Constitution,”

On its website, the AA said that the cross is “an impermissible mingling of church and state.”

Small letter “t”

Blair Scott of AA said on Fox News, “It’s not the cross per se that’s an issue. It’s just a small letter ‘t’ among many junctions among thousands that were in the World Trade Center that many consider miraculous. It was blessed by clergy, they held church services at it, it was worshiped at, prayed at, it was turned into a religious idol.”

Martha McCallum, Fox newscaster told Scott, “All the more reason why you shouldn’t object to having it there if it was just a ‘t’ and there were many of them at the World Trade Center. It’s a ‘t’ that happens to have survived and they want to put this ‘t’ that has people’s names inscribed on it in the museum.”

Firefighter, first responder

Tim Brown, who was also in the Fox News program, said of Scott, “He’s stirring up so many difficult emotions again by doing this. We don’t need to be put through this.” A former NYC firefighter and first responder, Brown lost some 100 friends in 9/11.

Brown said on Fox News, “Just because Blair or others don’t like it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be in the museum. They can’t just come in and make rules for everybody in the museum. What if Ladder Three, the fire truck that was lowered into the museum last week was crushed into the shape of a cross? Would he then want that taken out of the museum also?”

Brown said on Fox News that the AA lawsuit is more of a publicity grab “on the backs of my friends who have died on 9/11, who were murdered by Islamic terrorists. It’s shameful what you are doing.”

Scott denied that the lawsuit against the cross is being done for publicity.

Brown is filing a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the cross through the American Center for Law and Justice.

“This is another pathetic attempt to rewrite the Constitution and rewrite history by removing a symbol that has deep meaning and serves as a powerful remembrance to that fateful attack nearly 10 years ago,” Jay Sekulow, chief counsel, ACLJ, said on its website.

“We will aggressively defend the placement of this cross. This memorial, a powerful part of the history of 9/11, serves as a constitutionally sound reminder of the horrors that occurred nearly a decade ago,” Sekulow said.

The World Trade Center Cross is a steel beam in the shape of a cross that stayed put after the collapse of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, and was discovered amid the rubble.