From a previous blog.  but I thought this would be entirely appropriate given our topic on equilibrium. 

In reJesus, I have devoted a section to the exploration of the absolute and abiding role of Jesus in the life of faith and in the Christian community. I will eventually get to blogging around the book more systematically, but needless to say that I am now absolutely convinced that in order to ‘(re)find ourselves’ at any given point in time, we need to return to Jesus and constantly line ourselves up with what he was on about. He is the Founder after all.

Why do we need to constantly reboot back to Jesus? It seems to me that the problem is that his people have a nasty habit of pushing Jesus out of his own community. Of displacing him. Think this is wrong-headed? Well, even in the NT itself we have a scene of Jesus knocking at the door of the church asking to be let in (yes, Rev.3 is not about personal evangelism after all.) Question: What is he doing outside his church when he is meant to be Lord of the church?! It seems that it didn’t take long for the church to remove Jesus from his rightful place in his community.

But why do we do this when all our confessions call him ‘Lord?’ Well I think it is because Jesus is always very difficult to deal with, and religious-minded people really do struggle with his form of ‘religion.’ Actually what Jesus taught cannot properly be called religion at all, in fact Ellul rightly calls it ‘anti-religion’ precisely because it undoes all religion. It effectively dissoves any need for a complex mediating institution with all its priestly/churchly paraphrenalia, and opens up the God-relation to all who will repond direclty to its call. That’s why the religious folk hated him. He de-legitimizes everything they stand for (priesthood and institution) and opens it up to the people. they must take him out.

Here’s what I think: Christianity minus Jesus equalls religion. And this happens in more churches than we are given to believe. We marginalise Jesus all the time and in so many subtle ways. And we do this because dealing directly with Jesus (or God for that matter) is always a disturbing thing to a sin-wracked people who would prefer a stable, more controllable, religion. Like all living systems, churches seek equilibrium. We want to settle down. We want to bolt down the Revelation and make God understandable, accesable, and therefore more controllable–a ‘God-on-tap.’ Sociologists call this ‘the routinization of charisma’ (google that!) and it is written through the structures of all religions including our own.

But Jesus disturbs our equilbrium. He won’t be controlled. He won’t be handled only by priests and professional religionists. He won’t be domesticated. He is Lord! Yes, Jesus is our disequalibrium. And the way back to an authentic Christianity is simply to put Jesus back into the equation. Christianity plus Jesus equals World Transformation.