The Lion Isaiahists and the Wolf Isaiahists both preached on street corners, battling when they met: they were at odds over whether it was the lion or the wolf that would lie down with the lamb once the Peaceable Kingdom had arrived.
This little satirical gem from Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood puts it finger rather squarely on one of the problems Christianity tends to suffer from.
There’s much insight in the following thought, too:
… religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.
.
What matters … is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages, which are already upon us. The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament.
It’s the really hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile away. For those who know their need, God is immediate – not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body.
Brief thoughts & quotes … 