Our cat has been having a very fun season of life, as is usually the case, enjoying his new cat tree for perching and scratching, watching the birds and feeling the breeze through the windows, delighting in the omnipresent yarn of my wife’s knitting and getting to be ever more a lap cat as he starts to enter his middle years.

Reflecting on his presence, he offers daily reminders of the value of simplicity, being attentive to nature, being present to those around you, delighting in small things, and resting well. He also is very good at making his desires known even without words, a model to us with words of the importance of expressing our feelings and needs well as a part of maintaining good relationships.

However, he does not like clothes.

Spring has begun in fits and starts as usual. Warmth and cold alternate chaotically, but beauty marks the church calendar’s 50-day season of Easter as nature springs to new life while we reflect on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, it’s impact on initiating the bursting in of new creation in the world, and the hope of our own resurrection. We got a taste in our own courtyard, even while sprouts of new life continue to slowly grow among neighbors increasingly getting to know each other, work together on shared projects like clearing common spaces, and ask each other for help like covering petsitting needs.

One common objection to the Jesus movement is the fact of denominationalism. This can come in a couple forms, such as “The division between the many denominations and their inability to agree shows the impossibility that there is actually truth to their faith”, or “Surely if there were an all-powerful, good God, it would make sense to make truth clear enough that there would not be so many denominations.”

I’d argue that while there is tragedy in the fruits of some of the conflicts between religious groups and how some have turned to violence, hate, and rivalry, at the same time, the logic behind these questions is the logic of empire. Empire always depends on coercive hierarchical force to promote homogeneity and a single narrative of what is true, suppressing contextual variations.

Many who would oppose that dynamic in the political realm implicitly expect God to work that way if God is real and good, creating homogeneity among the followers of the divine from the top down, a unified following without variation. But what would be the tradeoff?

Variation flows from freedom, creativity, and contextualization. Yes, sometimes it has flowed from individual ambitions and toxic alliances with political power, but much of the variation in the global church flows from the good news adapting to historical and cultural differences across time and place, a mosaic of creative improvisation and application of the way and teaching of Jesus to kaleidoscopically different realities in the lives of many different followers.

Rather than crushing this variation and speaking in a thundering voice out of the sky to get all followers to “do it right” and believe in identical ways, God has chosen instead the path of human freedom. God has chosen that we followers across all times and places hear and apply the life and teachings of Jesus in our own lives, communities, and contexts. That results in lives and churches that vary widely. The good news is big enough to handle it, to be lived out in very different ways in different contexts and still be true and good. Yes, there are harmful paths taken by some followers twisting the good news to their own ends, but there is also wide-ranging fruitful creativity and beauty flowing from God's prioritization of freedom and cultural contextualization, and it seems God delights in that improvised tapestry far more than God would delight in an imperial religion of identical statements of faith and standards of practice in all times and places.

If you’d ever like to discuss, you can reply to this email if you're subscribed and receiving it that way, or you can comment on the online post.

It’s also helpful if you want to share this with others via any of the social share icons on the post or by forwarding the email version.

I hope you’re enjoying reading, and I'm always glad to hear your thoughts.