Broken By Religion, Healed by God: Restoring the Evangelical, Sacramental, Pentecostal, Social Justice Church

by Gordon Dalbey

THE BODY OF CHRIST NEEDS HEALINGThis is my journey to a real and engaging relationship with Jesus. It’s how I became born again among Evangelicals, was empowered by the sacrament among Catholics, received the baptism of the Spirit among Pentecostals, and was transformed by social justice ministries among Oldline Reformers. But it’s also about how the Church has divided by these four very ways people meet Jesus, sabotaging both its credibility and mission. In fact, this division in the Body of Christ reflects the same shame-based spirit of religion that fueled both the Pharisees and the 9/11terrorists.Above all, this book is about how Jesus is battling to heal His broken Body unto today, and through it, this broken world. It's time we joined Him. His victory--and ours--demands it. GOD HAS A PLAN—ARE YOU READY? “Are You a Christian?” Toward a Spiritual Ecumenism 2. Platypus A Strange but Holy Mixture 3. From Blah to “Aha!” Rediscovering a Whole Faith The Evangelical Witness4. A Time to Die, A Time to Be Born—Again The Sacramental Witness5. Nothing but the Getting Ready for Communion 6. A Protestant Power in the Sacrament The Pentecostal Witness7. Faith Encounters of the Third God’s Larger Reality 8. Who Is Holy Spirit? Meeting the Active Presence of God Today 9. Healing Emotional Seeing the Past as Jesus Sees It 10. Cleaning Lady to the Power to Heal Bodies The Social Justice Witness11. From Pier to Adventuring into the World with Jesus 12. Of Jogging and Cat Meeting Jesus Where It Hurts 13. The Mirror of Overcoming Personal &Corporate Racism 14. Jesus Is Our The Alternative to Warmaking Healed by God15. Blackmailed by Shame, Freed by Grace and Truth Epilog - Rise and Jog SOUND BITES* I found myself sneaking from camp to camp, learning from Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Oldline social reformers, yet being careful not to reveal in any one church my sympathies for the others. * Most people don't want to be healed--at least, not as badly as they want to cover their shame.* God’s love is not a zero-sum game. There’s plenty to go around. You don't have to condemn someone different in order to affirm yourself. You just have to know how much your Father loves you. * To look forward to communion with excitement--as my friend looked forward to being with his wife again--you must believe that Jesus will actually be there at the table with you, alive and active, even in your behalf.* Biblical faith redefines safety--indeed, peace itself--not as the absence of threat, but the presence of Jesus.* Those who have little of the world’s resources reflect the deeper reality that we all have nothing except what God has graciously given us. * Material comfort and security are good insofar as they are seen as the undeserved gifts of a graceful, loving God, and evil insofar as they separate us from the needs of others and make us unresponsive to their suffering. * Christians are not called to fit into this world, but to change it. * Moses came to tell us what to do; Jesus came to show us Who does it.

280 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2011

Reviews

[Virginia Fortunato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book challenged me to think about others in the Body of Christ differently. My way is not the right way, I am not God, I don’t have all the answers. My heart desires to come to the communion table with other believers with a posture of humility, desiring connection, relationship and unity, to live out John 17 with others that the world may know who our God is!!

[John Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book from Gordon Dalbey where I seem to end up underlining almost everything.

In this book he talks through his journey from being a liberal pastor whose focus was on social justice ministries and who scoffed at other denominations that were "wrong" to being born again in the evangelical church, receiving the power of the sacrament from the Roman catholic church to receiving the Spirit from the Pentacostal church.

He writes how each denomination gives a valid method of receiving grace from Christ - but we have insisted "our" way is the only correct way rather than realising how all have something to offer Christians.

He concludes that the issue is our own inadequacy and trying to hide our shame by seeking our own righteousness instead of falling on our knees before Jesus.

A beautiful book that walks the dividing line between "conservative" and "liberal" to Jesus. Recommended.