The 10 Disturbing De-‘s Of The Bible

From Moses to the prophets to Jesus to Paul, throughout the bible there are stories and passages that, as Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch would write, “… uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow…” I’ll call them the 10 de-s.

de-stabilize: There is at work a destabilization of the powers, sometimes the very powers religion enthrones and endorses.
de-nationalize: Blessing is not focused upon one nation, nor does it come from one nation.
de-centralize: All attempts to keep the true religion centralized are challenged, overthrown and dispersed.
de-culturize: The Holy resists getting comfortable within any one culture because being entrenched in one dominant culture goes against the very core of the truth.
de-colonize: The mission is not to dominate and absorb the other, but to acknowledge, bless and inform the truth the other already possesses.
de-religiousize: The arrogant assumptions of religion and its religious are exposed and emptied.
de-textualize: Possessors of the text and its interpreters are constantly critiqued as narrow and fatally legalistic, for there is life outside the text.
de-intellectualize: Although right thinking is necessary, in the end It’s not what you know but how you live that counts.
de-theologize: We are constantly being pulled down out of our theological ivory towers to put into practice that which we believe.
de-spiritualize: Love overthrows fantasy, for the idea of The All in All demands that we see all things as reconciled, one and therefore working together for good.

the 10 disturbing de-‘s of the bible