I remember listening to Gordon Fee during a Chi Alpha Fellowship retreat years ago when I was working in campus ministry. Frankly, I don't remember anything he said, but we all liked his book.
This quote is very timely. I concur with Fee concerning the idea that the American church of both the religious right and the religious left has allowed itself (themselves) to be co-opted by American socio-political systems and agendas. This has produced an institutional church that to the general public, particularly among younger generations, looks more like the crass American political system rather than the "love your neighbor as yourself" ideal of Christianity - at least as Jesus summed up in his two great commandments. This has also produced a deficient Christian experience in this country among too many adherents.
We cease to be the imago Dei (the image of God) within our
surrounding society when we allow ourselves to be so diminished and
corrupted. We experience a deficient form of the life in Christ when we
do so. The question may well be:
When are we, individually and in the aggregate, going to reclaim the relational experience promised by the texts of the Christian faith so that we are re-formed in humility into to the imago Dei in order to be a compelling witness of an alternative for the people we encounter everyday?
