Nick Routledge@nick_routledge
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RT @nick_routledge: @RichardRohrOFM @brianmclaren MLK’s letter reads less like warning than autopsy. Let's be honest: precisely as the world polycrisis demands love, truth and solidarity, Abrahamic religion, by and large, reads captured and spent—credible only to its own tribes and even there, imploding. A migration is in order.

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Image of Rebbe Abraham Joshua Heschel and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., taken from tweet here: Tweet thread: CHALLENGE: Before sharing another quote from my father or asserting what he would stand for or against today, read #LetterFromBirminghamJail and comment on this tweet with something you learned. Letter: africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html "If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century." He was right. A fresh 21stC. start, then? "Jesus was calling for a radical disruption of his religion, a great spiritual migration. A similar disruption and migration are needed no less today in the religion that names itself after Him. - McLaren [From tweet here, responding to the Letter from Birmingham Jail, color inverted for graphic fit: Of edited tweet originally here: Tweet: Same on the streets, never mind in the Academy. Let's be honest. It's time for a fresh start. "From time to time, the image of God has to die so not to become an idol. It has to become transparent to transcendence to be renewed." ~ Joseph Campbell Richard Rohr Let’s be honest: religion has probably never had such a bad name. Christianity is now seen as “irrelevant” by some, “toxic” by many, and often as a large part of the problem rather than any kind of solution. It’s time to rebuild from the bottom up.

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Nick Routledge@nick_routledge · 1 Jan 2026

3/ The deeper question is whether the apocalyptic can break the wall that contains theology itself. The theological world that thinks it owns the gospel will not become true until it exorcises its own immunity, crucified by the same judgment and liberation it proclaims.

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Quoted by@michael_merrick Gandhi likewise: "I consider Western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity." And Chesterton, likewise, penetrating: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” A fresh start, then?Quoted byRT @nick_routledge: @alastairmci Perhaps those African portraits land so hard because they reveal something most of us in the West suffer from, which is religion that's mostly mood management and moral branding circling a secure, privatized salvation project, and calling it good. There's clearly work to be done.Quoted by@alastairmci Perhaps those African portraits land so hard because they reveal something most of us in the West suffer from, which is religion that's mostly mood management and moral branding circling a secure, privatized salvation project, and calling it good. There's clearly work to be done.