Dean, I like your idea of shifting the conversation from church to Jesus and "the Way."

I do like talking about Jesus - I appreciate you noticing that. I want to be honest with you. I can't say "Jesus is the Way" because I don't know if Jesus exists or whether the stories about him are true.

I like talking about Jesus because I strongly agree with some of what he said - also because I see awesome role-modeling of how to be a great human being in many of the stories about him. I hope conversations about these things will lead people to change their behavior, becoming better human beings who make the world a better place. I think of people who embrace such change as 'people of the Way.' I enjoyed your story about you and your friend forgiving each other, as a step along the Way.

I would love to talk about Jesus like he is a real human being, in a free, unconstrained manner. My experience of Christian conversations about Jesus is that Christians keep him in a glass case, locked with a gold key. People who share the "correct" Christian beliefs get their own key. People who don't are relegated to asking questions which Christians answer. Handling Jesus is a privilege reserved for "right-belief" Christians.

This reminds me of what Jesus noticed the Pharisees had done with God. They had made themselves God's gate-keepers. What was Jesus' response? He was very angry. He said: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." (Matthew 23:13)

I love that Jesus wanted to tear down the gates the Pharisees kept locked and give ordinary people access to the Kingdom again. The organization I volunteer for, Off The Map, wants to follow Jesus in this regard, smashing the glass case Christians have locked Jesus in so that he's available to everyone whether they've qualified for a gold key or not.

I think Jesus would like that, if he exists. I think he could handle it if someone who doesn't believe he is perfect criticizes him for, say, unnecessarily destroying a (fig) tree (it's just as well he didn't live in Oak Park).

I'd love to ask questions like: If Jesus is so into being worshipped, why did he never once begin a meeting with 'OK, let's start with a hymn to me'? And in some of Jesus' most direct words about who goes to heaven (Matthew 25), why did he say being kind to others was the way, and not even mention anything about believing in him?

I want Christians to think seriously about my questions rather than immediately jumping in to tell me the theological answer they've learned. Trading carefully learned theological answers is boring. Having creative, thoughtful unconstrained discussion is much more fun and exciting.

And who knows - maybe it will cause us to walk more in the Way and make the world a better place.

Helen Mildenhall
Oak Park