Mike Yaconelli (July 24, 1942 — October 30, 2003) was a writer, theologian, church leader and satirist. I love this quote has to be one of favourites
“We have lost our astonishment. The Good News is no longer good news, it is okay news. Christianity is no longer life changing, it is life enhancing. Jesus doesn’t change people into wild-eyed radicals anymore, He changes them into ‘nice people’. But radical Christianity wasn’t nice; it was category-smashing, life-threatening, anti-institutional; it spread like wildfire throughout the 1st century and was considered by those in power to be dangerous. ‘I want to be filled with an astonishment which is so captivating that I am considered wild and unpredictable and … well … dangerous’. I want to be dangerous to a dull and boring religion. I want a faith that is considered dangerous by our predictable and monotonous culture. Dullness is a cultural issue.”
Mike Yaconelli
Let me know what you think?
I’m not particularly familiar with Yaconelli, but I couldn’t agree more with this quote. Although, it’s a little tragic that he was born in the 40s and yet this quote is still so relevant today.
We as believers can be so obsessed with making the bible fit into a “culturally acceptable box”, yet this serves as a timely reminder that the gospel is radical, anti-institutional stuff.
This reminds me of an an excellent sermon by Chandler that I heard yesterday where he pointed out that so often christians are guilty of avoiding preaching the gospel. A great quote was where he said that we’ve “innoculated people with Jesus. We’ve given them just enough so that they need never know Him”.