Beautiful Religion

Although this is a book about Christian spirituality, I warmly invite anyone to its pages who seeks a spiritual path of substance, a spirituality of the heart, soul, and body that engages the reason, but also transcends it and expresses itself as beautiful religion. To some disappointed or even abused by religion, the notion of beautiful religion may sound like an oxymoron. To others, it may come as a surprise that Christianity even offers a spiritual path and is not just a theological system, moral code, self-help plan, or conservative political strategy. Actually, in its primal form, Christianity is "the narrow way" that Jesus himself followed and taught to his disciples in the New Testament Gospels and continues to teach today by his living Spirit. It is an embodied way of spiritual becoming as well as a path toward realizing our full humanity.

"Saint Irenaeus, the second-century Bishop of Lyons, understood this well," asserts David Benner. "His famous declaration - Gloria Dei vivens homo - proclaimed that the glory of God is men and women fully alive, fully human." And spiritual teacher Thomas Merton adds, "The triumph of grace enables people to live their ordinary lives divinely. The way to become divine is thus to become fully human." This is beautiful religion. It is the life-changing adventure to which Jesus invites all men and women when we hear his words "follow me" ringing repeatedly throughout his teachings in the Scriptures.

The question is, "Can we get there from here?" I invite you to explore the way of Jesus and the beautiful religion he came to reveal and decide for yourself.