Jesus Revolution
Do you believe in equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress? If so, we think you’ll love Jesus.
What Jesus started 2000 years ago has been the most powerful and enduring revolution in history. British author Tom Holland says,
‘Two thousand and twenty years after the birth of Christ, we remain the children of the Christian revolution: the most disruptive, the most influential and the most enduring revolution in history.’
If you look at modern Canadian society, you can see there are some key values that people rally around. We love equality and compassion, we believe in things like consent, enlightenment and science, and we value freedom and progress. What if we told you that these seven things, core values in Canadian society, are deeply connected to God? And that they come to us from what started 2000 years ago in what we call The Jesus Revolution.
We hope you’ll join us for each week of this series, as we pay attention to each of these values in our modern world, and trace the breadcrumbs back to see how they begin with the life and teachings of Jesus.
- As we look to the Biblical teaching of equality, we see the beautiful gift it is to every human being. In the book of Genesis, in the life and teachings of Jesus, and in the lives of early followers of Jesus we have been given a vision of equality that truly is a precious truth that has the power to change
the world.
- Compassion is anchored in the character of God and in the life and teachings of Jesus. Teachings from the ancient Roman world and the modern teaching on the “survival of the fittest” are not where our culture learns compassion. Compassion is a gift to the world from the Jesus Revolution.
- We see throughout the New Testament that “to love is to will the good of the other” (St. Thomas Aquinas). The ability to freely consent was non-existent in the ancient Roman world and it seems to be found nowhere in the animal kingdom. The freedom to consent is anchored in the love of God- and is a gift to us from the Jesus Revolution.
- It's alleged that humans in the West emerged from the intellectual immaturity of the "Dark Ages" in the 17th century, when we finally began to think for ourselves instead of following the ignorance of the church. But this is a historically inaccurate account. In reality, the Jesus Revolution has been a great source of light for the world, in all kinds of ways, and Jesus is "the light of the world" for the darkness in our own world as well!
- Far from being a hindrance to scientific progress, the Christian view of God, the universe and humanity makes science possible, and science developed out of a Christian intellectual framework.
- Slavery is still very much a reality in our world today. As we look to Jesus we see His heart to set the oppressed free! As we follow Jesus we join him in his liberation of all people from the slavery that oppresses millions today as well as the slavery of our souls. Our assumption that slavery is evil and that
freedom is a good gift comes to us from Jesus and His Revolution.
- In contrast with the Ancient world which always saw a Golden Age in the rearview mirror of history, and in contrast with many cultures' cyclic view of history as a ‘sorrowful wheel of time’’, the Biblical vision of history offers a linear move of God’s justice and hope moving us towards a new heaven and new earth! We discover God’s beautiful promise of progress- ‘I am making all things new!’ You and I are invited to join Jesus in his Revolution of progress- seeing all things made new!