Against

Dear Friends, Guests, and Members,

We’re looking at God’s relationship to humanity and the world through the lens of prepositions.

If you have worshipped, followed us online or otherwise been keeping up with our church, we’ve looked at the prepositions “with” and “for” as well as “above and within.” Today, I’ll move to the dark side!

Yes. God is with us, for us, before us, above us, and within us. In short, God is allied with us and connected to us in ways that cannot be reversed. In Christ, God has thrown the full weight of his desire to save towards us by being among us. By the Spirit, God lives within us.

But God knows the reality of evil, and opposes that which destroys us in body, mind and spirit. God desires that we live life “abundantly!” (John 10:10) And so words like “hate” and “despises” and “detests” those things that work against our good, and our salvation. God is “AGAINST” attitudes, words, actions and states of mind that work destructively—that represent that which separates us from self, from others in loving communion, and with Him.

It’s all part of love. We all understand what it means to be against that which oppresses, forces, takes advantage of, harms, uses with utility only, hurts, destroys, and works against the well-being of ourselves and others. Being against these things is not in, and of itself good, but it is part of living within practices of love. God, out of Infinite love, desires we find our true selves in Him, our joy and fulfillment in living lives that honor His intention that we thrive.

It’s not rocket science… so it’s a mystery how so many people claiming Christian and Christian-adjacent faiths have missed this basic set of truths.

In Hollywood, “where God’s Spirit is given space to change people’s lives,” we’re interested in affirming that all belong to and are loved by God, accepted by God through and in Christ, and called to love.

We’re also dedicated to calling out the ways the profoundly biblical namings of sin in and out of our context have been hijacked and privileged by the normativity of maleness and patriarchy, whiteness and heteronormative purity culture, and made the journey to thriving and fulfilment in Christ so much more difficult for the marginalized.

I hope you’re inspired and blessed as I let scripture speak, even if these may not be scriptures you’re used to hearing when speaking of what God might actually be “against!”

Grace and Peace,

Pr Greg