Grounded Podcast with Chuck Quinley: ReJesus Everything!

Learn to be rock solid even if the world around you is not
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Millions are walking away from church but not from Jesus. Over 25 episodes, author and missionary Chuck Quinley diagnoses what's gone wrong with global Christianity and offers a radical solution: ReJesus everything. Restore the central authority of Jesus alone as chief theologian and leader of the mission. Strip away 2,000 years of accumulated traditions and return to the simple, powerful path of following Jesus himself—his words, his practices, his mission. www.quinley.com

  1. MAY 5

    What do you do when God feels completely silent? (and two other great questions)

    Welcome back to the Grounded Podcast! I hope you are having an incredible week. Sherry and I are out of the country for the next few weeks on an assignment that is part ministry and part Sabbath for the two of us. We run pretty hard on the schedule, some days having six meetings back-to-back, and it’s just important to balance that with some good time of restoration. What’s coming up? Today we get three great questions: * Is it okay to question things you were taught growing up in church? * What do you do when God feels completely silent? * How do you maintain personal faith when you’ve seen so much hypocrisy in the church? * Bonus: and I talk a bit about how God brings revelation to us through others. I wanted to highlight the second question because it’s something I have experienced myself, so I can really sympathize with others who are going through it. Life Can Wear You Out We all get worn out, sometimes. The most important things in life need sustained effort on our part. It even seems that the more important something is, the harder it is to do because it gets resisted by the darkness. I mean, nobody stumbles into a great lifetime marriage or launching a bunch of happy, healthy, solid kids. Or building a God-honoring business that balances making profits with being a blessing to people. These things are so resisted in the world that we have to push harder in our efforts to achieve them. We Meet a Tired Man Sherry and I just returned from the Pastors Coalition meeting in Tennessee this past weekend. This is a group of excellent pastors who want to go the extra mile and not only run a healthy church but also influence that church to do something powerful in global missions and humanitarian work around the world. In this group, there was one notable leader, a man I truly admire. A year ago, I felt compelled to drive to his city and have a meeting with him although I did not know why. When I called to set it up, he didn’t seem too excited about the prospect of me coming to have a talk with him. After I got there it was a little awkward but eventually we got to an amazing fish house, where we ate a lot of shrimp and ended up having a long talk about dryness and the need to take a sabbath rest. The essence of our conversation was that maybe he wasn’t really burned out, nor was he finished in his calling. He was just tired and exhausted, and he needed to let things idle for a year. At this week’s meeting, he told me that our conversation probably saved his ministry, because he was, in fact, resisting meeting with me out of the secret knowledge that he was about to leave it all behind. His wife said, “We were depleted, but our ground was depleted too. We needed to let the land rest.” Putting Things into Sabbath Mode He quietly put everything in this big dynamic church into maintenance mode without announcing it to anyone. Every time someone had a great idea, he said, “That’s a great idea. Write it up and email it to me!” but he never did anything new the whole year. He slowed the busy-ness of his church and focused on health in the church. Sabbath year. Just let the land rest. He spent more time on his personal health, and he and his wife logged a lot of missing hours together and renewed their strength and rebuilt themselves on the inside for twelve whole months. The core leaders from the church got a rest too as things got simplified for a whole year. The end of the story is that they’re both revived and the church with them. This year they’re actually going to start eight micro churches under other leaders. This will have minimal drain on them or the church but will ignite eight new people in their circle to do something visionary with God in a house group or small-sized church setting. That’s usually the fruit of truly unplugging for a season. Maybe you need that, and if you do, I hope you will not argue yourself out of it, but just start pulling plugs out and making space in your calendar for a season of doing nothing. But that’s not even what this episode is about That part is for free, folks! What I talk about in the video is something totally different. It’s about the reality of a place called the wilderness—a dry, arid, vacant place you end up somehow wandering into even as you faithfully follow Jesus. You don’t intend to go there. It just happens. Things get quiet and you sense that you’re just alone in a desert place, and no matter how loud you cry out to God, you don’t hear anything in response. Maybe this lasts a week or a month. I felt nothing. It lasted for three years. Journeying Through a Spiritual Desert In Manila, I preached each week, and we had great harvest. Typically, 25 people every Sunday came to Christ over an 8-10-year period. For a long while, I could sing. I could pray. But inside I just felt silence. (I talk more about it in the video.) Thank God, the thing about all deserts is that they don’t go on forever. I got out of mine eventually, so I can fully understand what this experience feels like to other people and can assure you that it is not a permanent state. Actually, this phenomenon is well recorded in Christian history. Many of the people considered spiritual heroes in Christian history report a season in their life where a similar thing took place. So if you’re in that condition right now, please take heart. Yes, it’s a time to ask God if you’ve done something to cause it, and if you have, you need to fix it, but it’s also very possible that you didn’t do a thing. It’s just a process, and somehow we need it—for reasons we can clearly see and for some reasons that we may not understand in this lifetime. Life with Jesus is so amazing, whether it’s in a desert or on a mountaintop. As long as he’s there, it’s a precious experience. I think one of the main things Jesus came to teach us was how to be fully human—how to live a life that is fully engaged with God and others in this physical world. I want to taste my food, feel the wind on my face, and enjoy every slobbery kiss from babies. Sherry and I love our days, and we pray God will help you to love yours also. ReJesus Everything! Love, Chuck and Sherry Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    22 min

  2. APR 28

    Should we walk away from organized religion?

    Okay. In today’s quick podcast, I answer a single question that is being posed by some young people, which is: “Since all organized religion is problematic in one way or another, should we just walk away from it and have a private religion?” What is Private Religion? Private religion is sort of removing ourselves from a communal basis in our faith journey and choosing just to have what we might call privatism—me keeping my personal ideas about faith and religion private. This is one option, and many people are suggesting it. In this quick video. I give my reasons why I don’t think that’s the best path forward and why I believe it is very much possible to re-JESUS everything on a small and larger level. This past weekend, I was at the Emerging Leaders Gathering at Lee university, it was really exciting to see young people who were passionate about serving Jesus and wanting to do it in a communal way. Hats off to Mark Swank and others at Church of God World Missions, who have been leading this charge to raise up a new generation of missional young adults in a denomination that is over 100 years old. Time really is a factor in any organization, whether it’s a family or a faith-based mission. Time allows lots of cultural currents and trends and strong personalities to emerge and change the course of the original group. Sometimes this is healthy evolution and sometimes not so healthy, but what it always is is entropy, because age slows things down, makes them more institutional, and much less likely to bear fruit. That’s why the story of Abraham is such a miracle: an old man and woman had a baby. It’s just as remarkable for an old church to have a youth movement. In both cases, this was only accomplished with great intentionality. God wanted this baby, and Abraham and Sarah had to want this baby and bend their life around having future generations flow from them. We have to care about things like this, or they’ll never happen. I really appreciate the work of Dr. Propes, Mark Swank, and many others in generating some momentum among young people regarding global missions. Hope you enjoy the video. i’d love to hear your ideas too. Let’s keep this discussion going. Let’s read Jesus everything in our lives. There’s so much life in Jesus, and we can all have it, and we can all continue to bear fruit even in our mature years. Every blessing! Chuck Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    11 min

  3. APR 21

    Did Jesus Establish Christianity?

    Writers Note: This is a question with the power to set you free — or make you deeply uncomfortable. Maybe both at once, Please stick with us till the end. It’s a crucial discussion. Thanks for helping us spread this conversation widely so we can help others ground their faith. Did Jesus Found Christianity? Most people assume the answer is obvious. Of course he did. His name is in the title. But at the risk of being misunderstood, I still want to make the case that the answer is no — and that this is one of the most liberating thoughts you will ever consider as a devoted follower of Christ. I say this as a lifetime insider. I believe with everything in me that the life and teaching of Jesus is the most extraordinary gift ever given to this humanity. The principles he embodied are the very foundations of the civilization we inhabit today. The chaos we see in the world now is not caused by those principles. It is caused by our abandonment of them. But whether Jesus founded a religion called Christianity? That is a different question. Here are three reasons I believe he did not. Reason #1: History Simply Doesn’t Support It There is no historical evidence that Jesus founded any form of external religion. What the records show, consistently, is a man pushing against almost every institution of his day — family structures, Roman political arrangements, and most dramatically, the Temple of Judaism itself. He did not model how to build the best religion. He modeled a new way of living. Everything he said and did was about humans living in a direct, unmediated, loyal relationship with their Creator. His conclusion, demonstrated over and over, was that religion can actually become a barrier to the very God it claims to represent. When pious performance, priestly clothing, and theological gatekeeping replace direct encounter — Jesus doesn’t just disagree. He despises it. He was not anti-structure as an ideological position. He was anti-anything-that-comes-between-humans-and-God. That is not the posture of a man building a new religion. That is the posture of a man tearing down the walls that keep people from the presence they were made for. Reason #2: His Mission Was a War of Liberation, Not Institutional Formation Jesus was not building an institution. He was fighting a war. He believed this planet had come under the influence of an intelligent, malevolent heavenly being whose strategy was hateful and relentless: push the leaders of every major pillar of society toward the accumulation of wealth, the abuse of power, and a fascination with physical pleasure at the expense of everything higher. The result is what we know well: disease, broken relationships, injustice, cruelty, death. Jesus spent his public ministry tearing down that kingdom piece by piece. He cast out demons. He healed people in the streets. He raised the dead. Every act of human restoration was a declaration of war. Does that sound like someone primarily concerned with founding a religion with creeds, hymns, ceremonies, temples, rituals, and liturgical practices? He didn’t build a religion. He didn’t teach his followers how to build one either. What he did build was people. An inner circle of three. Twelve. An outer network of five hundred. Community? Absolutely essential. A ceremonial structure of institution? Probably not. In his own words, those systems in Judaism had become tools of the enemy. He said the Pharisees’ determined religious efforts actually produced people who were twice the children of hell they were. Structure is never satisfied. It always wants more structure. Over time, the life gets squeezed out by the effort to control. That is why Spirit movements keep arising — hermits in the desert, prophets in the wilderness, reformers nailing documents to cathedral doors. Jesus himself regularly walked away from civilization into uninhabited places to be alone with God. That is not the behavior of an institution builder. Reason #3: “Christianity” Doesn’t Exist as One Organization There simply isn’t one central thing called Christianity. There are more than 47,000 separated Christian groups — each with their own doctrines, mandatory practices, and expectations. Some believe Jesus is the only way. Others that he’s a noble example but that any sincere path will lead equally to God. Some believe Jesus was virgin born and raised from the dead. Others believe neither. Some believe in salvation based on works. Others through faith only. Others that it’s through mystical grace flowing through the sacraments. Some look for an eternity in the clouds. Others doubt there is an afterlife at all. Which of these did Jesus found? The answer, I believe, is none of them. Here is the formulation I keep returning to: Jesus is the standard. The Christianities are the attempts. The way of Jesus is not something you do alone — it demands community. To follow Jesus we have to build communities that align with his values and mission. The problem is in the cycle that usually attends movements. Every movement begins with hope, fire, fresh wine in fresh wineskins. But movements are messy and, eventually, have to be organized. Some become so rigid that no life remains. Others stagnate into comfortable fellowship that has forgotten the mission. The task of disciples is to build our Christian communities in alignment with his value system and for his purposes. The Kingdom belongs to Him. Building Christianities belongs to us. Jesus is the standard. Christianities are the attempts. Why This Matters This is not an attack on institutional Christianity. It is a safety measure. Most of the truly toxic things that happen in religious communities — the abuse of power, the manipulation, the cultic control, the cruelty done in the name of God — most of it begins with grandiose thinking. When a leader starts to believe their church was founded by Jesus himself, they become significantly less accountable. They can come to believe themselves as the special “anointed ones” largely above question. The downward slide of is not a rare fringe case. It is the almost inevitable trajectory of all religious institutions that confuse themselves with the Kingdom of God. But when we accept — truly accept, in our bones — that our churches are our feeble human attempts to imitate Jesus in an organized way, something shifts in a vital way. We become accountable. We hold our structures humbly, knowing they are ours, not his, and that we will constantly need to revisit and correct them. The church is not the kingdom. The minute we confuse the two, we are on dangerous ground. I know that I’ve opened up a can of worms with this, and that touching this topic can seem like an attack on the entire Christian world. I really hope this can lead to some discussion. I do not offer this as doctrine, but as my reasoned opinion on this matter. I am NOT saying that we should abandon all organized forms of Christian religion. You cannot walk as a disciple without binding yourself to the community of disciples. I AM saying that every one of our forms of Christianity is a minority position, and that each of us treating them like ours is the correct one, the only one truly established by Jesus and that all the others are false Christians is one of the most toxic aspects of global Christianity. Three Things I’m Asking You to Consider Doing First: Stop defending your version Christianity as if Jesus founded it. Humans launched yours and we generally know their names whether it’s Wesleyan, Lutheran, Moravians, etc. Sincere humans founded our tribes, not Jesus himself. Just own that. It will make all of us more humble, more open, and consequently more dangerous to the enemy. Second: Ask honestly whether your Christianity is actually producing disciples — people growing in loyalty to God in how they handle money and power, how they treat others, and how quickly they apologize when they are wrong. That is the fruit Jesus was after. Healthy churches produce it. Third: If you have allowed any institution to stand between you and direct access to your Creator — if you have outsourced your relationship with God to a pastor, a doctrine, a ritual, or a sacred building — today is the day to walk back toward the wilderness a bit to find the quiet place. Go there and speak to your Father without an intermediary. Because that is what Jesus came to give you. Not a religion. A relationship. Not a Christianity. Himself — leading you into deep, direct communion with the God who made you. Let’s pursue that together and build faithful communities in the process. Every Blessing! Chuck PS: I’m not trying to give answers, and I’m really not trying to destabilize anyone’s faith. I just hope that we can have an honest, respectful conversation about the nature of the thing we’ve built all over this planet. That is called collectively Christianity. My solution to everything is a ruthless return to Jesus over every form of institutional religion, so that we can rebuild communities that reflect him more perfectly. I hope you feel my heart in this. I would love to hear what you have to say. Chuck Quinley is President of Emerge Missions and author of ReJesus Everything. Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    36 min

  4. APR 14

    Question & Response #2

    Hi! Hope you’re having a great week! Since our last episode, we’ve got more great questions. I will answer three of them in this episode. The first one is: “What if someone has suffered so deeply in abuse from a church that they have difficulty separating Jesus from the abuse?” I will address this directly and offer to anyone wounded by their experience in a church or Christian organization the only path to healing I have ever discovered. We’re into a really great discussion, and I hope you’ll join us inside this week’s grounded podcast question and response session. If you send me your questions and comments, I will do my best to respond to each of them. Every Blessing! Chuck PS: I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but our Substack has this really cool feature so that if there’s even a sentence or paragraph that you like in a newsletter like this, you can highlight it and then right-click to share. It will create a really cool looking way for your friend to receive your message. Please help us grow the reach of this newsletter. No algorithm pushes it out. It depends on the people who read it to share it with their friends. Thanks so much! Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    17 min

  5. APR 7

    How Do You Even Define Christianity Anymore?

    Writer’s note: I want to give my personal thanks to the 20 of you who recently signed up as paid subscribers. I really appreciate your support. It’s encouraging to know that people find value in the work, and it helps me build the team I need to continue and grow the podcast. Thanks again! Hi Friend! The hardest thing in discussing how to fix dysfunctional elements within Christianity is simply determining what Christianity even is today. What even is Christianity? It’s a question that sounds simple until you try to answer it. Most people assume the answer is straightforward. “Christianity is the religion about Jesus.” That seems clear enough. But when you begin to look closely at the actual landscape of Christianity, the answer becomes far more complicated. Christianity today is not just a religion, it’s also a cultural identity, a global movement, a massive institutional network, a political influence, and a sprawling economic ecosystem. It contains sincere discipleship movements, centuries-old traditions, humanitarian organizations, political activism, and millions of business ventures, to name a few elements. Let’s unpack this. The Warehouse In my upcoming book ReJesus Everything, I describe Christianity as a giant warehouse. Picture the largest warehouse on earth — a building stretching miles in every direction. Inside are countless aisles, stacked floor to ceiling with everything associated with Christianity. Yes, Christianity is a Family of Religions If you walk into the section labeled Religions, you will find an astonishing number of shelves. Scholars estimate that there are roughly 47,000 distinct Christianities around the world. Walk the aisles and you’ll pass * Roman Catholicism * Eastern Orthodoxy * Greek Orthodoxy * Ethiopian Orthodoxy * Coptic Christianity * Lutheranism * Calvinism * Methodism * Presbyterianism * The Mennonites * Baptist denominations in every variety * Pentecostalism * non-denominational Christianity * Prosperity gospel churches * Liberation theology * Christian nationalism * Progressive Christianity * House church movements * Emerging church movements, and many more Then you hit the fringe religion section (which grows every year): Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Seventh-day Adventism, Christian UFOlogy, and hundreds of radical cult groups that claim Jesus while holding beliefs most traditional Christians would flatly reject. (Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown mass suicide cults had a Christian theology as their base). And if you keep walking, you’ll run into ancient Christian spiritual systems like Gnosticism, which portrayed Jesus as a messenger from the gods revealing a radically different version of the biblical story where the serpent is the good guy, the creator is not to be trusted, and Jesus is sent by the gods to be the one who reveals all this to us and delivers secret knowledge that helps us ascend to join the sky gods as spirit beings freed from our human shell. This group almost took over early Christianity. It’s still out there. All of this sits inside one section of the warehouse labeled Religions where * Every group claims the name of Jesus. * They read the same Bible. * All believe their understanding is correct. Christianity as a National Identity Christianity is more than a religion. For hundreds of millions of people, Christianity is a national and cultural identity that has nothing to do with personal faith. This is the case in Europe. Those with a Christian cultural identity may have never prayed directly to God and only attend church for funerals and weddings. But they live in a historically Christian nation, and that makes them Christian in the same way it makes someone Iranian or Greek. Many nations enshrine this idea in their constitutions with the naming of a state religion. The King of Great Britain is authorized to rule by the Anglican Church. This is Christianity as ethnicity and civilization. To draw a parallel from largely agnostic modern Israel, Naor Narkis says, “What defines us (Jews) is our language, and our heritage, but doesn’t involve faith in a god.” 3.5 Million Parachurch Organizations Then there’s the parachurch universe. According to research from Gordon-Conwell University, there are 3.5 million Christian agencies worldwide — organizations addressing everything from lack of access to the gospel, to clean water, to inclusion of LGBTQ in clergy, to homelessness, drug addiction, human trafficking, orphan care, right to life, legal reform, and political action. It’s an industry. It’s hard to know where to draw the line on what is and is not part of Christianity. For example, is an orphanage run by Christians part of Christianity? Sure. How about the non-profit that runs the fundraising that runs the orphanage? Okay, that also. How about the Christian credit card processor that serves churches and non-profits so they can receive donations? Is that Christianity? How about the Christian investment company that oversees the retirement fund for the missionaries who run the orphanage? How about the funds they invest in? It’s hard to see the exact line. Then, There’s Christianity, Inc. There are millions of corporations and profit-driven businesses generating billions of dollars in revenue directly or indirectly attached to Christianity. The fish sticker business alone is a blood sport. There’s big bucks in fish stickers. Millions have been sold. It’s a contact sport. When Evolution Designs released “the Darwin fish” with feet (as a mockery of those who don’t believe in evolution), 3D Witness Enterprises responded with their Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish. Glorious. In the United States alone, 350,000 Christian communities are legally incorporated. They own billions of dollars of real estate and receive billions in cash flow annually with very little reporting. Add to that hundreds of universities, publishing houses, retreat centers, music labels, television networks, hospital systems, Christian law firms, sound and lights companies, church security companies, and companies making those tiny communion wafer packets that are generally impossible to open. You want more? * Christian safari companies in South Africa. You can do a mission trip and also bag a rhino. * Clerical clothing manufacturers (You won’t find backward collars at Macy’s) * Companies making hand-cranked transistor radios for underground churches. * And of course, Chick-fil-A — which some call, “God’s fast food”. (Shout out to Chick-fil-A—how about some gift cards?) We’ve got * Christian T-shirt companies * Agents handling only Christian comedians & ventriloquists * Christian Greeting Card companies like Precious Moments * Christian dating sites * Christian cruises with the Gaithers, etc. etc. There’s Christian Tourism: Branson, MO, the “Christian Las Vegas”. Entire industries revolve around pilgrimage destinations in Israel, Turkey, and other historically significant locations, with busses, tour guides, olive-wood carving companies, relic makers, anointing oil bottlers, museums, etc. The best analogy I have is this: imagine McDonald’s with no rules. Anyone, anywhere in the world can put up the golden arches and call it McDonald’s — and they can do whatever they want inside the building. Make it a skating rink, a day spa, a hardware store, or serve food of any type. No quality control. No governing body. No one to call for permission. Anyone anywhere in the world can start any enterprise they want and attach it to the Christian cause through their branding and activities. That’s Christianity today. Some parts of the Christian Enterprise are sincere and beautiful. Some have gone badly off track. Some started faithfully but then unraveled as they went along, maybe at the peak of their visible success. This is not a new problem. The church has wrestled with the tension between the institutional and the spiritual since its earliest days. But the scale of it today is genuinely unprecedented. Humans Organize Things Over the centuries, human beings did what human beings always do. We organized the movement. First, it was a movement, and then it was a governmentally empowered church system which spawned those trades that were attached to supporting Christian causes like builders, stone masons, weavers, candle-makers, etc. Over the past two millennia things just kept mushrooming in every direction as people got one great idea after another. None of this was malicious. Organizing is simply how humans handle ideas they care about deeply. But over time the headless structure grew unbounded and lost its focus. And today Christianity has long overwhelmed the boundaries of any known religion. Grounded Podcast is a 100% reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work please join us as a free or paid subscriber. My Working Definition of Christianity So here is my honest, eyes-open definition of Christianity: “Religion, culture, businesses, initiatives, and assorted enterprises somehow related to the story and person of Jesus of Nazareth.” Not inspiring, I know. I’m just trying to be accurate so we can begin to discuss Christianity intelligently. Now you might think that all this crazy human chaos is rubbish and we should all repudiate it and walk away, but here’s what’s ironic…. Astonishingly, through these ungoverned, unplanned, random, and sometimes corrupt human creations — God has done extraordinary things anyway. Do you think I’m overstating? I’m not just talking about small good deeds scattered around the edges of history. I mean that there’s a mystery in this mess. Yes, mistakes have been made, and people within this enterprise have gotten a million miles off course. Yet somehow this headless enterprise has created things that fundamentally reshaped life on this planet for everyone, including people who want n

    21 min

  6. MAR 31

    Special Question and Response Episode

    Well, we are almost ten episodes into season two of the Grounded Podcast. By now I’ve been getting a lot of questions, both privately and in the comments sections. I wanted to take time and have a special episode in which to respond to two or three questions. Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. One of our main objectives is to create a context for a healthy discussion about where we’re at as Christian people and how we can take our movement into greater alignment with Jesus. An aligned church is a healthy church, and that’s what we all want. I hope you enjoy this episode. Please share it with your friends. Please send me your comments and questions. I really want to know what you’re thinking about and how I could be helpful to you in your own journey with Jesus. Thanks again for everything, and thanks to all of you who have converted from free members to paid members. You are helping fuel this initiative, and we thank you deeply. If anyone wants to know more about Emerge Missions, you can check our website at emergemissions.org. Every Blessing, Chuck & Sherry Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    22 min

  7. MAR 24

    Our Malleable Messiah. How Christianity has customized Jesus

    Writer’s note: As I mentioned last time, the newsletter version of this podcast will no longer be a straight transcript. I will summarize it in about a thousand words for those who prefer to read. There’s a lot more content in the video, so I hope you’ll enjoy that version also. We are gaining traction, but we still have not broken the thousand subscriber mark, so please share this episode with your friends to help us reach a broader audience. Thanks!!! From Lord to logo When I was a child growing up in Georgia (the state, not the country), our family had a Bible that sat on the coffee table more as symbol than book. It was a way of declaring that we were a Christian family. On the cover was a romanticized painting of Jesus — The colors were muted and earth tone. Jesus was tanned, lovely, serene, and glowing with golden light. If I had grown up in Africa, the cover would have shown a different Jesus. Latin America or China, yet another. Jesus, you see, is customizable in Christianity. The problem is so extreme that a few years ago, MacLean’s magazine ran a cover story showing a traditional image of Christ surrounded by labels ranging from “revolutionary” to “”a mad priest” to vengeful prophet” to “ordinary guy.” (These are the various ways different forms of Christianity and scholarly coverage characterize Jesus.) The headline declared, “Jesus has an identity crisis.” That headline captures something real. Because across 2,000 years of Christian history, in every culture and every century, the very person of Jesus has been edited so he will match our cultural expectation. A History of Customization After Emperor Constantine converted in 312 AD and the Roman church stepped into the power vacuum left by a crumbling empire, Jesus appeared in paintings wearing ecclesiastical robes, his hand raised in the pose of priestly benediction. He was the divine endorser of hierarchy — the one whose authority legitimized bishops, kings, and popes. That Jesus served the system. He didn’t challenge it. During the colonial era, Jesus was presented to enslaved Africans as the one who taught, “Slaves, obey your masters.” But something remarkable happened: when those same enslaved people learned to read the Gospels for themselves, they found a completely different Jesus. They found the brown liberator, the fulfillment of the Exodus story, the one who came to set captives free. Same Gospels. Same person. Two opposite Jesuses — because each group encountered him through the lens of what they desperately needed him to be. In Latin America, Jesus became the face of Communist liberation theology in some places and a pro-establishment, anti-communist figure in others — sometimes within the same country. In America, he’s been recruited by both political parties. For one side, he’s pro-military, anti-abortion and anti-tax. For the other, he’s woke, empathetic, pro-environment, and pro-immigration. How can the same person endorse completely contradictory agendas? Honestly, he can’t. But a logo can. Somewhere along the way, in culture after culture, Jesus as become more logo than Lord. A Lineup of Compromised Customized Christs Every version of Jesus that Christianity has produced contains something real, a genuine aspect of who he is. That’s what makes each one so convincing. The problem isn’t that people found something true about him. The problem is that they stopped there, and in stopping there, lost the rest of him. Prosperity Jesus is wealthy and wants you to be wealthy too. He preaches abundant life and his most devoted representatives fly private jets to demonstrate the blessings available to the faithful. Is it true that Jesus cares about our wellbeing? Yes. Does he promise abundant life? He does. But the abundant life he describes in the Gospels looks nothing like a private jet. It looks like a cross. That part gets quietly left out. Warrior Jesus is fierce and powerful, commanding authority over darkness and promising socioeconomic victory to those who follow him. Jesus is the one who will fight the devil so you can rise in society. Is it true that Jesus has authority over evil? Absolutely, but Jesus used his power to deliver others, not just to win a position on the top of the pile for himself. Friendly Neighbor Jesus wears jeans and a hoodie and drops by with golden nuggets of wisdom to make your week a little better. He’s warm, encouraging, and never says anything uncomfortable for more than thirty seconds. Is it true that Jesus is approachable? Yes — children ran to him. But this is also the man who took a whip to the bankers and kicked their tables over in the temple yard. That part tends to get softened. Therapeutic Jesus is your personal life coach and heavenly encourager. He meets you right where you are and never asks you to go anywhere else. He validates your feelings, affirms your worth, and ensures you leave every encounter feeling good. Is it true that Jesus heals and restores? Deeply. But Bible Jesus also said, “Forgive everyone for everything they’ve ever done to you. Move on past it and start obeying God.” Emotional healing was never the destination, just a step along the way to being strong and mature. The Bible’s Jesus makes us grow up. Political Jesus is as liberal or conservative as the situation demands. He endorses whatever power structure invites him in. Is it true that Jesus has something to say about justice and governmental power? Profoundly. But the Jesus of the Gospels made both sides of the political aisle deeply uncomfortable. He still does — when we actually let him. That we dare to edit the very person of Jesus in these ways is an indication of how little authority we truly give Christ over our cultures, our nations, and our local versions of Christianity. What We Lose When We Edit Jesus The problem with these customized Christs is that they are, in their own way, much more comfortable than the real one. OK, comfort is not nothing. We all need a Jesus who meets us in our exhaustion and fear and pain. But when we edit him down to only the comfortable parts we lose the sharp edge of God that shapes us into everything we were made to become. Jesus is Our Sculptor—let him cut A sculptor doesn’t just caress the marble — he cuts it. He removes what doesn’t belong. He works against the resistance of the stone to reveal the form hidden inside all along. The cutting isn’t cruelty. It’s the whole point. Without it, there is no way for the hidden destiny of the statue to rise forth. Otherwise, a block of marble that never becomes what it was meant to be. Jesus is Our Husbandman—let him prune us Jesus described the Father as a vine dresser who prunes the branches — not to harm them, but so they bear more fruit. He said he came to earth to start a refiner’s fire. He’s the Word of God and the Bible says that the word of God is sharper than a double-edged sword, penetrating to the division of soul and spirit. The true Jesus of the Gospels is not a Jesus who exists just to make us feel better about ourselves. He is a Jesus who loves us too much to leave us as broken as we are. He is bringing “many sons and daughters to glory.” Moving from glory to glory is exhilarating but it’s a strenuous, challenging, paradigm-smashing process too. The heart of the gospel is the premise of change. A Jesus we have edited cannot edit us. And that is the real cost of the Malleable Messiah — not just theological inaccuracy, but forfeiting our transformation and the chance to fulfill our purpose in life. Back to the Source: The Jesus of the Gospels The real Jesus has the integrity to challenge us. He’s tender enough to receive and heal us, and powerful enough to transform us. You will find him in original form in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I made a decision during our time in the Philippines that I would study and preach from the Gospels alone for 10 years. This decision was one of the most important things to ever happen in my life as a disciple. I encourage you to also follow this practice. Master Jesuses’ words. I determined to build my core doctrine upon his words alone and to let him explain himself and not make his words fit into some other doctrine that just needed his endorsement. “Jesus is Lord” was the core doctrine of the New Testament church and I want it to be that way in my life also. The real Jesus will make you do things you don’t want to do. He will call you out on your selfishness and need for the approval of others. He’ll call for you to go the extra mile, give away your stuff, sacrifice for others and do good works in secret. But in doing this he will also offer you himself and the extraordinary possibility of becoming, through his forceful shaping work, the person you were born to be. And that is worth everything. Let’s ReJesus everything this year! Every Blessing, Chuck PS: Thanks again for all those who converted from free to paid memberships. Your support helps us continue this ministry. We’re grateful! Discussion Question: Which customized Christ hits closest to home? Prosperity Jesus, Warrior Jesus, Friendly Neighbor Jesus, Therapeutic Jesus, Political Jesus — which version have you been most tempted to settle for, and why is it so appealing? Thanks for reading Grounded Podcast! Please share it with as many people as possible to help us grow our impact. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    26 min
  8. Doctrinal Chaos: How Theology Replaced Jesus

    MAR 17

    Doctrinal Chaos: How Theology Replaced Jesus

    AUTHOR’S NOTE: I want to say thanks again to everyone who has been sharing our posts with your friends and relatives. These are important discussions, and entering into them in a spirit of humility will help churches in many places. Please share the content and help us break the 1,000 subscribers mark. I deeply appreciate it. So, someone comes to me — usually a young person, and they say, “I’m confused. I’ve been reading the Bible seriously, and I’m getting completely different answers depending on who I ask. My church says one thing. My friend’s church says the opposite. I found a theologian online who says something else entirely. And they’re all quoting Scripture. How is that possible?” My answer is always the same: “Welcome to Christianity.” Christians disagree on almost everything that matters. And they don’t disagree quietly. The Bible Battlefield Let’s run through the list. Salvation — are you saved by faith alone, or does obedience matter? Can you lose your salvation? Is it available to everyone, or only those God predestined? Baptism — infant or adult? Immersion, sprinkling, or pouring? Does it save you, or is it just a symbol? The role of women — can they preach, pastor, teach men, serve as elders? Politics — is Jesus conservative or progressive? Should the church be involved at all? The nature of Scripture — is every word literally and historically accurate? How do we handle the parts of the Old Testament that seem morally troubling? The mission of the church — is it to save souls, transform society, care for the poor, make disciples, or plant more churches? On every single one of these questions, sincere, Bible-believing Christians who love Jesus and take scripture seriously arrive at completely opposite conclusions. They fight about it. They split churches over it. They declare each other heretics over it. Throughout history, people have literally died over it — tens of thousands of lives lost in the name of theological conviction. This is doctrinal chaos, theological anarchy. And it didn’t happen by accident. Jesus Doesn’t Divide Us After 45 years in ministry, I’ve come to a conclusion that the doctrines that divide us do so because they are built on the work of theologians other than Christ himself. Practically nobody argues about what Jesus meant with his words. The issues that have fractured Christianity into 47,000 denominations: predestination, free will, baptism, the role of women, the proper church governance system, etc. are not primarily arguments about what Jesus said. They’re arguments about what Paul said, what Augustine concluded, what Calvin systematized, what Luther insisted. These are brilliant men. Serious men. Men who loved God and gave their best efforts to understanding him. But they are not Jesus. Jesus spoke in what you might call bumper stickers. “Follow me.” “Love your enemies.” “Seek first the kingdom of God.” “The greatest among you will be your servant.” Christ made no effort to create neat theological packages tying together everything about life and God. He didn’t produce a systematic theology. He didn’t deliver a creed to memorize or five pillars to observe though he was clearly competent to do so. He gave us a life to follow. Jesus Was Not a Theologian — On Purpose The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were professional theologians. The Pharisees and Sadducees were deeply divided in their theological positions, and they constantly tried to bait Jesus into their endless sparring — about the law, about divorce, about Roman authority, about resurrection. They wanted him to pick a side. Which side did Jesus join? He refused. His only concern with their disputes seemed to be showing them how foolish it was to spend their energy warring over words while neglecting their personal actions and their walk with God. He wasn’t interested in the debate. He was interested in alignment with God. Jesus understood something that centuries of theologians have worked hard to obscure: human beings don’t need more correct thinking. They need a different way of living. The ways and teachings of Jesus are primarily concerned with human actions, not human thinking — because human actions are the cause of everything beautiful and horrible on earth. We are our planet’s greatest problem. We are also its only hope. Becoming a Child. Consider how children learn. They don’t learn to walk by reading biomechanics textbooks. They don’t learn to love by studying psychology. They learn by watching. By imitating. By following. Jesus trained his disciples exactly the same way — not with a systematic theology, but with a life. “Come and see.” “Follow me.” He showed them how to pray, how to serve, how to forgive, how to face opposition, how to die. Then he said, “Go and do likewise.” That’s the entire curriculum. Follow the Father’s ways every day. As Jesus put it: “I only do whatever I see the Father doing.” Three People Paying the Price When a faith fractures into doctrinal chaos, real people get hurt. Three kinds in particular. The first is the confused believer — the person who genuinely wants to follow Jesus but can’t figure out which version of Christianity is correct. They’ve read the Bible. They’ve sat under teachers. They’ve attended different churches. And they’re more confused than when they started. They don’t know what to believe or who to trust. They’re exhausted by the contradictions. Some give up entirely — not because they’ve rejected Jesus, but because they can’t navigate the theological maze his followers have built around him. The second is the tribal warrior — the person who has chosen a theological camp and now spends their energy defending it against all comers. They’ve confused their tribe’s doctrines with the gospel itself. They’ve made secondary issues into primary ones. They’ve decided that anyone who disagrees with their theological system is either ignorant or apostate (probably apostate). They win their arguments and lose their relationships with other Christians, with seekers, and with the manner Jesus himself manifested toward those sincerely seeking to do right with God. The third is the seeker who walks away. They were drawn to Jesus — his life, his teachings, his character. But when they looked at the church, they saw a thousand contradictory imitations of him. They heard Christians fighting bitterly over issues that seemed to have nothing to do with love, grace, or transformation. And they concluded that Christianity wasn’t worth their time. They walk away from the chaos surrounding him — and miss a chance to know him. That’s the greatest tragedy of all. All three casualties share the same root cause: a faith built on the work of theologians rather than the words of Jesus. The 40,000 Words The Bible contains 783,137 words. Only 40,000 of them were spoken by Jesus himself. Those 40,000 words are the foundation for everything that matters — the way he came to establish, the community he founded, the path away from sin and into the kingdom of God. No other human being has access to greater revelation than Jesus possessed as the Word of God in flesh. The apostles’ words are valuable — deeply so — but they are supplementary to his, not alternatives equal to or surpassing his own. The solution to doctrinal chaos is not more theology. It is less theology and more Jesus. When Christ’s words, his practices, and his example become the standard against which everything else is measured, the chaos begins to quiet. Not because all questions are answered, but because the right questions are finally being asked. Not “What did Calvin say?” but “What did Jesus say?” Not “What does John Piper teach?” but “What did Jesus teach?” Not “What do Catholics believe?” but “What did Jesus believe and how did he live?” The divisions that have splintered Christianity for centuries were not inevitable. They are the predictable result of building a faith on secondary voices while treating the primary voice as one among many. We elevated the commentators above the author. Jesus didn’t say “Study this system.” He didn’t say “Master this theology.” He said two words that contain everything: Follow me. That’s still the way out. Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. I’ll send you posts directly if you’ll simply become a free subscriber. If you appreciate my efforts and would like to support my work, please become a paid subscriber. Thanks!! For Discussion The 40,000 words. If you committed to building your core theology on that which is clearly taught by Jesus Christ alone in the Gospels, the book of Acts, and the Revelation (this is where all the red letter quotations in the Bible come from)…What's one belief or practice in your current faith life that might need a second look? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    20 min
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Millions are walking away from church but not from Jesus. Over 25 episodes, author and missionary Chuck Quinley diagnoses what's gone wrong with global Christianity and offers a radical solution: ReJesus everything. Restore the central authority of Jesus alone as chief theologian and leader of the mission. Strip away 2,000 years of accumulated traditions and return to the simple, powerful path of following Jesus himself—his words, his practices, his mission. www.quinley.com

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