“Our son had done well. He went to good schools and graduated with accolades. He also served in the military for a time. He had a very promising career ahead of him.
Unfortunately, he has joined an eastern religious sect. The members of this sect call upon him continuously. They have given him a new set of strange friends, a strange new vocabulary, and, well, he’s just different.
He spends most of his time with the people in this sect, and he regards them to be his new family. He is closer to them than he is with his own flesh and blood.
They are constantly sharing their bizarre beliefs with anyone who will listen. He spends his time with the worst kind of people: criminals, addicts, and the homeless.
He’s sold many of his possessions and he lives very simply. He tells us that he and the others in his religion share their possessions with each other and they also give a great deal to the poor.
He broke off his relationship with his fiancé and ended many of his friendships, all because of his new beliefs.
He has also lost his ambition to be successful.
He no longer joins us to celebrate the holidays. His entertainment choices have changed too, and he’s renounced the religion we raised him on. In addition, he no longer loves his country as he once did.
His new way of living goes against everything we taught him. We are heartsick. We’ve lost our son.
He’s a failure now, lost to a strange cult and we don’t know what to do about it.”
Now who wrote this letter?
Answer: The letter wasn’t penned by the parent of a Moonie or a Hare Krishna or a member of the Heaven’s Gate cult.
Rather, it’s a letter compiled by aristocratic Roman parents who lamented that their children had become Jesus-followers. It was taken from letters and documents from the first, second, and third centuries.*
The letter describes those who have joined the Insurgence – both yesterday and today.
The gospel of the kingdom that was preached in the first century has been lost to us, and it’s high time we reclaimed and recovered it.
The new Insurgence podcast explores more about this.
By the way, original Christianity is Eastern not Western. (Our Lord came from the Israel, which is in the East. Jerusalem is east of Constantinople.) Later, when Rome made it the official religion, Christianity became Westernized. But that’s another story for another day.
* Tim Oslovich from The Deeper Christian Life Network assisted me in crafting this letter. I first read it at the 2017 DCL conference and its part of the Everlasting Domain Master Class, which is available on the Network.
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