Jesus is not a god that we can manipulate and mold. Christ is the true God, the one who is.
Yahweh tells his people that they “shall have no other gods before me,” he’s speaking into a culture whose very fabric is made up of the worship of other gods.
Auden understands Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith not as a mere theological platitude, a trick of biblical grammar, or a catchphrase for men to rally around.

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Yes, when we die, we believe that we go to be with Jesus in a paradise called heaven. But that’s only a vacation destination, as it were.
This is the night from when all those nights receive their light. For this is the night when Christ, the Life arose from the dead.
If he was not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if he was not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?
The God whose Spirit hovered over the face of the dark, formless, void waters of the infant creation, now walks upon the waters of the sea like a boss.
They stood on their feet, the Father's host, Alive in the Son and Holy Ghost.
There’s some wild and untamed prayers in the psalms. But they’re fenced in by order, symmetry, predictability. They organize chaos. And they bring order and hope and stability to our chaotic lives.
Inside our heads is a courtroom where our whole lives are put on trial. And we are declared guilty of things. Big things, little things. God things, human things. True things, false things. We never can measure up.
There is nothing more appealing than someone telling me I can be whatever I want to be, do whatever I want to do, accomplish whatever I set out to accomplish. No boundaries. No walls.
In other words, they had too much religion and not enough Yahweh. Or, to put it in New Testament terms, they worked so hard at being religious that they put Jesus out of work.
But that’s the way he rolls, isn't it? By misquoting, manipulating, and ripping God’s word out of context, the devil wields it as a weapon to drive us to doubt and pride.
God lit within these ashes the fire of a promise: whoever they touched, that person became clean.
On a recurring basis, Christians spot news headlines that signal yet one more moral collapse in society, the growing paganization of the cultures in which we live, the spread of antipathy toward the faith.