Bonovox

This selection is from Fr. Alexander Men, taken from the book About Christ and the Church.

Here is a breif bio on this amazing man.   In a few days we memorialze his death, his murder, back in 1990.  Nod to Kornelius for the link...

"Often what passes for Orthodoxy or another Christian confession is simply natural religiosity which, in its own right, is a kind of opium for the people. It functions as a sort of spiritual anesthetic, it helps a person adjust to his surrounding world, over which one can hang the slogan: 'Blessed is the one who believes that it is cozy in the world.' Most people who find that it is cold in this world are drawn to this warmth and imagine Christianity as a kind of -- well, if not a bath, then at least some sort of tepid place like a mud-bath where one can warm up.
"This is all wrong! Even if I were a Moslem and came to you, having read your Christian books I would have to say to you: 'Folks, it's not this way. Your religion does not consist in this at all. Your God is a consuming fire and not a warm hearth, and he is calling you to a place where all sorts of cold winds are blowing, so that what you imagine does not exist. You adapted and developed a completely different teaching to suit your own human needs. You transformed Christianity into a mediocre, popular religion.' [...] That is to say that Christianity can be authentic and it can be false. The false form is always more convenient. It always suits us better, which is why contemporary religious life is often characterized by a churchly falsehood when people prefer that which is convenient, calm and pleasant, conforms to their own ideas, consoles them, and which they enjoy. It is not at all to this that the Lord called us when he said 'the gate is narrow' and 'the way is narrow.' And again and again we need to understand that this Spirit is not a warmth but a fire. It is a fire. [...] We have to discover true Christianity within ourselves."