Mainlining Christianity: 95 Theses for the 21st Century

Moderate and liberal Christians, unite! Reclaim Jesus from the evangelical Christian right. In today’s world the evangelical Christian right so dominates the public media that it appears to far too many people to be the sole voice of the Christian message. For Reverend Thomas F. O’Donnell, the time has come for Christianity’s “silent majority” to stand up in direct opposition to the Christian right and to speak out so as to pave the way for a New Reformation of Christian truth. Mainlining 95 Theses for the 21st Century calls for a New Reformation by directly challenging the evangelical Christian right for misrepresenting the message of Jesus and by calling on moderate and liberal Christians everywhere to stand up and express themselves in the bully pulpit of public opinion. But the book is far more than a political/spiritual call to action. Richly-layered and striking, Mainlining Christianity offers a contemporary perspective in bridging the gap between truth and faith, doubt and fear, science and religion, the physical and the spiritual, Jesus the Man and Jesus the Christ, and interfaith interconnectedness. In a sentence, the overriding message of the book is Jesus’ message of The Great Commandment and The Great Love thy God and thy neighbors with all thy heart, mind, and strength and go forth and make disciples of all nations. The message is to live a life and view the world through a lens of open and accepting, unconditional and non-judgmental love. “Making disciples of all nations” (all persons) is to be done, not by trying to convert them to a particular set of doctrines and creeds, Do’s and Don’ts, wills and won’ts, but rather by celebrating the diversity of all faith traditions that are consistent with this basic Love Ethic. It is a message that you simply cannot legislate love through a set of simplistic answers to life’s complicated questions, nor can you do so through a set of prescribed laws and rules. It is the precise message Jesus came to preach when he said, “I come, not to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it.” Any other message falls short of being a true reflection of the Christian faith. Mainlining Christianity is the next logical step in Reverend O’Donnell’s personal commitment to reclaiming Jesus. Reverend O’Donnell is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ serving Plymouth Bethesda Church in Utica, New York.It promises to open people’s minds to a whole new way of viewing the world and of finding greater meaning in their lives