Man: the Broken Image

All these broken and manipulative lines of communication make up what religion calls "the World" – a world of back-biting, favor-currying, the insolence of office, filled with frustration and its consequence, hostility. Many try to flee from sinfulness by turning to religion; but there is no escape in religion. In theory, the church is supposed to be the realm of perfect responsiveness in communication, the matrix of salvation; yet, not only does organized religion have its own office-politics, the very Worship of God itself is corrupted by the incurved self. Man's highest aspiration, the reaching out to God, is cankered by the sin of spiritual gluttony, the love of religious feeling rather than of God. More, men try to manipulate God, to bargain with or appease him. Finally, they create the image of God as being himself the Great Manipulator demanding submission and appeasement. Sin becomes complete in idolatry.

Thus man, the brother of all life, master over nature, communicator, and bearer of the image of God the Responder, is fated to live on the boundary between life and death, love and lust, responsiveness and hardness of heart, faith and idolatry. Easily blinded and never secure in our choices, we are still able to be guided step by step if we learn to listen and respond to the still small voice of the indwelling Spirit.