Beatitudes: Dr Michael Frost

Dr Mike Frost is the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia.

‘I don’t read these as conditions – if you do these things you will be blessed, but as proclamations of the upside down kingdom

God is for those who are down and out, for the freaks, the weirdos, the awkward, the suffering, the irreligious and the profane;
God is for those who are deep in grief, whose pain makes them unable to participate fully in the strategies of a successful modern life;
God is for those who do not use power and strength over others in order to make their way in the world;
God is for those who long for things to be put right and for the unjust systems of the world to be torn down
God is for those who show mercy and forgiveness to one another, rather than seeking revenge for the ways in which they have been wronged
God is for those who can see that the external markers of religiously approved behaviour don’t mean much after all;
God is for those who resist ways of violence and oppression in the world, and instead seek to become agents of peace and reconciliation between those who do not yet understand or love one another
And God is for those who, because they seek to live in this kind of reality, encounter the impression, exclusion and disdain of those with power, wealth and status.’

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