Martin Luther wrote, "Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime."

That is a creation-centered spirituality. It sees salvation not in intellectual acquiescence but as a way of life.

One is saved not by saying this word or that but by opening oneself up to the presence of God as she comes in all kinds of wild and surprising ways.

Salvation is never a private thing, a source of boasting, a mark of elitism. Salvation is something for all creation, for all people, for all the planet. Thus, to see Christ as limited to Jesus and to the Judeo-Christian tradition is to deny the enormity of God’s love for all creation.

Christ comes through Jesus but also through the Hindu who practices non-violence, the Muslim who cares for the needy, even the atheist who reaches out to the unwashed and the unloved.

Christ, the creative force of God, is in Jesus to be sure but is, just as surely, more than Jesus.