Thin Gospel = Thin Ecclesiology?
Anyone who’s read this blog more than twice knows I’m big on a big gospel. Another way of saying it is that I disagree with reduced modern usages of the term “gospel” or “salvation” that are significantly narrower in scope than the usage of that term in the scriptures. I’ve said it before and I say again, the gospel of the New Testament is more than “God forgives/justifies sinners.” Likewise, ”salvation” in the New Testament, let alone the whole bible, is more than forgiveness and justification; just do a New Testament word study on the greek word “sozo” to see what the NT writers think when they think about Jesus “saving” people.
So here’s what I’m wondering: When we narrow the concept of “salvation” to a smaller concept than the biblical one, how does that also narrow our ecclesiology, our ideas of what a church is and is called to be? How does our idea of “gospel” shape our idea of “church?” How would a more robust gospel change our idea of church and our practice of it?
The core: “Jesus is Lord” pt. 3 – “Jesus”
In the first post in this brief series, I said I’d post on each word of this central, and original “creed” of Christianity. I could (and may still) end this series with a post on “Jesus.” I mentioned at the end of the last post:
I’ll leave you to the gospels, to Acts, to the letters to find out what all is in this king’s agenda and regular activities. It’s good, good stuff, though, I’ll tell you that right now.
Because of the power of this government, everything about Jesus, the one Christ-ened with power by God to lead and transform, is news. The specifics of what he does with God’s power and what he commands and empowers us to do is what makes the news good.
Who is this Jesus that God has given all authority in heaven and the earth? What’s his agenda? What are his priorities? To answer this question I urge people to read the gospels. Please intentionally try to shelve what your own tradition tells you are Jesus’ priorities. Let Matthew give you his take. Let Mark and Luke do the same. Let John. Let Jesus. Look at his actions and words and try to discern what this guy is about. Reading any one gospel only takes a half-hour or so. I guarantee that reading any one of them, if you’ve never done it, will shift your idea about who Jesus is and what matters to him.
Warning: you may find yourself wondering why your church does what it does and how.
Jesus is Lord – the core pt. 2
Here’s proof of my genius: Christianity is about Jesus. 
It’s not a movement led or inspired by me, or you, or the Pope, or even Billy Graham. Nope. Christianity is a Jesus-centered, Jesus-shaped, Jesus-led movement for the benefit of all the universe.
Or at least it’s supposed to be. And that’s the first, most obvious and wonderful reminder of the statement that ”Jesus is Lord.” Christianity is well known for its exclusivist claims about Jesus. We quote Jesus’ statement that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except by him. Unfortunately, we tend to use this as if it was merely a statement by Jesus that no one goes to heaven when they die apart from Jesus. While that’s true, I wish Christianity was better known for the larger exclusivity claimed for Jesus in that quote and in the statement that “Jesus is Lord.” When we say that “Jesus is Lord” we’re not just saying Jesus has the exclusive power to give life after death. We’re saying he has all authority over everything, everywhere, which is more in line with what the gospels seem intent on trying to tell us about him. He has power over wine and weather, forgiveness and fish, sin and sickness, demons and death. This larger authority is a far, far better and more natural reason for us to become his disciples in this life, than authority over the afterlife alone (which likely why the great commission is phrased like it is). Who better to follow than the Man with all power and authority over every facet of life? Really. Got a better suggestion? Who and why exactly?
When someone runs for president of the United States and is expected to have a decent shot at winning, the whole world wants to know what this person is about: what’s their past; what formed them; what are their passions; what does their life’s work so far tell us about them? What we want to know is this: what is this person going to do with the power and title of the presidency of the United States? A perfectly reasonable thing to want to know in light of the power of that office to affect so many. If a U.S. president wants to address the nation, television stations will, in mass, interrupt their typical programs to cover every line. Why? Because this person has power to affect many. His or her intentions are news.
Let me suggest that this is precisely what the gospels do for us, only the office in question is not the presidency of the United States. The office in question is the throne of David, God’s Messiah, who will lead the whole world with God’s own agenda and power, and whose reign will never end. Jesus’ ideas of good will cover the earth. His idea of what’s right is the basis for his judgment. That’s why the gospels don’t often self-describe themselves as “the good news about justification” or something similar. Rather, they routinely self identify as the good news about Jesus, the Christ (annointed king). The atonement, thank God, is part of this king’s great deeds, even his greatest, but also thanks to God, it’s not all there is to the ‘gospel’ of Jesus and the government he’s now leading and calling us to receive and enter on the earth. Because of the power of this government, everything about Jesus, the one Christ-ened with power by God to lead and transform, is news. The specifics of what he does with God’s power and what he commands and empowers us to do is what makes the news good.
I’ll leave you to the gospels, to Acts, to the letters to find out what all is in this king’s agenda and regular activities. It’s good, good stuff, though, I’ll tell you that right now. To quote a favorite hymn, “When Love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?” Jesus is Lord. More to come.
“Jesus is Lord” – The core, pt. 1
Years ago, N. T. Wright and a review of the biblical texts convinced me that “Jesus is Lord” was the irreducible core of the gospel message; it is the centerpiece of what the Church believes and has to tell the world (whether we all realize it or not!). (This isn’t going to be a post or series to prove that, fyi; if you’re interested in that find some N.T. Wright to read and also read all the ways that Jesus and the NT generally talk about gospel, and try to synthesize them.) Many others have noted this, along with the idea that the phrase was also the first “creed” of Christianity. I’ve also used the phrase personally as a meditation, as a defense to temptation, as worship, etc., etc. and with much, much benefit.
Alan (see the link above) makes a very interesting point about creeds: namely that while “Jesus is Lord” initially served to unite Christians and be the dividing line b/n those who were and were not part of Christ’s ekklesia/church, the more current (and longer) creeds were used to distinguish Christians from other Christians. I’m not sure if Alan is right, or that things are quite that clean, but I do know that creeds have tended to get longer as more and more doctrines have been added by this or that group to the supposed “essentials of the faith” with corresponding heresies being catalogued.
While I agree with all of the ancient creeds, I can’t help but think every time someone says we need to use the Nicene or some other ancient creed more often in worship or as a basic confession (essential for membership) in our churches, that we lose something, that we distort Jesus and his own emphases somehow. For example, I believe that Jesus was born to a virgin. I find it unhelpful, though, that this point gets included as “an essential” while the teachings that Jesus said summed up all the law and the prophets (Love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind & strength, and one’s neighbor as oneself) gets no mention. Do the creeds create a different set of “essentials” than what Jesus taught? If so, is everybody okay with that? I keep thinking that the shorter, “Jesus is Lord” would better serve; that it would focus us on the Man himself and his priorities; that in this case, less really is more. How about you? I’m going to post a little on each word of that creed and see where it leads.
By the way, for those looking for another Vineyard post, I’d also credit the Vineyard for this holistic Jesus-focus in my life. I credit my S. Baptist upbringing for telling me that the Bible is God’s word and we do well to treat (all of) it accordingly. But when it came to Jesus and the good news about him, they really only gave me the last third/half of the gospels as “gospel.” Only Jesus’ death was gospel, when push came to shove, because that was the act of substitution, that’s what allowed me to go to heaven, and that was the good news. It was the Vineyard’s influence that started me wondering if everything else in “the gospels” was also good news, that Christianity was about more than surviving judgment, though that was pretty darn good. Thanks significantly to the Vineyard, I started to see that Jesus was talking about the gospel in terms of God’s reign coming to earth, and that Jesus was the embodiment, in word and deed, of what God had in mind to do as the rightful King of the world. Good news, folks: “Jesus is Lord (over everything threatening humanity, within and without).” More to come.
“I believe; help my unbelief!”
When I discuss healing and prophecy and the miraculous with Christians who have hesitations about those practices, one of the recurring objections is the concern that people who are sick or handicapped or the like not be blamed for not being healed, usually for lacking faith. This morning I was reminded of that as I was thinking through a few of the stories in which Jesus rebuked the disciples for having little faith in him. The first thing that leapt out at me as I thought about such stories was that when it came to the miraculous, it was so often his disciples – the insiders, the co-workers with him – whom he rebuked for lack of faith, not the needy folks coming to be healed. As I thought of the many times and ways Jesus did this, including when the disciples failed to cast a demon out of a person during his transfiguration, it dawned on me that Jesus does rebuke his apprentices for lack of faith (evidenced in a variety of ways), but never does he rebuke a person acutely aware of their need for healing. With those that are hurting or on the outside–the bruised reeds, the smoldering wicks–he may still discuss their faith, but he is much more gentle, even commending or praising the faith that he finds in such people. Think of the interchange which climaxes in the now famous “I believe; help my unbelief!” That’s as close as Jesus gets to correcting the faith of someone in a felt need. Of course, that interchange is so non-condemning, so honestly helpful, that it rivals if not outstrips his dealings with Thomas as the most loved among us doubters.
He was more blunt, corrective or even confrontational not only with his own students, but also with those who had more official training in the Jewish faith that didn’t believe, and with those communities who personally witnessed him doing signs and wonders but still didn’t believe him as “Christ.” The latter folks are given not mere correction but “Woes” and warning. But you never see Jesus being short or harsh with those who are about to lose their daughter, or just lost their brother, or in some other way are, in that moment, in the middle of experiencing some the real poverty of the human experience, even if their faith in him is weak. With them he is more gentle, even if still urging them, pulling them, to believe. It seems he is even more gentle with his disciples when they are personally experiencing loss (look at the Lazarus incident). Therefore, I think it is safe to say and teach that a practice of the miraculous that is modeled after Christ is not going to create any blame or burden for those who personally need healing or rescue from one of life’s tragedies. We might call this the “smoldering wick” principle and it seems to extend even to Christ’s disciples when he might otherwise be more blunt about their lack of faith.
But this led me to a second, related thought especially concerning his disciples. Clearly, Jesus wanted everyone he encountered, even the smoldering wicks and especially his disciples, to “believe” in him, and, what’s more, he expected their faith in him to include his power over death, over demons, over disease, over nature (and rebuked them for lacking it). And it goes farther still: he even commanded them to do the same things on his behalf and rebuked them and occasionally seemed exasperated when they lacked the faith to do it. But my question is this: Can we effectively argue (or should we even try) that Jesus wants us to have a materially different faith than that which he obviously sought to instill not only in the disciples, but in everyone he encountered? Can we read Jesus’ rebukes to the disciples and to the religious community of the day and exempt ourselves if we lack in our faith what they lacked in theirs? When Jesus tells someone in the NT that they have little faith or great faith, what exactly is the content of that faith that they lack and should ours be different?
It is obvious from the NT that Jesus wanted his disciples to have faith that went well beyond whether or not he forgave them (and whether they could forgive on his behalf). Yes, he does want us to know that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” and that “if [we] forgive anyone, they are forgiven.” But if Jesus himself or the gospel writers are to be believed, God seemed at least equally concerned that Jesus’ disciples knew that he had authority on earth [and they through him] over diseases, demons, death, and over nature, as well as forgiving sins. He wasn’t happy with their “faith” when it didn’t include any one of these things and when they lacked the faith to do the same things on his behalf. He summed it up in his final great commission to them: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore, make disciples . . . [.] His authority over everything (as God’s anointed, the “Christ”) as richly demonstrated in the gospels, is the basis of the Great Commission. Our “faith”, according to Jesus, needs to include not only his authority and willingness to forgive, but his authority over all things in heaven and earth, and in our authority from him to do the same things he did, as he said that anyone who believed in him would do. If our faith in him, and the actions that flow from it, should be markedly different than what he was so insistent on his first followers having, what’s the basis? I really don’t think that’s a search with a happy ending. We’d be better off, I believe, to let the gospels transform our faith and practice than justify our own. I’ll be posting the content of an upcoming local training on that topic soon.
No Doubt?
Scot McKnight has started a discussion over an extremely important topic: doubts (for people of “faith”). He is highlighting what may be the best book I’ve seen for Christians in the middle of serious doubts, and he’s asking for stories and experiences. Drop in at Scot’s blog an join the discussion. Below is my comment as well as comments from Scot and David Opderbeck that really surprised and encouraged me; we need to talk about this more in our churches:
My most serious doubts were about my own salvation and along the Calvinist-Arminian fault lines. There was never a doubt about whether God was real, just whether I was “in” or “out” with him. Growing up in evangelical/fundamentalist churches and schools, that was THE question, and it remained the question for me for years even after I finally gave in to Jesus in a serious way. I knew I was “saved by faith alone” so what happened if I doubted my salvation? It was like having doubt in a faith-healing except the healing was my justification. It was a downward spiral of doubt and depression. Those passages in Hebrews about never entering God’s rest because of unbelief and others couldn’t have been more intense.
No amount of theologizing helped or could have helped. As a lawyer in training, I saw holes in every would-be propositional solution. Here’s what helped, in no particular order: I found solace in the Psalms, where people were “officially” praying what I was feeling and fearing. And I made the decision that even if I was damned/not elect and such a decision “does not depend on [my] desire or effort”, I still had to follow Jesus as best I could, mainly for my wife’s sake (my thought was for helping her and treating her as she should be treated). So basically, I eventually just accepted that I couldn’t do anything about it and gave the issue of my justification over to Jesus (the judge) while I read the Psalms and went to church (thankfully not an argumentative one). I accepted that I may be damned unless he said otherwise, which I may not know about in this life if at all. Over time, my thinking changed and the locus of my “faith” and hope slowly shifted from the salvation formula (which seemed to hinge on my faith) to Jesus as a person and on his love (a theme from the Psalms). Things got better. Much, much better.
Scot:
. . . not unlike my own experience in my college years and early seminary years. Shifting from “am I in?” and “do I have that saving faith or is my faith a self-deceptive fraud?” to “Look to Christ” led me out of that morass and spiral, during which time I learned deeply in theology, into a second naivete.
David:
I can totally, totally relate to your story. Isn’t it interesting that the end result of the kind of struggle you describe often is a kind of resignation: “it is all in Christ’s hands and there is nothing more I can do about it.” We realize then that this ultimately is “faith,” and all the formulas and formulations often are ways in which we try to control things ourselves.
A whole lot of good news
Michael Gorman, while giving a taste of his coming review of Douglas Campbell’s new and important work on Paul’s message, The Deliverance of God, gives this comment and quote:
“[Campbell] rightly insists that the material content of Romans 5-8, transformation or sanctification or “ontological reconstitution” (e.g., p. 185), is not supplemental to the gospel or to justification but constitutive of them:
Paul’s account of sanctification is his gospel. His description of deliverance and cleansing “in Christ,” through the work of the Spirit, at the behest of the Father, the entire process being symbolized by baptism, is the good news. It requires no supplementation by other [e.g., “contractual”] systems. (p. 934; cf. pp. 187-88)
To which I gave this comment:
I’m encouraged by the bits and pieces of Campbell’s work that you and others are highlighting. When I’m explaining the gospel to people now, I tend to start with a description that “the good news” is about all the good that God is doing and wants to do for the world through Jesus. Everything he’s done, is doing and has in mind to do is good news (which is what the entire NT seems to be about). We are called to trust this good news, and get on board. I see a recovery of this “big gospel” in the quotes from Campbell’s book, and it encourages me to keep opening myself to that good news and keep living and giving it.
Is it “believe in Jesus” or “believe in the atonement”?
Scot McKnight asks this question in his second post discussing Greg Boyd’s new book, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution
How central to the gospel and to the Christian faith is following Jesus? Is a Christian someone who follows Jesus? Or, would you define “Christian” in another way? How would you define it?
Go by Scot’s blog to read and comment on those and some other great questions posed by Scot about Boyd’s book. Here’s my comment:
On the first set of questions, yes, following Jesus is central to the Christian (little Christ) faith and to the gospel, IMO. Are we called to trust the atonement? Yes. But that is only one facet of trusting Jesus, which is the focus of the New Testament. Putting our faith in him simultaneously includes trusting his atonement, his resurrection, his promises, his teachings, his plan for overcoming evil, his Spirit, his ongoing leadership, joining his people, etc. The gospel is at the core, the proclamation of a person, the “Christ”-ened King, and his great deeds and plan for the world. This gospel calls us to quit working against him (because of what we all naturally trust and love) and start trusting, loving and following him above all.
But Luther defined “gospel”, despite the much larger NT usage, as “properly nothing else” than our justification. (Very odd for a founder of the ‘sola scriptura’ movement.) Our idea of God’s “salvation” has also been similarly whittled down from the much larger biblical usage of that term to our legal status alone. Our “orthodoxy”, our ‘right teaching’ or ‘right belief’ of Christianity only includes facts about Jesus, generally speaking, but no teachings of Jesus. I think it is hard to understate how thoroughly, at least in its core concepts and our mental mapping of the faith, that we have divorced being a Christian from becoming a little Christ. Kudos to Boyd and the many others that point this out.
Evangelicalism’s gospel
The following quote is from Scot McKnight, from the opening post discussing Greg Boyd’s new book: The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution. Hear, O evangelical church:
The reason there are Greg Boyds in this world is because American evangelicalism has been a thin remix of Romans, a religion shaped too much by a simplistic gospel and too rarely shaped by the robust kingdom vision of Jesus that itself gave rise to a much more robust gospel in Paul. (Emphasis added)
Scot goes on to ask some great questions. Feel free to join the conversation.
Lutheran Confessions – Would the real gospel please stand up
At the recommendation of a Lutheran brother and for my own edification, I am reading through the Lutheran Confessions (not necessarily in order). [Brief disclaimer: While I'm not a fan of several distinctives of reformed or Lutheran theology which will be clear here, I am, more importantly, a fan of folks in those camps. I've been raised in the camps spawned by the reformation and still enjoy their company. This is not a venue to bash such folks; it is a venue to discuss ideas that shape our thinking and practice.]
Part V of the Large Catechism of the Lutheran Confessions is titled “Of the Law and the Gospel.” It only consists of 11 paragraphs (for which I am very grateful), the first of which lays out the issue of:
Whether the preaching of the Holy Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace, which announces the forgiveness of sins, but also a preaching of repentance and reproof, rebuking unbelief, which, they say, is rebuked not in the Law, but alone through the Gospel. (Emphasis added.)
Right off the bat, we can see a difficulty that never really leaves reformed theology, namely, where does the announcement that the government of God has come near (which dominates the gospels and continues in Acts as “good news”) fit in response to that question? Unfortunately, it doesn’t really fit. The gospel issue as framed by Luther only concerns itself with sinning. Specifically, according to Luther, the issue is whether forgiveness of sin alone is “gospel” or whether the oft accompanying reproof of and call to repentance from sin is also “gospel.” That’s it; it’s ”A” or “B”. This “gospel” question is already too narrow to include the much fuller and richer ”gospel” usage of the NT that includes God’s revelation of Jesus’ lordship and his government’s agenda for re-creating the earth and the people and activities within it according to God’s desire to redeem and his sense of justice and love. From Luther’s question, one can genuinely wonder whether the larger revelation and movement of God’s reign (which Jesus and the apostles clearly called “good news”) is ”properly” called “Gospel” in the Lutheran view.
In the following couple of paragraphs, after naming the issue as Luther sees it, he briefly describes the now famous reformed distinction between “Law” and “Gospel.” Next, in what is perhaps the strangest paragraph of this section, Luther admits that the term “Gospel” is used differently and more broadly in the New Testament (by comparison to his Law-Gospel usage) and is recommended as such by Jesus himself and the apostles:
But since the term “Gospel” is not used in one and the same sense in the Holy Scriptures, on account of which this dissension originally arose, we believe, teach, and confess that if by the term “Gospel” is understood the entire doctrine of Christ which He proposed in His ministry, as also did His apostles (in which sense it is employed, Mark 1, 15; Acts 20, 21), it is correctly said and written that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and of the forgiveness of sins. (Emphasis added.)
I am in complete agreement with that. In fact, Let me add that “if” we use the term “Gospel” in the broader, more common way that “[Jesus] proposed in his ministry as also did his apostles”, we will “correctly” say not only that the “Gospel” is an announcement of repentance and forgiveness as Luther suggests, but also an announcement of everything that God has done and has purposed to do through his Servant, the now revealed Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus. In other words, to proclaim “the Gospel” according to the New Testament is to announce the identity, purpose, actions, and agenda of God’s chosen Lord of heaven and earth, namely Jesus. And preachers, or announcers of this Jesus and the good news of what God is doing through him will call everyone, in light of this full, and amazing plan in Christ (which includes but goes well beyond forgiveness), to repent and trust this good news, this King.
But that’s not the way Luther continues, which is odd for a guy that is big on “sola scriptura.” Rather, he says, despite the larger usage of “gospel” in the scriptures by Jesus and the apostles, we get a different, preferable, view of “gospel” if we compare Luther’s own smaller concept of ”Gospel” to his (arguably larger) concept of ”Law” (for reasons he doesn’t really state in this section anyway):
But if the Law and the Gospel, likewise also Moses himself [as] a teacher of the Law and Christ as a preacher of the Gospel are contrasted with one another, we believe, teach, and confess that the Gospel is not a preaching of repentance or reproof, but properly nothing else than a preaching of consolation, and a joyful message which does not reprove or terrify, but comforts consciences against the terrors of the Law, points alone to the merit of Christ, and raises them up again by the lovely preaching of the grace and favor of God, obtained through Christ’s merit. (Emphasis added.)
I hope it is by now obvious where a significant problem may lie, aside from any circular reasoning Luther used: The Holy Scriptures (including Jesus and the apostles) talk about “Gospel” in a large, full way, Luther says, which led to “dissension” (as well as the birth of the Church, to be fair). But if we take one particular component of that larger scriptural concept of good news, namely, the forgiveness of sins, and compare it alone with Luther’s very broad definition of “Law” (which would include not only the Mosaic law, but Jesus’ own teachings and example), then “the Gospel is properly nothing else than a preaching of consolation,” by which he means forgiveness, or justification, or not being condemned for one’s sins.
Think about what just happened there. Luther states that only a part of the usage by Jesus and the apostles of the term “Gospel” is “properly” called Gospel based on Lutheran systematics, namely the Law/Gospel comparitive approach.
This creates the following situation, then: Certainly what Lutherans declare as gospel is gospel (since it is a subset of what the New Testatment calls “gospel”). But, unfortunately, much of what the NT would also unequivocally call “gospel,” Lutherans and many reformed would hesitate upon or even dispute, saying such announcements of God’s will and plan for earth should be called “Law.” This results in a downgrading of everything in God’s plan, God’s dream for the world, that goes beyond forgiveness and justification from “Gospel” to “Law.” I can’t help but see the logical connection between that theology and the silliness of “weak on sanctification” t-shirts, the idea that we are disciples of the gospel (of justification) as opposed to disciples of Jesus, and the large scale phenonmenon of what Dallas Willard has called ”bar-code faith.”
Rather than trying to live from a concept of “gospel” that is smaller than that which Christ and his apostles announced, let’s look at the all that God has done and wants to do through Christ and start soaking in it. Let’s take it all in as good news. We might find that God’s love and his “gospel” go way, way beyond just forgiving us, which is really good news.
“It’s the question that drives us.”
While talking with my good friend, Berry, the other day, I think I found a great way to express some of what I’ve been thinking about the importance of which questions, which prayers, we routinely ask. Point #2 in Scot’s post today reminded me of it. I hope this will help evangelicals such as myself shift our focus. I’m of the opinion that the question that has shaped evangelicalism more than any other (on the basis of how often and emphatically it is asked relative to others) is “if you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” or something very similar. I base that on the number of repititions and on the climactic positioning of the question.
Now imagine a married couple. Imagine further that one of the two people — the husband or the wife — were routinely asking the question of themselves and maybe of their spouse as well, “How can I keep my spouse from divorcing me or be sure they won’t?” If this question was constantly or even routinely in this person’s mind so that it became the lens through which that person viewed their interactions with their spouse, what kind of marriage, what kind of relationship will the couple have? Take a moment think about it.
I personally don’t think the marriage will be very good or healthy or nearly as enjoyable as it should be. Unfortunately, I believe that the constant asking of “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” or its equivalent has exactly the same effect. Our most often repeated question concerns our legal status with God, and it has shaped our paradigm for all that we do and all that we think about.
We would hope that spouses would be dominated by the questions of how they can serve their spouse, love their spouse, join with their spouse in their worthy goals. We would hope the same of children regarding their parents or friends regarding friends. Not surprisingly, the prayer Jesus teaches us to pray has this kind of focus regarding God, asking above all that God’s noble dreams would become reality and his desires be fulfilled. Now of course, admitting wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness is necessary for any good relationship, and it is also a component in the Lord’s prayer. But mere forgiveness, mere justification, cannot remain the central focus over time; it cannot be our driving question, our most common prayer, to ask that we not be thrown out. At least for me, the perrenial question of my legal status with God created in me a near constant sense of a relationship in crisis. What’s more, the gospel I was given that focused only on the same issue of justification (whether from a free grace or more exacting perspective) reinforced this focus on my legal status. Others’ experience with this may be different. Mine, though, was marked by a backdrop of paranoia, denial, and the idea that God’s will and gospel basically equalled people getting justified before God.
Again, it is no surprise, that Jesus announced and embodied a gospel that concerned God’s larger intentions regarding the world and not just our legal status being repaired. It appears from the gospels that Jesus didn’t just want to forgive the world, but also include people in the work of healing one another and the larger creation as his apprentices and co-workers. God’s government was coming through him not just to forgive, but to restore shalom on the earth, to do “all that Jesus began to do and teach.” This is our husband’s vision. This is his good news. This is what we are to seek, to think about, to trust, to announce, and to pray for. Our driving question should not be about our forgiveness or minimum legal status, necessary as that will be in our life together with him. Our most often repeated question and prayer–the one that should most mark our individual and corporate lives–should be for his dreams for earth to become reality, for his will (the will revealed by Jesus’ actions and ideas) to be done more through us and others. This is more like the prayer he taught us to pray, the question he taught us to ask, the good news he announced and embodied. That focus will lead to a more fruitful and more joyful and healthy relationship as well as a better world. Asking for God’s dream, his will, is to ask for our forgiveness and so much more as well.
What are evangelicals aiming for? 2 – Dave Fitch
Here’s the second of two suggestions Dave Fitch makes regarding how evangelicals need to shift their gospel thinking, for themselves first and then also those they evangelize. The post then gives several concrete ways of doing what he suggests. It’s an excellent post by a guy much more astute than myself, and Dave gives better words to the concerns I mentioned in my last post. Here’s a snippet (but read the whole thing):
“Preamble Two: In our thinking, let’s move from justification before God ‘by Christ’ to living life ‘in Christ.’ A second conclusion for me in all of this is that we must understand that the fundamental issue in salvation is not our forensic guilt before God based in an oversimplified post-Reformational forensic substitutionary atonement. Instead, let’s move towards the salvation that God is doing in the world to ‘set the world right’ (as J D Dunn and N T Wright say it). OF COURSE PART OF THIS IS (an inseparable part of all this!!) the justification, yes the forensic pardon we receive in Christ via His sacrificial death on the cross as a fulfillment of the covenantal promises given by God to His chosen people Israel (of which we have become part). We need to make this shift however from seeing justification as the primary issue in salvation, to seeing it as part of God’s overall covenantal plan with a people to make the world right.
This move gives us the necessary perspective to proclaim the fullness of the gospel for the world without diminishing the grace, forgiveness and new life we as individuals have in Christ through participating in the entire salvation God is doing in the world. It changes salvation from ‘you receive this and this’ by faith in Christ alone – to ‘put your entire life under Christ’ and live under His Lordship over the world. IN THIS WAY, no new Christian can miss that ‘in Christ’ we are going from living for your -self, out of your self, in your self – and all the things that you have become entangled in the process – to living ‘in Christ’ – where every thing, every area of our lives is surrendered to be lived out of one’s relationship ‘in Christ’.”
We’ve got to start thinking of Christianity more as a new Way to live now, in union and daily cooperation with Christ and his active government (a way of life that never ends), rather than a ticket to the afterlife which may or may not necessarily (re)shape one’s life here and now. Jesus not only makes the new life possible, but he reveals its character, its rhythms, its relations and its destiny, and asks us give up our old lives for his new life.
Fix your eyes on the afterlife . . . (Or, “What are evangelicals aiming for?”)
“Anyone who believes in me will do what I’ve been doing.”
“Every student who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing.”
I want to offer the observation (which I’ve made from time to time before), before giving some tidbits from another very interesting post from i-Monk, that much of what i-Monk observes is due to the fact that evangelicalism as a movement is still recovering from a narrow view of the good news (despite the content of the actual “gospel” accounts) which has shaped everything they do. In a nutshell, the evangelical gospel and its perception of what God is doing focuses too much on escaping the judgment of God through giving assent to historical truths (namely Jesus’ death and resurrection), and not enough on the rest of the good news of ”all that Jesus began to do and teach.” Everything God has done and is doing through Christ is good news, hence his appearing, his life, his teaching, his deeds, his death and resurrection all being part of “the gospel” according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Many wise folks have observed that people are often shaped as much or more by the questions they ask and keep on asking than by the answers they obtain and build upon. I think prayers would qualify as this kind of formative question (which is why it’s a good idea to not just pray regularly for what you want, but also what Jesus tells us to pray for). Unfortunately, though, the question that has shaped evangelicals more than any other, for a couple of generations at least, is “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” And the chief prayer of evangelicalism has been the one asking God for forgiveness prompted by that question about the after-life. Therefore, the evangelical gospel–the answer to the above question–has not really been about God changing life on earth as much as God changing our after-life. I have said it before and I say again, announcing forgiveness alone as “gospel” or even “God’s salvation” would come off as a bit odd, incomplete, to Jesus, to the apostles and their first followers because their gospel (and their central prayer) was about the healing leadership, character and power of heaven coming to earth, through the costly redemption and transformation of earth and its rebels by it’s rightful leader, Jesus.
But, as a commenter said here not to long ago, ”we [reformed evangelicals] are disciples of the gospel”–meaning the evangelical/Lutheran/reformed gospel of God’s forgiveness, and not disciples of Jesus–of all he did and taught. And we are fully trained in the way of our scaled down master. We accept God’s forgivness–and keep accepting it, and keep accepting it and keep accepting it amidst a life that remains shaped by us and for us, because the availability and intention of God’s grace and power to re-shape and re-direct our lives isn’t part of our gospel. It’s something else for us, something less important. And often we are glad the good news of God’s reign coming to earth stops with forgiveness and avoided judgment. The sinner’s prayer we know and we repeat–it comforts us as we continue to live our lives for our desires. The Lord’s prayer, meanwhile, always seems a little askew within our thoughts, within our gospel, within our lives (maybe it needs reforming).
We are called out of darkness not just to avoid the coming wrath on those who do dark deeds, but to become people who live in the light as part of light, learning to “do good and heal” as he did and as he is still doing through his Spirit and his Body, in the world he loves. Until we evangelicals see and embrace this larger vocation, this larger invitation as gospel–the gospel that God’s government has come to reclaim and reshape and renew life on earth in the character and the power of Christ, we will remain too theoretical, too heavenly minded to be earthly good (yet simultaneously too in need of conversion to Christ), and increasingly dismissed, and rightfully so. That change has begun, but it is slow, dangerous and will take a lot of dismantling then rebuilding, just like any change to a building’s foundation.
And now, i-Monk:
“But I don’t believe the new atheists are making converts because they have a better argument. I think they are making converts because the fruit is ripe to fall from the tree, and we have little or no idea it’s happening. We’re setting up for the great ideological debate and the kids have found that it’s just more fun to have a drink with the non-religious crew.
Keller is still great. C.S.Lewis is still helpful. Craig is still impressive. But I’m not sure their arguments are on the right channel. Vast numbers of people aren’t asking for philosophy. They are asking what will let them live a life uncomplicated by lies, manipulation (etc.) . . .
What we’ve said and written is fine. What we’ve lived in our homes, private lives, churches, workplaces and friendships has spoken louder.
We are the ones who appear to not believe in the God we say is real. We are the ones who seem to be forcing ourselves to believe with bigger shows, bigger celebrities and bigger methods of manipulation.”
Don’t call it “grace” pt. III (or “Disciples of . . .”)
I want to thank Jen and i-Monk (again!) for some really fascinating discussions, done with grace. Looking back at them, there are so many things that I continue to think about. For starters, Lutheran theology consistently gives the necessary and comforting reminder of how wrong-headed it is to try to earn anything with God. That alone is a good enough reason for keeping some Lutheran company on a regular basis.
Having said that, I still can’t bring myself to view all of scripture as either “Law” or “Gospel.” Too many important concepts get distorted when we try to fit everything into these two definitional boxes, and I’m not just referring to the strange situation of trying to call something “good,” “helpful,” “true” and from God to us, but not an act of “grace.” That’s another take-away I have from these conversations, which is also really valuable. To me, the classic symptom of a systematic theology gone awry is when it starts spitting out conclusions that require a real twist of logic, of common sense or of scriptural terms or concepts in order to make everything “fit,” which is what I still see when I look back at some of the conclusions coming out of “Law or Gospel” hermeneutic (“LGH” for short). Specifically, the first, and I think the biggest surprise in my conversation with Jen was her deep concern about my belief that Jesus called people to be his “apprentices” rather than, to use her words, ”students of the gospel.”
Now if we consider everything Jesus said and did as “gospel” then there’s no difference. But if only part of what Jesus did is “gospel” as under the LGH, then this thought that we’re ”disciples of the gospel” as opposed to disciples of Jesus attempts quite a distortion of the new testament understanding of a ”disciple” which is an absolutely central concept, even if it’s been sidelined for several centuries. The first part of this distortion is that the new testament writings clearly and often portray believers, followers, disciples, etc. as disciples of Jesus. Not disciples of one or two doctrines about him or from him–disciples of Jesus–all he is, all he does, all he says. I can think of dozens of passages talking about disciples of Jesus, even a few talking about disciples of John the Baptist and disciples of Moses, but I can’t think of any, out of the hundreds, that attempt to shift the concept from a focus on Jesus as a whole, to just ’the gospel’ (as the term is defined by the reformers). No, the NT clearly envisions that we are disciples of the whole man. Like the passover lamb, we’re to eat the whole thing. I know this kind of integration of commands, teachings, actions, thinking, teaching, example, etc. together into a whole person is disturbing to the LGH. But we were given a whole person to follow, to trust, to love, not a set of propositions or isolated acts, so that we can be whole people. My concern is that while the LGH purports to be Christ-centered, it is actually more selective that that. It’s more “justification” centered; more specifically concerned with our legal status with God than anything else God may be seeking to accomplish through sending his Son. The result, after a few centuries of widespread use, is that we have loads of “Christians” in the West but very few disciples, because discipleship has been largely thrown into the “Law” category and thereby de-emphasized or even viewed with suspicion. How Jesus shapes our life here isn’t “gospel” under the LGH. In fact, even the suggestion that we are Jesus’ apprentices is troubling to sincere and educated Christians. That’s a strong, strong contrast to the gospels.
The second distortion relates to how we perceive ourselves. The term “disciple” is used over 200 times, I believe, in the NT–far more than any other term (e.g., believers, saints, etc.) to describe those who are buying into Jesus. It’s not a term denoting any legal status. It’s a process term within a relationship. It is the scriptures’ favorite word for describing what we are in relation to Jesus. Just think about that for a second. The NT doesn’t chiefly identify believers according to their legal status (calling them “the aquitted” or something like that) though it does use those terms. The NT primarily refers to us as disciples/apprentices–people in a process of listening to, watching, practicing and becoming like Jesus in thought and action. If you want to know a central theme in the NT, if you want to know the most common shape of Jesus’ own invitations to people, then discipleship to Jesus is absolutely key. One might think from evangelical altar calls that the Great Commission was a commission to get people into heaven, to get them forgiven, get them justified. Of course, the commission doesn’t even mention those things. It’s a commission to make disciples of Jesus, which will include those things and more, because Jesus is the source of all of that and more. In fact, it’s within the process of discipleship that forgiveness starts to make working and necessary sense. God doesn’t just want to forgive the sinner and send him back to his way, his life. He wants to give him a new life, along the lines of Jesus’. He wants to train him, transform him, turn him into something resembling himself, have him participate in God’s healing of others as God’s agent, just as Christ was and his people have always been. Of course, forgiveness and all kinds of grace will be essential to that process from start to finish. We need to learn to let our view of ourselves be significantly shaped by that concept (that we are persons in a process toward and with Jesus) and not merely the concept of our legal status, if we want to think of ourselves as the NT writers do. And we need to see how the availability of that process and God’s intentions in it is good news.
Don’t call it “Grace” pt. II
I’ve been thinking about my conversation with i-Monk, the subject of my last post. He said in a later comment that he probably should have said I was headed towards Wesleyan thinking (or just “wrong” thinking! ), in his opinion, rather than Catholic thinking (just to avoid dragging his Catholic friends into the discussion). He also mentioned that his blog is “a zone where Lutheran understandings were going to prevail.”
The last statement, I think, is the key to my understanding why, from Michael’s (Luther’s) perspective, no command from God or Christ can be an act of grace on God’s part, even if it’s a parent seeing the oncoming car, telling his child to get out of the road. No matter how much such an act (or others like it) fits within the biblical or parental concept of graciousness or love, Luther just can’t call commands “grace” or acts of love. Commands, even from Jesus, are, to use his words, “the jailor and hangman of my poor soul.” If it’s in the form of command, it’s not love! It’s Law!! LAW!!
Given his own story, I don’t I blame him. When authority, particularly authority wearing a cross, uses its power to be condemning, to serve one’s self, to manipulate others, etc., etc., it leaves quite a mark. How many of the issues that we all have come from how we were treated by our parents? And abuse from religious authorities isn’t any better. I’m not an expert on Luther by any stretch, but I think it is fair to say that Luther got more than his fair share of religious abuse within the system of “doing penance” (rather than “repenting”) that he labored in, trying to earn forgiveness. And I think it left a mark.
Have you ever been with a child or even an animal that had been treated harshly over a long period? They can react violently to even the most innocent of “commands.” You can look at them with no expression and they take it as hatred. You can make a move to grab a cup and they think you are about to slap them. It’s a learned defense mechanism. If perfect love casts out fear, abuse multiplies it, makes it quick to respond.
Now, don’t mistake me. I’m not claiming to be a student of Luther’s history. I know some of it. What’s more, I’m really, really proud of how he stuck to his theses and his convictions at such high costs. The selling of indulgences, among other things, needed to stop. Someone needed to take a stand. “Do penance” isn’t the same as “repent” (lit., think again) and we all need to know that Jesus said “repent” in light of his kingdom coming near. The whole world, including the Catholic church, has benefitted from Luther’s stand and work.
That said, his way of bifurcating God, even Jesus, into “grace” or “gospel” on the one hand and “law” on the other (which may be news, but not the good kind) sounds more like the kind of split-view that abused children develop towards authority figures than the NT picture we have of the Father who issues a call through his son from love to love. He forgives from love and he tells us to be generous from love. He provides from love and he directs from love. Can Sin within us or others take a good command from God and not only make us want to disobey just to disobey, but also lie to us about God’s intentions, twist his command so that we only see it as some kind of threat or power-play? Does the Pope wear a funny hat?
But it doesn’t shock me that Luther couldn’t see that–I’ve known too many abused people and even my own junk to think that even ten thousand meditations on God’s grace (which I’m sure Luther did) would necessarily make all the wounds go away, all the ingrained reactions to authority. In light of his history, it doesn’t surprise me that Luther could say “sola scriptura” on the one hand, but that he would give his doctor’s beret to anyone who could reconcile James and Paul on the other. That he could only see the commands as (he thinks) Paul did, but not as (he thinks) James did, since James called the law, in Luther’s words ”a ‘law of liberty’, though Paul calls it a law of slavery, of wrath, of death, and of sin.”
Again, I am very grateful for Martin Luther. Thank God for him. But I’m not inclined to trust him (or even i-Monk!) when he says that no command of Jesus is given as part of his love and grace to us, even if I understand why Luther and many others have a very, very hard time perceiving any command as an act of grace. For Luther and for many, many others who lived–then and now–under abusive authority figures, I understand that cringe. But I believe that God sent Jesus to do everything he did out of love, that his whole life was an act of undeserved kindness from God, including teaching us his ways, including telling us to love each other, even though we can’t do that or anything else worthwhile apart from his help in other ways.
If that means I think more like Wesley than Luther on this point, I’m okay with that. They’re both amazing brothers. My goal, of course, is to try to learn to think like Jesus, who I still believe even told us what to do because he really loves us. I’ll likely continue to believe that until/”Unless I am convinced [otherwise] by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason.” But how about you? I’m honestly curious. Feel free to comment or just vote in the poll.
Don’t call it “grace”
Well, I didn’t make it to the end of the month. Below is part of a conversation I had with i-Monk about “grace” and “law” or commands of Jesus; but at least on this occasion we’re not agreeing! I think the concepts are truly fascinating. You can read the full thread here. The last paragraph from i-Monk is the most intriguing:
i-Monk: So here’s today’s question: “What are some examples you’ve heard or read of Good News Gospel texts in scripture being turned into lessons, examples, moralism, advice, demands, guilt trips, shouldas and ought tos, in other words, LAW?”
[after several somewhat anti-nomian (commands are bad) comments]
Me: The question is inherently problematic because it creates the impression that anything involving a command or inviting our response–even from Jesus!–is something unworthy of being called “grace;” it’s LAW (to be read with a heavy, disdainful tone). That belittles Jesus, as the one who spoke many of these commands, or makes parts of him “good news” and other parts something darker. Everything Jesus did and said is part of what God is doing for us–it’s all grace towards us. It’s all good news, even if parts of it upset us, even the commands. Jesus’ commands to us don’t merely condemn us. That is not their only function and certainly not Jesus’ intent–he’s a king leading his people. Giving commands are part of what God has done for us–motivated entirely by goodwill–telling us what to do, how to approach life the way he does–because we honestly don’t know apart from him telling us. We are like sheep without a shepherd. The fact that God is still willing to give us leadership and guidance, that he is willing to be our shepherd–this is good news; it is grace, even if it’s grace we don’t want or like sometimes. Even if we need more grace to do what he says. Even though we need grace for messing it up and falling short of the commands. If we’re commissioned to make disciples, teaching them to do everything Jesus commanded, are we being mean or helpful when we do that? Part of what God has done for us is give us his great insight about what’s really good, what’s worth pursuing, what’s best to leave behind.
i-Monk: The Law doesn’t LIE. It just can’t make us LIVE. It can tell us the right direction. But it can’t make us want to go or to go SUFFICIENTLY for life or eternity or relationship with God. It’s like grammar school. It’s not lying to you. But it’s not how we live. Teachers smacking our hands with rulers is not what God wants.
Me: I hope you can see my point; I think now I see more of yours (from your sermon titles below). I agree that giving the command alone isn’t sufficient, but that’s not the only form of grace we’re given (thank God), not even close. But that doesn’t mean that it’s something other than grace when Jesus tells the adulterous to go and sin no more, or tells the rich young ruler to sell & give, or tells us to love each other, etc. etc. I don’t think Jesus was a teacher smacking our hands with a ruler when he gave us the commands he gave. I’d hate to give anyone the impression that his commands are anything but grace to us, even if they are by no means the only grace to us.
i-Monk: Calling “commands” grace is going to be an issue. You can call them true, helpful, etc. but grace by definiton is a God action to us unilaterally. You can find another way to say the Law is good without saying the law is grace. You wind up saying works = faith or obedience = faith and then you just joined the RCC.
I think that’s truly fascinating. Please understand, too, that Michael (i-Monk) isn’t equating RCC (Catholicism) to heresy–his wife is now Catholic as are many others he would call friends, so that wasn’t an insult, just a distinction of doctrine and camp, in his view. I always thought of “grace by definition” as something God (or someone else) gives to us that we have no right to demand, but that is given out of sheer kindness. Therefore, when Jesus tells us, in essense: “Eye for an eye is no way to live. Don’t give tit-for-tat to people who are mistreating you. Be kind to them, just like your Father in heaven is kind to ungrateful and evil people.” Him telling us that, giving us that insight about God and how to live–grace, no? Even by Michael’s definition (a God action to us unilaterally), it still seems like grace for God to let us in on how to deal with difficult people, on how God routinely deals with them, which is with sincere love and goodwill. Do we have the right to have Jesus come to earth and give us all these insights? Not that I’m aware. It’s a gift. It’s part of God’s kindness. Or, from God’s standpoint, was he not being gracious in telling us? What is exactly is God’s leadership, his parenting, if not grace?
I gotta tell ya, I’m kinda stumped! Even if the RCC agrees with me on this point, they certainly disagree with me on many others, even as they are today (let alone when they were selling indulgences), though I gladly call them brothers and sisters. So I doubt I actually would fit in that camp very neatly at all. But it’s odd. Nowhere am I suggesting that we can earn anything from God, in fact, quite the opposite, I’m saying that even when Jesus tells us to love one another, he is doing so as an act of grace (undeserved kindness), like when I tell my daughter to stay away from the road. Who knew? Apparently taking a broader view of grace makes me a Catholic. C’est la vie! Maybe the Reformation is finally over. My dad will be glad to hear it.
i-Monk, one last time (this month)
If i-Monk will quit posting on themes that are shaping our church plant, I’ll quit linking to him. Here’s an excerpt on his latest post, wondering how many churches are truly “communities of repentance.” Read the whole post, titled, Is There A Place To Repent? (Or Must I Make This Journey Alone?).
I wonder how many who hear preachers inveigh against viewing internet porn are also sitting in a fellowship where there is a place one can confess, experience acceptance and become accountable for such a struggle with sin? How many are sitting in a place where Paul could write I Corinthians 6:9 with a modern list of shocking sins, but no one can say “I was one of those, but thanks to the Gospel I heard and experienced here, I am that no more?”
This is a big reason we’re prioritizing workout groups and making widespread use of our version of the 12 steps. Change happens within a supportive (and skilled) community, generally speaking, or not at all. We want to be a community of repentance for people caught in bad stuff common to us all.
AA, Church & the Mission of God, 6 – Cruciformity & New Life
This is a post in search of language, and still in the early stages, but I’m just gonna work this one out publicly. So feel free to help me out as I try to make sense of the glasses I was nearly born wearing and the ones I’m wearing now.
Growing up, I was told more times than I can recall about Jesus’ death and resurrection (for which I am grateful). I was told more than anything that believing that he died for my sins and was raised was the key to being justified (and I had to tell another human being about it to really complete the process). This faith in the cross and resurrection was focused on the judgment which would determine where I would spend eternity after I died. The cross and resurrection of Jesus made the biggest difference for people, or not, at the judgment. This was the story of Christianity that I was given, and I wanted it to be my story too. Let me say now that I don’t disagree with the truth of that story even now as an adult. It is, though, to use the phrase of Scot Mcknight, “right, but not right enough.”
By contrast, AA’s 12 steps focus on a different kind of belief in God, and I’m not referring to the more anonymous “Higher Power” label. Even if we stick Jesus himself into the Higher Power role, as many Christians who work the steps do, the focus of the steps simply isn’t on what happens in the afterlife. That’s not the focus of their program (which emerged from a western church whose focus wasn’t transformation). AAs say in step three that they turn “[their] will and [their] lives over to the care of God.” AA’s focus is turning today over to God, this life, one day at a time, because this life is what they need help with. The ”promises” AA makes to those who work the program are true and beautiful, but have nothing to do with the afterlife. This life is the hell that alcoholics and their families know, and they want rescue from it, or better, deliverance through it. So they turn the reins of this life over to God, become “entirely willing” to change and serve others, believing or at least hoping that God’s managment will yield better results than theirs has. They pick up their cross and follow, today, letting tomorrow worry about itself.
It is obvious to me, now, that AA’s are focused on appropriating the power of Jesus’ way of life–a life lived under the management and care of the Father for the benefit of others over self, a daily cross-shaped or “cruciform” life, while evangelicals are more focused on appropriating the power of Jesus’ substitutionary death, particularly as it pertains to whether one is justified before God at the final judgment. Of course, how we think about and plan for the future has bearing on the present, and vice-versa.
Todd Hunter has said that John Wimber gave Jesus back to him, in terms of Jesus’ ministry of healing, and that Dallas Willard gave Jesus back to him in terms of his teaching. Hefty gifts, and I would echo Todd’s thankfulness. I want to add my own thanks to Michael Gorman, and to a lesser extent, Tom Wright, for giving Jesus back to me in terms of his cross and resurrection as the key to life in this age and the next. Thanks to them, I can see how AA’s aim to transform this life is best accomplished through participating in Jesus’ cross and resurrection ourselves, which the AA program, I believe, often leads folks to do implicitly rather than explicitly. And it is this participating in Jesus’ cross and resurrection, allowing ourselves to submit to the death of our self-run life and be raised to life in Christ and not merely believing its historicity, that the apostle Paul has in mind when he tells us to trust or have faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our daily or even hour by hour participation in the cross will simultaneously result in the transformation that AA’s are pursuing and the justification that my evangelical brothers and sisters are announcing, and more besides. The fruit of participation in the cross is the ultimate both/and–followed by an ellipsis (!) which at least contains all the graces of God that each of the various Christian traditions have highlighted and likely more besides.
AA, Church, & the Mission of God (pt. 5 – Sin as Power/Addiction)
Another reason I make a habit of the 12 steps is this:
- The Power of Sin in our lives is perhaps better thought of as a matter of addiction and not merely isolated things we do or don’t do.
Several experienced folks in the Way, too many to mention them all, have helped me by talking about idolatry or the way the powers of this age (sin, death, money, Satan, our own desires, powerful institutions, etc.) enslave us, to use the biblical term, as a problem more helpfully approached in our day as one of addiction. Here are a few that made a particular impact on me: Gordon Cosby of Church of the Savior has coined the phrase “addiction to culture” to talk to churched and unchurched about what the scriptures call ‘sin.’ More recently, Michael Gorman has used addiction as a way to give modern readers the biblical concept of sin as a power in our lives, forcing us, apart from participating in Christ’s death and resurrection, to do the things we don’t want to do. (p. 86, Reading Paul). Don Williams, one of the more astute theologians and pastors within the Vineyard, has made the same argument in various written works and sermons especially as N. T. Wright has refocused the gospel around the announcement that “Jesus is Lord (and so many powers are not)” Finally, Dallas Willard has similar assessment of Sin working as an addiction when he says this quote that still amazes me:
“Any successful plan for spiritual formation, whether for the individual or group, will in fact be significantly similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous program.” Page 85, Renovation of the Heart
It’s because sin–falling short of or even working against God’s ways–isn’t just something I do from time to time, but a power within and without of me that functions very much like an addiction that the steps are a very helpful tool for those wanting to live a Jesus-shaped kind of life.
How to let Him know you don’t care
In downtown West Palm Beach, everybody’s saved. The community is full of Christians, just not ‘little Christs.’ I wish this story wasn’t epidemic, but it is. Just as Julie Clawson has described, the Jesus to admire, even adore, (but not listen to or follow) is still quite popular, thanks to some very selective reading of Jesus by the people who teach and represent him.
Here’s the guts of a story I told to our highschool bible study a while back, based mostly on 1st John, though several teachings of Jesus say the same thing:
“You guys know I have two daughters, Ruby who is 4, and Brooke who’s 1. Now, imagine for a second that I had to go do some things and leave them here with you guys. Now, when I come back, let’s say it comes out that yall have been mean to one or both of them–teasing them, picking on them. If you tell me then and there how much you love me, will I believe you? (I pause to let them answer, “No.”) Of course, any fool would know you don’t care for me. If you had loved me at all, you would have been kind to my daughters, or at least not been mean to them.
That’s exactly how Jesus talks about being kind to other people. He loves all people more than I love my girls. But what good is it to tell him how much we love him and not be kind to those people? About as worthwhile as telling me you love me and being unkind to my daughters. If your idea of ‘loving God’ doesn’t include being kind to those that he loves, which is everybody, you need to wake up now or be in for the worst kind of surprise later. Worship is kindness. Worship is kindness.”
I realize that worship of God includes things other than how we treat others, but what are the arguments from Jesus’ own teachings that he cares as much about those things as how we treat others for his sake? I don’t think they’re there.
The Big Picture
Check out Ted Gossard’s quote of the week, by N. T. Wright:
Now do not misunderstand me…Salvation is hugely important. Of course it is! Knowing God for oneself, as opposed to merely knowing or thinking about him, is at the heart of Christian living. Discovering that God is gracious, rather than a distant bureaucrat or a dangerous tyrant, is the good news that constantly surprises and refreshes us. But we are not the center of the universe. God is not circling around us. We are circling around him. It may look, from our point of view, as though “me and my salvation” are the be-all and end-all of Christianity. Sadly, many people – many devout Chrisians! – have preached that way and lived that way. This problem is not peculiar to the churches of the Reformation. It goes back to the high Middle Ages in the Western church, and infects and affects Catholic and Protestant, liberal and conservative, high and low church alike. But a full reading of Scripture itself tells a different story.
God made humans for a purpose: not simply for themselves, not simply so that they could be in a relationship with him, but so that through them, as his image-bearers, he could bring his wise, glad, fruitful order to the world. And the closing scenes of Scripture, in the book of Revelation, are not about human beings going off to heaven to be in a close and intimate relationship with God, but about heaven coming to earth. The intimate relationship with God which is indeed promised and celebrated in that great scene of the New Jerusalem issues at once in an outflowing, a further healing creativity, the river of the water of life flowing out from the city and the tree of life springing up, with leaves that are for the healing of the nations.
If you don’t dig N. T. Wright’s summaries of the big picture, you may not have a pulse.
Yes–more on the Kingdom
Imonk has just written 12 great observations on seeking the kingdom. Here’s the first:
You won’t get very far in following Jesus if you don’t have some idea of what “the Kingdom of God” means, because Jesus talks about it constantly, and commands you to seek it.
The rest are also worthy of a wide hearing (and, even more, wide action).
Thanks again, Tom!
“Paul does not say, ‘I am in Christ; Christ has obeyed the Torah; therefore God regards me as though I had obeyed the Torah.’ He says: ‘I am in Christ; Christ has died and been raised; therefore God regards me — and I must learn to regard myself — as someone who has died to sin and been raised to newness of life. . . To know that one has died and been raised is far, far more pastorally significant than than to know that one has, vicariously, fulfilled the Torah” (N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision, 233)
The good news of God’s action in Christ shows us how to participate in that story ourselves, making it our own, which it is, as Paul says elsewhere. As I said at Scot McKight’s post which highlighted this quote from Tom Wright: Wow. That is one of the best things I’ve ever heard toward understanding Paul and, just as importantly, for working the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection into real life–I must learn to regard myself as God now regards me because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection: as dead to sin, to this age and it’s pushes and pulls, and alive to the new world God is making that Christ came announcing and embodying and leading. I say again, “Wow.”
AA, the Church, and the Mission of God (pt. 3 – AA & the Gospel)
I think being raised Southern Baptist has helped give me a lifelong curiousity in ‘the gospel’ and I hope to always keep it. As I implied in the last post, I have come to see Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom–the news that the government of God has come near by virtue of Jesus showing up to assume his rightful role as the ‘Christ’-ened Lord of heaven and earth)–as the central message, with Jesus’ own story (a.k.a., the gospels) as the specific reports of how he, among other things, took that rightful place without immediately judging all of humanity for their ages-long resistance to his rule of love and selflessness. Thank God, Jesus comes announcing how we can be transformed into his cooperative friends, restoring the whole creation with and through him, rather than continue to be part of its destruction in large or small ways.
Now, you may notice that a fair summary of the gospel I’ve described in this post and before has the feel of a story of a very gracious king coming to his people who had been in various stages of rebellion against him. Instead of giving them the penalty for their treason and their other crimes against him and others, he took the consequences of their rebellion upon himself in the hopes that his people would cease their destructive rebellion and finally join with him in caring for each other and the whole creation as he envisions. Or, to put his hope another way, that they would ‘repent and trust him’ as his apprentices and constructive co-workers, that they would ‘enter’ and ‘receive’ his government as grateful and willing participants, joining his family business of making all things new though his love and power.
What you may notice is lacking from this description is any central concern about where one might be headed after death. My summaries of the gospel are focused on bringing humans back into participative, and increasingly constructive cooperation with God’s chosen king–right now in this life for the good of all we effect. Now, the implications for the after-life are clear enough. As Todd Hunter has said, if there are two options for the after life, where do you think God takes his friends? With him, of course, to finish what they have worked toward together–the new heavens and new earth. And the negative implications are also clear: what of the person who has remained hostile to Christ and to his rule of love and self-sacrifice? Out, tragically, with the rest of the trash that is committed to death. But–and this is the salient point–the focus of the gospel of the reign of God is how one wants to go forward in this life. Specifically, the issue is whether we want to ‘receive’ the new management. Do we want to actually ask God to let his name be honored above all (including ours), his government to come (not ours), his will (think, great commandments) be done in our particular corners of the earth–at least through us, or do we want to pray for and continue to seek our name, our reign, our will be done. It is a directional choice. It is a ‘how we want to live and for what?’ choice. It’s a day-by-day choice. It’s the choice God has laid before us when he sent his son proclaiming that ‘The time has come. The reign of God has come near. Repent and trust this good news’ as he healed and took apprentices, teaching them his Way.
Now, as that gospel started to get hold of me, I started looking at the 12 steps and thinking, “Is there a better way to respond, or rather, follow through in response, to that gospel, then this?” I encourage anyone to think about this gospel and what God is seeking to do in the world–really search the whole NT on that question– and ask the same question. I will go into some of the specific strengths of the steps as a kingdom-gospel response in later posts, but for now I will simply say that the steps are, in a nutshell, about turning the practical reigns of our lives over to God, especially as they inevitably involve our dealings with others. What’s more, the path of the steps aren’t taken alone, but in truly helpful relationships with others who are on the same path. The steps are about learning to actually live the way Jesus lived and taught, not just hear about it. They are a communal path to entering the reign of God, one day at a time, ceasing to be an instrument of other, darker powers such as our own selfishness and the idols we’ve counted on and followed for so long.
