The King Jesus Gospel, Pt 1: The Big Question

I don’t really want to do an obligatory, “it’s been a while since I’ve blogged,” note so hopefully this will suffice. I’m getting the writing itch again and want to try blogging my way through a book. Here goes nothing.

A sucker for subversive subtitles

I picked up Scot McKnight’s latest book, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited, frankly because I’m a sucker for books that start with the premise that there’s something wrong with Evangelicalism in America. I’m particularly interested to see how Scot McKnight addresses this issue because it appears to me that he is voice speaking from inside the Evangelical tribe, unlike people like Brian McLaren and Tony Jones who speak from the edges (at best) of Evangelicalism. Read the rest of this entry »

A Judgement Day Reading List

With tomorrow being the last day of the world (hint: not really), here’s some light reading to better understand some of the ways different Christian groups think about end times.

• Christian eschatological views (Wikipeda) – A good starter
• Michael Standaert gives links to several different end-times viewpoints at the bottom of this 2006 article.
• N.T. Wright, “Farewell to the Rapture“

Cheers.

God’s first act of grace

We’re not like the animals.

We know this to be true by the way we speak about the actions of all other living creatures compared to those that we attribute to ourselves. Tune your TV to the nature channel long enough and you’ll soon witness one of God’s great creatures ripping the life away from another in order to ensure it’s own survival for one more day. We see no moral problem with this, but we’ll lock a man away for simply stealing property from another human being—regardless of the circumstance. We accept the former as the way nature works, but the latter is somehow something different, something un-natural.

When we compare ourselves to the rest of creation, we recognize special traits that carry with them great responsibility. We have the ability to think broadly about problems, to create and control, to make complex choices, and to imagine possibilities that don’t currently exist. These characteristics lead us to feel responsible to care for the planet and everything on it—yet these same qualities that make us exceptional also bring an exceptional burden.

As far as I can tell, our animal friends don’t spend time imagining better lives for themselves or wallowing in self-pity because their hair doesn’t grow as well as the next guy. I’ve never seen a TLC special for animals who hoard or know of any species that invest in defense technology on the off-chance that they may need to protect their forest from foreign invaders, but we are guilty of all of these things.

You see, the same complex minds that allow us to compose symphonies also allow us to imagine a host of scary possibilities that must be guarded against. We spend our entire lives trapped with these brains that are constantly calculating and comparing—telling us that we need to work harder or do better, feel ashamed or betrayed, mourn our losses, protect our property, and to be suspicious of those who don’t act, think, or live the way we do.

The biblical account of original sin is that the first humans ate from the tree of knowledge and gained the ability to distinguish good from evil. Whether historical fact or merely a metaphor, I think it’s an astute observation of our human condition—our great gift has also become our greatest curse.

Where I think most of Christianity has gotten the story wrong, however, is that God’s appropriate punishment was the introduction of death into the human story. A much worse punishment, in my view, would have been to sentence us to living a life of eternity battling our own flesh and blood in a never ending struggle for power and self-satisfaction. But it is the end of life that finally forces the power-hungry to release the position he had been gripping so tightly, the final heartbeat that allows the afflicted—both physically and mentally—to finally find rest, and it permits our prejudices to disappear into a distant, fading history.

Perhaps the introduction of death into our story—this great exhale of all humanity—was not, in fact, God’s first great punishment but, rather, His first great act of grace.

Willing to Listen

Gabe Lyons posted an explanation of why he’s invited Imam Abdul Feisal Rauf, leader of the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque” project, to speak at the upcoming Q conference in Portland.

The longer I live the more I’m inspired by the life of Jesus and the way He was able to sit down and converse with people who were so unlike him. Of course, He was also the One who said that being a child of the Father means learning to love your neighbors and your enemies. I’ve thought often about this incredible statement over the years. I can’t imagine what this could possibly mean if it doesn’t include having respectful dialogue where we listen and respond rather than dismiss and attack.

I think this is exactly the kind of example Christian leaders need to be taking towards being open to our neighbors of other faiths. Gabe’s willingness to “go there” is encouraging.

“Forsaken” Misunderstood

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ”Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, ”My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”

- Matthew 27:46

For years I’ve seen this verse used to teach that while Jesus was on the cross, God turned His back on Jesus—His own son—because, in that moment, Jesus took our sin upon himself and became unacceptable to God on our behalf.

I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of that scripture.

The Gospel of Matthew was written to a primarily Jewish audience, and they would have immediately recognized those words as the beginning of one of their familiar Psalms—Psalm 22.

1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

2 O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but I have no rest.

3 Yet You are holy,
O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

4 In You our fathers trusted;
They trusted and You delivered them.

5 To You they cried out and were delivered;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,
A reproach of men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me sneer at me;
They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,

8 “Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”

9 Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb;
You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.

10 Upon You I was cast from birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near;
For there is none to help.

12 Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

13 They open wide their mouth at me,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And You lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs have surrounded me;
A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
They pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;

18 They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.

19 But You, O Lord, be not far off;
O You my help, hasten to my assistance.

20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
My only life from the power of the dog.

21 Save me from the lion’s mouth;
From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me.

22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.

23 You who fear the Lord, praise Him;
All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him,
And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel.

24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from him;
But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

25 From You comes my praise in the great assembly;
I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him.

26 The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the Lord.
Let your heart live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
And all the families of the nations will worship before You.

28 For the kingdom is the Lord’s
And He rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,
All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep his soul alive.

30 Posterity will serve Him;
It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation.

31 They will come and will declare His righteousness
To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.

If you read this Psalm you will realize that it isn’t talking about how God is absent, or that He has actually rejected David (the writer of this Psalm), but it affirms that even when God seems absent that He can still be trusted.

This is the Jewish gospel.

God is in the fight—even when it seems like all is lost and the world is caving in. That is the very moment that you can trust Him the most.

In the Matthew’s story, these words were proved true just days later when the grave was found to be empty and Jesus appeared alive to his disciples. Declaring again that evil doesn’t get the last word, and that God doesn’t require perfection from us, but that He submits to our evil and imperfection and reclaims the truth that He rescues us from ourselves.

Good Friday Quote of the Day

Who knew that one of the greatest evangelists of our day would be a gay, Catholic, political blogger from England? Andrew Sullivan continues to write some of the most powerful pieces on why he is a Christian today on his blog. Money quote:

We cannot deny Darwin without also denying God

via A “Rigorous” Theology – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

American Exceptionalism? Yes and No.

Andrew Sullivan plays the prophetic voice in affirming the exceptional values that founded America without ignoring the unexceptional parts of our history—including the threat of falling victim to the same over confidence and self-reliance that has ruined past empires. Money quote:

America’s exceptional freedom and exceptional wealth did not exempt it from unexceptional human nature or the unexceptional laws of history. To believe anything else is to engage in nationalist idolatry.

via Exceptional And Unexceptional America – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

Two Elevators

Following up on my last post, I thought it would be helpful to further clarify what I believe folks like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren are doing with their theological work. A model that’s been helpful in other conversations as I’ve tried to explain this idea is two elevators (below):

The two elevators represent the traditional world-view that most of us in the Evangelical church have grown up with. The Bible story goes something like this:

• There are two elevators, the first goes to hell and the second goes to heaven
• Everyone is born into the first elevator (i.e. born into sin)
• If we accept Jesus sacrifice for our sins we get to transfer to the second elevator
• The point of the Christian life is to help get as many people into the second elevator as possible

That probably sounds pretty familiar. Now, the main concern in Evangelicalism has been to update the ways we explain the cross in this diagram. For some, the main question that is discussed is how exactly does the cross work within this equation (e.g. is it those who are predestined who get to cross from one to the other or is there human will involved?). For others, the main concern has been what tactics we use to communicate this world-view to the culture around us. We can use fear (think of the fire and brimstone preachers or the left-behind movies from back in the day), we can use logic (anyone been through an apologetics course?), we can even use culturally familiar language and music to make the message seem more “hip” (would you like a mocha with that?).

What folks like Bell and McLaren (and to some extent NT Wright) are doing is to question whether this whole worldview accurately depicts the story found in the Bible. The view that’s being articulated by those folks (among others) is that the story the Bible is telling throughout is that God is redeeming and restoring the world here and now—not sorting out who he’s going to rescue out of this world. It’s a story about how the Kingdom of God can be realized “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Check out this video by Bishop N.T. Wright further explaining this idea.

Will Love Win?

Brian McLaren makes a strong statement in defense of Rob Bell in the wake of the controversy around his book, “Love Wins.” Money quote:

its not that the critics have accurately understood what Im trying to say and have explained why they disagree. Its that theyve misrepresented what Im trying to say and have explained why the misrepresentation is audacious and ludicrous.

via Will “Love Wins” Win? Were earl – Brian McLaren.

Love Wins

Consider the following story:

There was once a king in the Middle East who had reigned over his country for decades. One day he decided that he should do something to show his people and the whole world what a great and benevolent ruler he was and came up with just the plan to do it. First, he intentionally created a law that he knew would be broken by everyone in his country—every single person. He then declared that the penalty for breaking this law would be the loss of all citizenship rights, government confiscation of all property, and banishment from the country forever.

Read the rest of this entry »