I would like to briefly respond, in print, to a few of the points raised in The Christian Manifesto by the reviewer, C.E. Moore. I did a thorough phone interview with TCM which will air next week at some point. Overall, the review (see last post) was positive and helpful. I’m grateful that time was given to discuss the book.
1. Voice. The reviewer raised the question of how much of my own voice was in the book. This is a subjective matter that I cannot comment upon with any sort of objectivity. One of the reasons I chose to tell so many stories from my own life was precisely to make sure my voice came through. Perhaps I will look back in five years and see this point more clearly.
2. Atonement. There is an intense discussion per atonement right now happening in the Protestant (and I suspect Roman Catholic) world regarding the meaning of Jesus’ death. While conservative Christianity tends to focus on the meaning of Jesus’ death in penal substitution language (”Jesus took one for the team so I didn’t have to”), I believe the NT is much more nuanced. As others have noted, Jesus’ cross is both the source and shape of salvation. Of course, I betray an assumption that salvation (in Jewish circles, “to be rescued”) is a process. Scot McKnight, N.T. Wright, and others have written some very helpful and holistic material on the beauty, depth, and richness of the cross as it translates to various cultures.
3. Kingdom. Jesus preached the kingdom more than anything else. The gospel, according to the four gospels, was not “sinners prayer” or “naive understandings of escapist views of the after life”–the gospel was the announcement that in Jesus, God had shown/was showing what it looked like to really be the man or woman we were created to be (forgiven and empowered). This is what Jesus called ‘the kingdom’ (think “rule”, “way”, or “reign”). The Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew’s Gospel, is the epicenter of Jesus’ understanding of how things work. That is, Jesus taught his disciples and subsequent generations to pray that the things of God be done in realm of earth as it was happening in the realm of heaven. So, yes, the kingdom is about here, and now (time and space) with real flesh, face, and blood.
Nice responses. I do worry sometimes that in the effort to show the various aspects or nuances of atonement, the expiation/propitiation aspect is downplayed. Too bloody and violent for some? And yet it is there. This aspect can lead to a skewed version of salvation, but need not since Jesus also calls us to cross-bearing. Can we attend to the full witness of Scripture in this matter? I like Chris Wright’s discussion in “The God I Don’t Understand.”
On the kingdom, I agree that it has to do with the here-and-now, real flesh and blood situations. But I’ve been reading Long’s recent book on preaching that notes the loss of eschatological perspective of the Bible. Again, we need to attend to the full witness of Scripture: already/not yet.
This isn’t so much about your book (which I sheepishly admit I have not read yet) but thoughts your post generated.
Peace.
by Phillip (Jan 9 2010, 9:07 am)