Wanted: A Beautiful Theology

Back in the day when I used to read for fun, I would go to the library and carefully choose my latest adventure. Sometimes based on title alone, sometimes intrigued by the back cover, I went home filled with expectations. Occasionally an author wildly exceeded my expectations. Oftentimes I was disappointed and more interested in the story I wished had been written.

I have not had time to participate in the latest buzz about McLaren’s recent book. I don’t plan on reading it, but I am disappointed about the book that could have been written, the book that needs to be written. The questions that Brian is asking are in the vicinity of the questions that need to be asked and answered. Based on the way in which Brian framed many of the questions, I suspect that I would find his approach to these topics and his answers somewhat disappointing.

But what if the book that had been written asked and answered the following questions:

1. The Narrative Question: What is the story?
2. The Bible Question: What is the role of Scripture in our lives?
3. The God Question: Is God punitive? How do we understand both God’s love and wrath?
4. The Jesus and Holy Spirit Question: Who are Jesus and the Holy Spirit today? What is their role in our lives?
5. The Gospel Question: What is the message?
6. The Church Question: What is the church?
7. The Brokenness Question: What do we do about sin?
8. The Future Question: What is the new creation, the kingdom, the second coming, and heaven or hell?
9. The Love Question: How do we demonstrate love to the world?
10. The Unity Question: How do we love one another in the midst of theological disagreement?

David Fitch asks, “Have we saturated this subject and indeed isn’t it time to move on from these well-worn critiques?” I don’t think so. I don’t think we have even scratched the surface. When the world hears and understands a message of love and redemption coming from the church, we will know it.

The church does need a new theology in order to become all that we were intended to be. Not a liberal, progressive compromised theology, not a rigid, conservative rule of faith, but a beautiful, redemptive, kingdom-centered theology to grow into.

Can this happen? I don’t know. Most theological discussion is mired with gatekeepers guarding existing positions. There is no room to reconsider, redefine, or repent of traditions and beliefs that are wrong. However, I believe that in spite of the gatekeepers, the message of God’s goodness will seep out and eventually bypass all who try to diminish or subvert it.

Sociology

A statement I ran across while reading about the evolution of religion:

Religious specialists begin to see themselves as a distinctive group set apart from everyone else. They become monopolists of religious knowledge and influence and acquire new interests that have to be protected and promoted.

This was actually in reference to the first millenium.
What would today’s version of this be?

Devastatingly Evangelical

“There is, then, an evangelical way to preach the Gospel and an unevangelical way to preach it.

The Gospel is preached in an unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelism, when the preacher announces:

This is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make a personal decision for Christ as your Savior.

Or:

Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him.

In that event, what is actually coming across to people is not a Gospel of unconditional grace but some other Gospel of conditional grace which belies the essential nature and content of the Gospel as it is in Jesus. It was that subtle legalist twist to the Gospel which worried St Paul so much in his Epistle to the Galatians.

To preach the Gospel in that conditional or legalist way has the effect of telling poor sinners that in the last resort the responsibility for their salvation is taken off the shoulders of the Lamb of God and placed upon them.

How, then, is the Gospel to be preached in a genuinely evangelical way?

Surely in such a way that full and central place is given to the vicarious humanity of Jesus as the all-sufficient human response to the saving love of God which he has freely and unconditionally provided for us.

We preach and teach the Gospel evangelically, then, in such a way as this:

God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very Being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself.

Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.”

Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ

Our theology of the gospel is essential to our understanding of evangelism and mission.