Monthly archive: January, 2005

Was Jesus Postmodern?

January 25, 2005, by 2 comments

In his Everyone commentary series, Bishop N.T. Wright has this to say about the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:

[N]obody would have missed the underlying meaning. Yes, Jesus was saying; what you have been longing for and praying for is really coming true. I’m here to make it happen. It’s going to be hard for you to understand, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Stick with me. Listen to me. Figure it out. Come back for more.
Like the crowds on the lakeshore that day, our task, again and again as we read scripture and think about God’s work in our own day, is to think it through and figure it out. Matthew’s gospel is designed to help us do that. It won’t always be easy. Christianity isn’t about cosy little lessons to make us feel better. It’s about what God’s doing in the world — what he’s already done in Jesus and what he wants to do through us today. What stories ought we to be telling to get people to listen? Where can we tell them so that people will be able to hear, like the crowds on the lakeshore?

I’m becoming increasingly aware that Jesus would not do ministry like the Church today does ministry. Not that all we’re doing is wrong or misguided. It probably isn’t. But like he was in his own day, everyone around him had to realize that it’s not being done the way we thought it should anymore. We’ve missed something. We’re off course. What is it that we need to do?
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Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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Consumer Christianity

January 15, 2005, by 3 comments

Introduction

The culture of the West, and America in particular, thrives on materialism. We want what we don’t have, or what others have better than we do. We long for Christmas or our birthday because we know that we can desire something for ourselves and not feel that guilty about it. We see a billboard with the latest food fad, and we crave that in our appetites the next meal. We long for the greatest desire. We long for pleasure.

The desire for pleasure is not wrong in and of itself. It is in our nature, and it is God’s desire to give us the greatest pleasures possible. I will write more about this later, but suffice it to say for now, as Christians, our goal in evangelism has very much been tied to “selling God” to those who have not yet “bought him.” How sad is this?

For years I have grown up in an environment where the church is run like a business. Not like a corporation, per se, but a business in the habit of selling something. Eternal life is for sale, we say. But the difference between us and the “other religions” is that the sale price for what we offer is zero—it’s free. It’s a gift, something Jesus offers to every human being who desires it. Once they want it, it is theirs. Once they have it, they will never lose it. And since they have it, when they die, they will go to heaven. In fact, in many ways, heaven is what we are selling, because that has seemed to be the focal point of the message of eternal life—eternal afterlife.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem that this approach to eternal life is a bad idea. We are, in fact, still offering it as free, not something to be earned. We are earnest in our desire to give this gift away to those who do not have it. And there is much to be commended in that. What I fear is that this approach has cheapened the grace of God, and made cliché the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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Falling into Grace

January 13, 2005, by No comments yet

Last night I watched a film that is very personal to me, in a journey sense. Many don’t like Fight Club, some don’t “get it,” but for me, it describes much of my journey in the past two years. To be sure, the depravity and darkness of the film doesn’t fit precisely where I’ve been, but the redemption of finding myself does. Fight Club is a film about self-realization, but without the Holy Spirit. Without a divine presence within me, the film would be void (and it tries to be). A close friend of mine describes psychology as “Fallen man’s search to understand fallen man.” Fight Club, similarly, is fallen man’s search for significance. Unfortunately, the result is insignificance and nihilism.

What does this have to do with falling into grace? Much–for me, at least. I am now near the end of what I’m calling my “postmodern journey.” A few months ago I read Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel, which was a redemptive piece of literature that simply put my life back into the grace of God. My sense of self was changed, my identity in Jesus was re-established, and I was able to own my faith in a profound, drastic, and truly radical way.

Tonight, while meditating on the Lord’s presence in my life recently, praying and listening, a song came to mind. From what I can tell, its context fits this one, but even if not, as always we can use artistic expression in a variety of ways to transcend context for ourselves. Lifehouse performed this on their first self-titled album. Here are the lyrics important to where I’m at right now:

I am falling into grace to the unknown to where you are
And faith makes everybody scared it’s the unknown,
The don’t-know that keeps me hanging on…
To you i got nothing left to defend
I cannot pretend that everything makes sense
But does it really matter now if i do not know how
To figure this thing out

Falling into grace is, essentially, the gospel. It’s finding ourselves in Christ–”Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39 ESV).

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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