Reimagining the Kingdom—Liberal Kingdom Grammar is Affecting Evangelicalism (Intro)

To begin some new discussions here at n•l, I thought I’d post the introduction to my recently complete thesis on the generational development of Kingdom grammar from Schleiermacher to McLaren. It should help start some conversations about some of what I learned and observed over the course of my research. Then on Thursday, I’ll post the conclusion, which outlines some observations and implications Emergent Kingdom grammar will have for evangelicalism. First though, how would you define the Kingdom of God? How have you come to understand this central teaching of Jesus Christ.

In recent years, use of Kingdom of God language has markedly increased within evangelicalism, influencing it along the way. Missions is now understood in Kingdom terms, where a new generation is signing up en masse to build wells and finance “missional” projects by lending microfinance loans. Evangelism now emphasizes living like Jesus, rather than telling people about Him. Even the gospel is understood simply as Jesus’ proclamation of the at-hand-Kingdom, often at the expense of Paul’s language of justification by faith in Christ. While the Kingdom of God is the heart of Jesus’ teachings, it hasn’t always been the heart of evangelicalism, not to mention the Church. In fact, there has been conflicting definitions throughout Church history about what exactly Kingdom of God means.

Augustine represents the typical manner in which the early church defined the Kingdom of God, equating it with the Church itself. While equating God’s Kingdom-rule with the Church largely continued with medieval theological discourse, Christian princes sought to promote an imperial-political view of the Kingdom in order to control their Feudal lands. In the Reformation, Luther individualized the concept for the purpose of emphasizing the Christian’s spiritual citizenship over against a citizenship of a secular kingdom. He also represented the Reformation tendency in general to view the Kingdom in entirely eschatological, even apocalyptic, terms that pointed toward heaven in the future. Eventually, the Kingdom played little role in Protestant theology, reflecting the general trajectory of the historic Church that seems to have had little interest in Jesus’ central teaching. That is until the nineteenth century.

In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, historical, cultural, and intellectual forces coalesced to foster an environment that gave rise to and renewed interest in the Kingdom, giving it a place of theological prominence. The person most credited with such renewal is the German theologian Freidrich Schleiermacher. The Kingdom of God formed the basis of his teachings, governing his system of doctrine and ethics to such an extent that it rose to prominence within modern theology itself in a way it had not before; Schleiermacher is the one through whom Kingdom grammar arose within modern theological discourse. His voice echoed throughout much of nineteenth century Protestant thought through the likes of Bauer, Herrmann, and Harnack, finding a strong advocate in the theology of Albrect Ritschl.

While Ritschl praised Schleiermacher for employing the Kingdom of God as the telos of Christianity, he believed Schleiermacher did not go far enough in grasping its significance; though Ritschl believed Schleiermacher made an important contribution to Christian theology by restoring the Kingdom to a place of importance, Ritschl thought his Kingdom grammar was deficient. Building on the original work of Schleiermacher, Ritschl brought this grammar to bear on his entire theological enterprise, making Kingdom of God its controlling doctrine. Ritschl’s Kingdom-centric theology kindled a new generation of twentieth century liberal theologians, particularly Rauschenbusch and Tillich, who envisioned the Kingdom itself as humanity’s salvation.

Now, like the nineteenth century, there has been a resurgence in the use of Kingdom language at the start of the twenty-first century, especially and particularly within mainstream evangelicalism. In prior generations, Kingdom had not been part of the normal evangelical ecclesial repertoire. Instead, evangelicalism had primarily centered upon the language of gospel, which translated into salvation from sins through a personal experience and personal piety in living morally; rarely, had Kingdom language been employed or taught and considered within evangelicalism. Even when Kingdom has been utilized, its primary usage has usually been future oriented, centering on the return of Jesus Christ and reign on earth at the expense of its present activity. This definition of Kingdom, however, changed with the advent of what has become known as the Emergent Church movement, originally a progressive evangelical movement that sought to re-imagine traditional Christianity in light of postmodernity. In fact, the Kingdom of God is central to the Emergent Church’s protest against Traditionalism.

As Jim Belcher explains, “The emerging protest argues that the traditional church has focused too much attention on how an individual becomes saved and not enough on how he or she lives as a Christian…The critics say the good news is more than forgiveness from sins and a ticket to heaven; it is the appearance of the kingdom of God.”¹ This argument, that not enough attention has been paid to Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God, has formed the beachhead of protest against Traditionalism, particularly mainstream evangelicalism, and is the central identifying doctrine of this movement. As two prominent Emergent researchers note, the Kingdom of God offers a “reference point for emerging churches” as they deconstruct Traditionalism and reconstruct church in a postmodern context.²

The Kingdom-way Jesus founded through His life provides a model for emerging churches and actually is their gospel; for them, the Kingdom saves. No greater thinker within this movement has sought to redirect the focus of twenty-first century evangelicalism than Brian McLaren, who helped found the national organization Emergent, is the author of several books that have set out to re-imagine the Christian faith,³ and was christened one of the top twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America.⁴ He is a fitting contemporary theological dialogue partner, then, in our effort to understand the nature of the Kingdom grammar that has surfaced in the twenty-first century, much like it did in the nineteenth.

Over the past decade, Emergent generally and McLaren specifically have sought to reclaim what McLaren calls the secret, essential message of Jesus, which he says has been unintentionally misunderstood and intensionally distorted, missed and disregarded.⁵ According to McLaren and the rest of the Emergent Church, this message is Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God. While many have lauded McLaren’s efforts to recapture Jesus’ secret Kingdom-message, others argue his and Emergent’s use and description of Kingdom is deficient. Belcher writes, “I worry about what is mission in the description [of the Kingdom of God]. It is curious to me that nowhere does he mention or link the kingdom of God to the doctrines of atonement, justification, union with Christ or our need to be forgiven.”⁶ Likewise, Scot McKnight believes what McLaren says about the Kingdom is not enough:

[They] believe that penal substitution theories have not led to a kingdom vision. What I have been pondering and writing about for a decade now is how to construct an ‘emerging’ gospel that remains faithful to the fulness of the biblical texts about the Atonement, and lands squarely on the word kingdom. Girard said something important about the Cross; so does McLaren. But they aren’t enough.⁷

The reason contemporary articulations of Kingdom by the Emergent Church are not enough is because those articulations are simply appropriations of liberal Kingdom grammar.

Rather than offering the Church a new kind of Christianity that somehow recaptures a long-lost concept central to Jesus and the Church, the Emergent Church’s use of the Kingdom of God as instantiated in the writings of McLaren is in fact fully entrenched in the Protestant liberal theological tradition. More precisely, this thesis will argue that the Kingdom grammar of the Emergent Church movement is continuous with four previous generations of Protestant liberalism, including how it defines the Kingdom of God, who is in, how one gets in, and how it solves for our human problem. In order to understand liberalism’s impact on contemporary evangelical Kingdom grammar, this examination will trace the generational development of liberal Kingdom grammar from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Albrect Ritschl, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Paul Tillich, showing how Emergent’s Kingdom grammar is simply repackaged liberal grammar.

While each of these theologians add their own unique contribution to liberalism’s use of Kingdom, there are several features common to this grammar: it rejects original sin in favor of a social, environmental view of our human problem; Jesus is the moral Son of God, not the metaphysical one; in founding the Kingdom of God, Jesus saves humanity through His life, rather than through His death; the Kingdom of God is concerned with humanistic progress; the Kingdom comes into the here-and-now through the power of loving human action; it is universalistic, in that every act counts as Kingdom acts—in the end everyone wins because love wins; the Kingdom centers on the words, deeds, and suffering of Jesus—His inspiring personality provides humanity the proper example of the universal human ideal; and ultimately, the Kingdom is concerned with bringing the universal human ideal to bear on human existence, empowering individuals and society to reach their fullest human potential and live their best life right now.

Understand, however, that in tracing the generational continuity and development of Kingdom grammar, this examination does not mean to suggest that each of these theologians are somehow mixed in together to produce one unified Kingdom porridge. Not at all. Each theologian provides a unique contribution to liberal Kingdom grammar by nature of their historical context and theological development. Yet, they are remarkably similar in their definitions of our human problem, the One who bore that problem’s solution, and the nature of that solution itself, the Kingdom of God. In so tracing, we will see how such grammar is impacting contemporary evangelicalism, particularly through its progressive Emergent form.

Roger Olson has said that the story of Christian theology is the story of Christian reflection on the nature of salvation, which is why this examination is important. In it, we will see that the theological reflection offered by progressive evangelicals on the nature of salvation is repetitive and cyclical. While the Emergent Church claims to be helping evangelicalism rediscover authentic Christianity by rediscovering the Kingdom, it isn’t. Instead, it has repackaged liberalism for a new day. Like liberal Kingdom grammar, the Emergent Church ultimately urges people to place their faith in the way of Jesus—i.e. the Kingdom of God—rather than the person and work of Jesus, a significant departure from authentic Christianity. Therefore, it is imperative that evangelicals understand the contours of liberal Kingdom grammar in order to understand how such grammar is affecting how some evangelicals are reflecting upon the nature of salvation, and consequently understand, show, and tell the gospel itself.

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1. Jim Belcher, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2009), 41. [↩]
2. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Culture (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2005), 46. This book provided one of the most exhaustive examinations of the Emerging Church movement. It especially provides an important look at the Emerging Church’s Kingdom grammar in 47-64. [↩]
3. See A New Kind of Christian (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001); The Story We Find Ourselves In (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003); The Last Word and The Word After That (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005); The Secret Message of Jesus (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2006); Everything Must Change (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006); and A New Kind of Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2010). [↩]
4. “25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America,” Time Magazine, February 7, 2005. [↩]
5. Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2006), 3. [↩]
6. Belcher, Deep Church, 118. [↩]
7. Scot McKnight, “McLaren Emerging,” Christianity Today Online, September 26, 2008 <www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/september/38.59.html> [↩]