anyway, thanks for your perspective and glad you’re waiting in eager expectation for the last 2-3 posts

-jeremy

While I know I get things horribly wrong myself, all I know is when I try and point people to Jesus and talk about Him people are intrigued and light up. I really don’t think its me at all, but the person of Jesus. When I was on the Hill I met with a self-proclaimed non-Theist who grew up Catholic and left the whole God and Christian thing in college after deconstructing his faith to nothing. He spend 5 years deconstructing everything and ended up with nothing in the end. Then we started meeting and talking about faith for about 8 months, and I would just talk about my journey with faith deconstruction, but also Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament and what it meant to simply follow Him. It was an amazing time and I learned then in that relationship that our efforts with people need to be about Jesus, His teachings, and following Him and His Way.

I guess I’m not really answering your questions but I guess for me I’ve learned that it all boils down to Jesus and who He is, what He’s done, and what He’s said about this or that. I’m convinced more than ever that He has what everyone instinctively need and want, and it’s good and tasty. Sure His teachings are damn hard and confusing, but they are still good and point to what everyone wants deep down…

Anyway, hope all is well at your end and you’re rocking your new job
-jeremy

While I don’t disagree with much of what you wrote, my main point of disagreement stems from the legal nature of atonement, relationship with God, and Sin. Yes it’s a part, but I guess I don’t really read the Scriptures through that lens. I’ve come to appreciate all 5 stories as valuable brush strokes that paint a more holistic picture of sin and what happens to it. And much of the damage done to articulations of the gospel in our postmodern culture stems from the insistence that the ‘legal brush’ defines everything.

As I’m sure you know, Rich, there are 5 stories of atonement: recapitulation, ransom, satisfaction, substitution, and example, all told by able-bodied theologians: Iraenaeus, early church theologians, Anslem, the Evangelical Reform, and Abelard. The problem is that the Evangelical Reform (the ‘legal/substitutionary’ approach to atonement) sets itself as the sine qui non of atonement theory, and thus ‘sin’ theory. All stories are needed as we seek to help the world understand how God draws people into union with Himself and communion with others for the good of others and the world.

So anyway, I’m not reacting to you Rich so much as I am to a system that paints the grand Redemptive Narrative in ways that don’t do justice to the complete story and message of Jesus. Hopefully if you read my other sections (and wait for the last 2) a more complete picture will emerge on what I’m trying to say with the whole “unoffensive gospel” thing.

I don’t expect people to believe, convert, whatever. All of it is unbelievably personal and subjective.

None of this detracts from your former point that it is Christians that are offensive. If all of us could just try harder to be like Christ maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem. The problem is that Christ lived 2000 years ago, we can’t be like Christ or we wouldn’t need Christ and most people don’t take enough time to look or research past contemporary caracitures of Christ to see the social justice advocate who loved people. Then again we all see what we want to see, right? It is just as easy for some people to see Jesus as a violent and soon coming king who is going to “blow up the outside world” (thats soundgarden, not revelation fyi).

I love these posts! Sorry I don’t have more time to comment these days. I am trying my best to focus less and less on myself and think of others. I sort of pick the loving parts out of the bible and am working on keeping my outrage about the rest to a minimum. Afterall, i really don’t have the right to be angry. “Naked from the womb i came and naked i will return, blessed be the name of the Lord” peace, m

The point is not that man is utterly sinful, and you articulated that well. The point is that God is holy. That is the origin of the offensiveness of the gospel (which is actually offensive in US and historically in every culture with scores of martyrs to speak of) and the distinction of Christianity from “religions”–grace and faith in God’s work.

We enter a relationship we cannot earn, or deserve, yet were made for. That is the good news. However, it is bad news for those we desire to believe their efforts, not God’s rescue, is what allows the relationship. In this way, Christianity is foolish and hated. We are not God, even though we have a special place in His creation. Indeed, rebellion is the issue. Human nature wants to be able to be like God. That part of the narrative of the gospel–from Lucifer to Adam to me–is a heritage of rebellion. We have hope in that we can be placed in the second Adam, Christ, and have his heritage as a son of God. Hence, legal does mean relationship. And, yes, the legal is only part of the story, but is sure is a reality in scripture and in how I daily relate in live life as a Jesus follower. Its given me the hope of living a real life.