Introduction
A few years ago I wrote two blog posts articulating what I see as a grander, more wholistic understanding of the gospel. In today’s post I will update these and synthesize them together into one post. Doing that will also give me a chance to weave together the five core commitments I have been writing about into an integrated narrative.
I will give three versions of this story: a brief summary, a more intermediate one, and finally a longer summary. I do this because I want to not only illustrate my wholistic approach to the gospel, but also give fellow progressives a variety of ways they might share it (or something like it) with other people, in a variety of contexts.
Brief Summary
I believe in a good God who created a good world and who has plans to make right all that is wrong in the world.
This God pursues these ends inclusively, but most centrally through the person and way of Jesus.
In light of this work God is doing, God calls us to:
– Turn from our old ways of living rooted in sin and ignorance.
– Turn to the God revealed in Jesus to receive his love and forgiveness.
– Turn to God in responding love and allegiance.
– And be transformed to be like Jesus in loving God and our neighbors as we partner with God in redeeming creation.
Intermediate Summary
I believe in a genuinely good God, a God who is primarily loving, gracious, and inclusive and only secondarily wrathful.
I believe this God created a good world, in spite of its many problems.
I believe God has plans to make right everything that is wrong in the world.
So, on a personal level, God wants to rescue us from our sin, our ignorance, and our brokenness.
On a broader societal level, God wants to overturn systems of violence and oppression and replace them with ones of peace and justice. And God calls for us to partner with him in bringing this about.
On a spiritual level, God is at war with evil spirits who seek to harm and deceive his creatures.
And on a cosmic level, God even has plans, in his own timing, to remake the world into a place where there is no more suffering, death, and decay.
This God pursues these ends in many mysterious ways. I believe God works inclusively, in the context of a number of religions (and even people of no religion), to the extent that they follow the light that they have, such as it is.
But as a Christian, I believe that God most fully reveals himself and most fully acts to save us in the person of Jesus – particularly in Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection.
This wholistic salvation has begun breaking into the world through Jesus and his way, but it awaits its future full consummation when Jesus returns to complete it.
In light of this work God is doing, God calls us to:
– Turn from our old ways of living rooted in sin and ignorance.
– Turn to the God revealed in Jesus to freely receive his love and forgiveness.
– Turn to God in responding love and allegiance.
– And be transformed to by the power of the Holy Spirit to be like Jesus in loving God and our neighbors as we partner with God in redeeming all of creation.
Longer Summary
I believe in a genuinely good God, a God who is primarily loving, gracious, and inclusive and only secondarily wrathful.
I believe this God created a good world, in spite of its many problems. God indued this world with goodness and worth. He values it and the humans who live in it.
God is glorified by our humble, empirical engagement with the world and with others. Indeed, knowing of our proneness to ignorance and egocentrism, God desires that we exercise a reasonable faith and an informed love.
I believe this God has plans to make right everything that is wrong in this world.
So, on a personal level, God wants to rescue us from our sin, our ignorance, and our brokenness.
On a broader societal level, God wants to overturn systems of violence and oppression and replace them with ones of peace and justice. And God calls for us to partner with him in bringing this about.
On a spiritual level, God is at war with evil spirits who seek to harm and deceive his creatures.
And on a cosmic level, God even has plans, in his own timing, to remake the world into a place where there is no more suffering, death, and decay.
This God pursues these ends in many mysterious ways. I believe God works inclusively, in the context of a number of religions (and even people of no religion), to the extent that they follow the light that they have, such as it is.
But as a Christian, I believe that God most fully reveals himself and most fully acts to save us in the person and way of Jesus.
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was at hand. That God’s plan to liberate and restore his people, consummate his reign of love and justice, and make right all that was wrong in his creation was about to take place.
Was in fact already breaking into the world through his ministry.
– So, in Jesus’ healing the sick, feeding the hungry, casting out of demons, and preaching good news to the poor; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus’ love and compassion toward sinners, poor people, the marginalized and impure, those who the religious and political elites saw as “nobodies;” and in his building up of an alternative community centered on love and justice; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus’ perception of himself as God’s annointed agent who would bring in and rule in God’s kingdom, and in his actions to reconfigure God’s people around himself; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus’ teachings on God as a loving and forgiving Father; a God so good he could not let evil continue unresolved – which was a word of both hope and warning; One most fully revealed in the person of Jesus himself; in all of this, God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus’ calls to turn from old ways of living rooted in sin and ignorance and instead learn to wholeheartedly love God and love other people; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus’ willingness to die to speak out against oppressive powers, identify with us in our suffering, exemplify love and forgiveness, reveal God’s true nature, eradicate sin and it’s effects, overcome death and the devil for us, and achieve at-one-ment between God and human-kind; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In God the Father’s raising of Jesus from the dead, vindicating him, his message, and (in effect) those who follow after him; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus’ experience of the Spirit’s intimacy and empowering (and in that of the early Christians after him); God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
– In Jesus and the early church’s subversive re-reading of the Hebrew Scriptures: being willing to heighten or negate their teachings based on their fit with the person of Jesus, the way of love and justice, their experience of the Spirit, their sense of God’s in-breaking kingdom, and the inclusion of former outsiders; God’s kingdom was breaking into the world in a fresh and powerful way.
And yet, clearly evil still held much sway. In this life, ruthless people often seem to prevail while good-hearted people are trampled down, slandered, or simply passed over on account of their virtue. Things are not yet fully right in the world, and so Jesus (and the early Christians) taught that God’s kingdom awaited its future full consumption.
At that time,
– God (and Jesus) would be unveiled to the world in a powerful and unmistakeable way.
– God would regather his people from the ends of the earth.
– He would raise the dead.
– He would render judgment, vindicating and rewarding those who had followed Jesus’ way and punishing those who had knowingly resisted it.
– Satan and his demons would be vanquished and permanently kept from harming God’s creation.
– Creation would be remade into a place with no more suffering, death, or decay.
– Followers of Jesus would be reunited with lost loved ones.
– There would be a great feast and celebration open to all who had aligned themselves with Jesus’ way; an inclusive, upside-down gathering where many would be surprised at their inclusion (or exclusion, as the case may be).
– There would finally be full and genuine peace and justice and plenty for all. Lion would lay down with the lamb. Nations would study war no more.
– God would be tangibly and gloriously present among his people; every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.
Jesus and his followers taught that these realities about God and his coming kingdom called for people to turn and be transformed:
– Turn from their old ways of thinking and behaving centered on selfishness, greed, pride, lust, violence, faithlessness, and falsehood.
– Turn instead to the God revealed in Jesus to freely receive his love and forgiveness.
– Turn to God in responding love, trust, and allegiance.
– Be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into people who are united to Jesus by faith and by following after him in loving compassionately, speaking truthfully, living simply, sharing generously, being humble and serving others, loving and forgiving enemies, welcoming the marginalized, renouncing violence and oppression, promoting peace and justice, being willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of this kingdom, and steadfastly trusting in God and in his future vindication.
In short, the Christian Gospel is about trusting in Jesus and being transformed to be like him. It is about trusting in God and his coming kingdom and partnering with him to bring it to earth.
Post-conservative Orphan of God 