A Humbled Resistance

A Response to The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President

 

Theology (cont.)

 

What is the Gospel?

 

When we speak of “the gospel” or “good news” in a Christian context, what are we talking about?  We know it is something to be proclaimed, so it must be a message.  Claiborne has understandably grown weary of a gospel that simply manipulates people into punching their ticket to heaven but with no application to the world in which we live.  We see that in statements like these:

 

There are those of us who, rather than simply reject pop evangelicalism, want to spread another kind of Christianity, a faith that has as much to say about this world as it does about the next. (TIR 24)

 

…we can tell the world that there is life after death, but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death. (TIR 150)

 

Claiborne also makes some helpful statements and asks some important questions about the gospel we proclaim.

 

I’m not sure the Christian gospel always draws a crowd.  People may not stand in line for a Roman cross; … people may not flock to an invitation to lose their lives.  … Sometimes I wonder, amid our crowds, if we are really preaching the gospel. (TIR 317)

 

In a later section on evangelism we’ll examine more of his observations about pop evangelicalism’s methods of evangelism, but before that, we have to get back to the important question he raised, are we really preaching the gospel? 

 

Scripture warns that there are false Christs and false gospels:

 

^ESV 2 Corinthians 11:4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

 

^ESV Galatians 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

 

As he ponders what the church could be, Claiborne recognizes that there are differences between gospels (those that are actually good news and those that aren’t):

 

I thought to myself, Wouldn’t we all go to a church that believes in ordinary fools and ragamuffins and whose gospel is actually good news? (TIR 19)

 

In TIR we often see Claiborne referring to people within the movement preaching and prophesying, but rarely do we get any insight into the content of the messages they preach.  He will say things like “we are about ending poverty” (TIR  123).  That’s a noble thing, and if it could be done without ending wealth20 , it would indeed be good news.  But is that the good news of the Bible? 

 

Claiborne appeals to the early church on a number of occasions as his inspiration.  The first few speak of their lifestyle, but not their message (TIR  63, 87).  Then we start to realize that in Claiborne’s view, the lifestyle is the gospel.

 

What gave the early Christians integrity was the fact that they could denounce the empire and in the same breath say, “and we have another way of living. If you are tired of what the empire has to offer, we invite you into the Way.” (TIR 118)

 

For the original plan21 of God was that Israel would be set apart to redeem the nations.  This was not a plan to reform the pagan nations around it … Rather, God would save the world through fascination, by setting up an alternative society on the margins of empire for the world to come and see what a society of love looks like.  It would be a city on a hill that God would use to light up the world, drawing the world back to God.” (JFP 60)

 

It is important for witnesses and ambassadors not to disqualify their message by being hypocrites.  I think Claiborne does a good job of calling our attention to the glaring worldliness and selfishness in the church.  As I confessed before, we as a church have some serious self-examination to do.  Was the message of the early church to denounce “the empire” and invite people to join the movement/lifestyle?  Before I turn to the Scriptures, here is an interesting take on Claiborne’s perceived mission of the early church:

 

What an extraordinary thing it must have been to sit around with that eclectic mix of Zealot revolutionaries, Roman tax collectors, peasants, Samaritans, prostitutes, and fishermen, all conspiring to find a radical new way of life. (TIR 139)

 

I don’t mean to represent Claiborne’s view as being that the communal lifestyle practiced for a short time by a few members of the early church is the full content and substance of the gospel, but he has given us little indication that there is any more to it.

 

When I read my New Testament, I find a vastly different gospel message.  When Jesus gave the Great Commission, it was:

 

^ESV Mark 16:15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

 

^ESV Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

 

Jesus commissioned ambassadors for himself and we see the message also characterized as a ministry/message of reconciliation to God.

 

^ESV 2 Corinthians 5:18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

 

If the world needs to be reconciled to God, there must be a broken relationship.  We start figuring out very quickly that while doctrine may not be compelling (TIR 28) or attractive (TIR 117), it is important.

 

The gospel is this: God, in His grace, sent Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord to die on the cross to satisfy God’s holy justice and reconcile to himself a people from every nation, economic status, etc. 

 

When we continue the passage in 2 Corinthians 5, we see substitutionary atonement in all its mystery and beauty:

 

^ESV 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

 

When we think about it from the world’s perspective, why would Jesus have to suffer such a bloody and terrible thing?  Why can’t God just blow it off/get over it and save everybody?  Theology matters.

 

If we believe this is the gospel, how do we become one of God’s people? Theology matters a lot. 

 

 

The Message of the Cross

 

Claiborne refers to the cross often in the books. For instance he was upset when he discovered the folks at Willow Creek church had removed their cross from their auditorium because it wasn’t seeker-sensitive (TIR 106).

 

My heart sank as I walked into the foyer and noticed something I had never seen before: the American flag standing prominently in front of the auditorium.  And never before was I so heartbroken that the cross was missing. For the flag and the cross are both spiritual.  And they are both political.  It is a dangerous day when we can take the cross out of the church more easily than the flag.  (TIR 193)

 

I find other references like this one that sounds poetic, but demonstrates a common problem among postmodern/emergent authors, false dichotomies22 :

 

What do we do when the foolishness of the cross actually makes more sense than the wisdom of the sword?  (TIR 21)

 

Then he appears to make politics and economics the meaning behind Jesus’ death:

 

The Jesus of the margins suffered an imperial execution by an oppressive regime of wealthy and pious elites. And now he dares me and woos me to come and follow, to take up my cross, to lose my life to find it… (TIR 207)

 

Does Jesus woo and dare us, or command us as Sovereign King?

 

^ESV Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹ because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

 

^ESV Luke 9:23 And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

 

 

To take up one’s cross means to obey and so identify with Jesus Christ, we will do so even unto death.  How do we live out our love for Christ?

 

^ESV John 14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

 

I believe obedience to Christ is summarized well in The Great Commandments, and the Great Commission.

 

The Great Commandments

^ESV Mark 12:28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" ²⁹ Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' ³¹ The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

 

The Great Commission

^ESV Mark 16:15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

 

^ESV Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

 

To love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength leaves no room for careless theology.  God has a lot to say about Himself and how He is to be worshiped.  The Great Commission speaks of “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.”  How can we say we love God when we don’t work hard at understanding that which we are to obey? 

 

Claiborne recognized a problem:

 

From my desk at college, it looked like some time back we had stopped living Christianity and just started studying it. (TIR 71)

 

To study it without obeying or living it is folly, but the answer is not to quit studying the great doctrines of the faith.  J. Gresham Machen describes Paul’s view of doctrine this way:

 

Paul was convinced of the objective truth of the gospel message, and devotion to that truth was a great passion of his life. Christianity for Paul was not only a life, but also a doctrine, and logically the doctrine came first.23

 

To love our neighbors as ourselves is an area where Claiborne can teach us a lot.  While I don’t believe in his concept of “redistribution” (discussed later), I do believe in generosity, engagement, incorporation, and interdependence.  I also don’t believe for a moment this is just about economics.  God is drawing his people from every sector of the world and that includes the poor.  As we consider the Church as the Body of Christ, we are no doubt missing some important Body parts when we neglect to expand the kingdom among the poor.

 

To go and proclaim the gospel and make disciples is our primary call.  To obey Christ is to preach the cross—Christ crucified.

 

The foolishness of [the preaching of] the cross is not simply referring to a lifestyle; it is far more.  It is the ultimate expression of God’s love.  To preach of God’s love in its most radical form we have to preach the cross, and give the complete story.  One cannot preach the cross apart from preaching sin.  Without an understanding of the requirement for this bloody vicious act, it doesn’t just sound like foolishness, it is foolishness.  Just as one cannot preach the cross apart from sin, one cannot preach sin apart from God’s Law.  Without God’s revealed standard of righteousness known, sin is reduced to moral opinion (Rom 3:19-20).

To take up our cross and follow Christ is to love and obey Him.  We must learn to love our neighbors more genuinely, but we must not forfeit sound doctrine and biblical worship to do it.  As D.A. Carson warned us in the quote I gave in the introduction, we need to avoid “pendulum-swinging reductionism.”  We need to stop over-reacting against legitimate errors, only to take us deeper into others.  The answer to “dead orthodoxy” is not to get rid of orthodoxy, but to go to the source of life.

 

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