everything must change

Scot McKnight summarizes one of the chapters in Brian McLaren's new book, Everything Must Change. Here McLaren compares the conventional versus the emerging views regarding the Kingdom of God. I don't know if the tags conventional and emerging are correct but I like the contrasts he is making.

1. What is the story we find ourselves in?

Conventional: creation as perfect, fall, determination by God to destroy creation and humans unless they are exempted.
Emerging: creation as good, humans rebel and fill earth — individually and as groups — with evil and injustice, God wants to save humanity but humans are “like sheep without a shepherd” and left to themselves they will “spiral downward in sickness and evil” (80).

2. What questions did Jesus come to answer?

Conventional: How can individuals be saved from eternal punishment?” and “How can God help individuals to be happy until then?”
Emerging: What must be done about the mess we’re in? “Mess” means general human condition and Roman conditions from which Israel wants liberation.

3. How did Jesus respond to the crisis?

Conventional: If you want to be among those who escape eternal punishment, you must repent from your individual sins and believe that my Father punished me on the cross so he won’t have to punish you in hell. This is the good news. (Basic quotation from p. 81)
Emerging: I have been sent with good news — God loves humanity, “even in its lostness and sin.” God invites us to turn and follow a new way. “Trust me and become my disciple, and you will be transformed, and you will participate in the transformation of the world, which is possible, beginning right now” (81).

4. Why is Jesus important?

Conventional: Jesus solves problem of original sin (so they won’t go to hell). “In a sense, Jesus saves these people from God … from the righteous wrath of God which sinful humans deserve…” (81). It’s a gift; personal relationship with God; happier life on earth and more rewards in heaven.
Emerging: Jesus came “to save the earth and all it contains from its ongoing destruction because of human evil. Through his life and teaching, through his suffering, death, and resurrection, he inserted into human history a seed of grace, truth, and hope that can never be defeated. This seed will, against all opposition and odds, prevail over the evil and injustice of humanity and lead to the world’s ongoing transformation into the world God dreams of” (81-2). This is all a “free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love.”

Technorati Tags: Emerging Church, Kingdom of God