I've been thinking a lot lately about why we pray the prayer for salvation. I think a lot of it has to do with where we're at in the world, probably because it has a lot to do with how we're fed the gospel. Like in America, it's almost as if we pray it because it's a free ticket to Heaven - that's it and no more. We spend the rest of our lives just waiting around for death; death so we can go to Heaven and reap the benefits of speaking a few words in our lifetime. The result? Rotting dead people in pews.
The consequence is that we miss out on the reason for accepting Christ in the first place. We're such a consumerist society that this lopsided version of the gospel isn't well received anymore. Other religions have more appeal, especially with the promise at the chance of a new and maybe better life ‘reincarnated'.
But why does it seem that this is the one catch-phrase for most evangelists: are you going to heaven when you die? It's so empty, really. It's very shallow and whenever I run into street evangelists on the street… it pisses me off because this is all their concerned about. Some people say, "as long as the gospel's being preached…" But is this really all there is to the gospel? Because I think there's something more.
What I'm about to do I've never done before. I'm actually going to do a blog series. That's right. The funny part is: it's not my words. My friend Michael Beardslee and I were talking about this very issue and how it affects the church.
Apparently he wrote a paper on it.
It's a very sweet paper titled, "Reductionism Crisis: A Gospel Stripped of Power". It revolves around this very issue that's been plaguing my brain for the last few weeks. So I'm going to share it in a 3-4 part series.
In the meantime, I'm working on another blog series on "community". It's something I've been really passionate about in the last few years and, well, I'm going to write more about it looking at it biblically, theologically, and practically… granted I'm sure that over the course of the next year, I'm going to blow my own thoughts out of the water.
I might mention that Beardo's writing is pretty in depth. If you have any questions as to what something means, whether vocabulary-wise or theologically, let me know. I would love to answer questions. Not only will this challenge me, it'll hopefully challenge you.
2 comments:
i like this.. tony campolo/brian mclaren have a book called adventures of missing the point. and there's a chapter in there about salavation that talks about this.. like, salvation the word is like you were saying being used as are you saved? are you going to heaven? but in biblical terms it's not used like that, the israelites experienced salvation when they were rescued from the egyptians. we experience salvation, throughout our life, not just at one point. they told a story in that chapter I'll try to retell So, a town sent out some fliers for a race they were gonna have that would be exciting, and remove all boredom from your life etc.. so people gathered some in their running gear, some really skeptical, and still in their business atire.. so the gun went off, and the folks in the running gear leaped across the starting line, and began jumping for Joy. they crossed the line. the folks in their business atire thought this was rediculous, so they went and changed their clothes, and started the race, only they kept going and running through the race, and maybe it was hard, but they experienced joy, and never again were bored..
anyway, I thought that was kinda a cool way to say so often in american christianity folks stop after they cross the starting line as if it were the end.
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