Rose, my pastor, made a comment on my online Bible Study called Decoding the Apocalypse in response to a question: What is a clear witness? Below was my response to her comment.

As with most things, the Enlightenment Project produced a rash of reductionism. Witness was reduced to things like the “Four Spiritual Laws” and “door-to-door” evangelism with the sole intent of putting an argument to people demonstrating that they were sinners and needed salvation so they could go to heaven when they died. If they surrendered they prayed the “sinners prayer” and got their barcode, so they could be successfully identified upon entry into eternity. Sound familiar?

Living openly, lovingly, and for others with Kingdom of God attributes such as the “fruit of the Spirit” was not prioritized as “witness.” If it was, it was more like “sissy” witness where “speech and argument” was seen as “real” witness. Of course, Paul introduced what he calls the “fruit of the Spirit” which is love, out of which come all kinds of lifestyle corrections. I believe for him, the “fruit” was a tangible demonstration of the “age to come” entering into “this present evil age.” It was the lifestyle of the future being brought into the lifestyle of the present. It was living the future now as though it was then. Living in this way surely would produce abundant conversations about why one is living differently than others in our physical communities. Telling one’s story in lifestyle would surely allow for opportunity to tell one’s story in words where one can give and honest, resounding, answer that she/he loves God. There is little or no argument that can be given for a life change. When the blind man in Scripture told his story, “I once was blind, but now I see,” having known the life of the blind man who was now a seeing man, who would argue.

Yes, to live well and to talk well we need to be empowered by the Spirit. His presence and power is not just for healing the sick and casting out demons. His presence and power are needed to help us live a Kingdom present life in the midst of an age gone amuck. When was the last time that when faced with a choice of a decision to be Kingdom people or “amuck people” we stopped and even briefly asked for the power of the Holy Spirit to decide in favor of being a Kingdom person? I better stop now, I’m “talkin’ too much here.

Brain McLaren suggests that we who live in the West may be living in an Echo Chamber where it is difficult to “listen to the voice of others.” One solution to this potential difficulty is to get out of the Echo Chamber by reading and thinking about how folks in other parts of the world think and write. The following article is a great start toward that goal.

A UNIVERSAL CORE?
by Sherman YL Kuek, OSL
Sherman is an itinerant minister and an Adjunct Lecturer in Christian Theology at Seminari Theoloji Malaysia (STM). He spends much of his time journeying with his friends in reflecting on faith, life, and culture in a profoundly theological and yet simple way. Sherman blogs on www.ShermanKuek.net.

In speaking of contextualisation, there are (rather simplistically) two trends of thought:

1) The gospel consists of a “static universal core”, a series of articulations which is time insensitive and perennially unchanging. The contextualisation project is simply about enfleshing this core with a cultural facade for the facilitation of communication and understanding. The core, essentially, does not change.

2) The gospel consists of a “dynamic universal core”, a series of articulations which is time sensitive and perennially changing with the development of our theological understanding. The contextualisation project, whilst being about the cultural expression of this “dynamic universal core”, (more…)

It is easy and dangerous to distort the telling of the story of Jesus. Within American Conservative Christianity we have come to think of Jesus in one of two ways. First, an embodiment of divinity like a computer avatar rather than the unique incarnate son. We think of his death as an example of great sacrifice and his resurrection becomes a way of thinking and talking about God’s continuing work in the present world. Second, we think in a dualistic way. Jesus is someone who is from the outside of our world, a superman of sorts who has come from another sphere to tell us that our true home is someplace else, namely heaven. His coming was to teach us how to follow him to that distant and unearthly destination.

There is something wrong with that picture. Neither way of thinking comes close to the Story of Jesus as presented in the Gospels of the New Testament. American Conservative Christianity, served up on a regular basis in America and exported to the global world, simply ignores what the Bible actually says about Jesus in favor another story that has been created out of bits and pieces of perception and refracted through various biblical passage which misreads the text of the Biblical Story.

This brand of Christianity passes itself off as authentic because it believes the items that have come to be thought of as orthodox, namely incarnation, atonement, resurrection, spirit, and second coming. But, what has happen is that all these beliefs have been joined together into the wrong narrative sorta like a kid who is drawing a “draw by numbers” picture but decides to follow another sequence rather than following the numbers. The result of this activity: of not following the right sequence, is drawing a picture other than the one intended. If you put all the elements of Conservative Christianity within a story of a deist God who sent his superman son to undergo some redemptive violence in order to satisfy his primal vengeance, then raise this dead body to life in order to show followers a way back to heaven and away from earth only to come again and snatch them away from earth as earth finally rolls toward rotting in hell. If that is the narrative that one sets incarnation, atonement, resurrection, spirit, and second coming into, then that production produces a violently distorted parody of biblical Christianity. Alas, this is the story of American Conservative Christianity.

So What Biblical Story?
A fresh way of understanding the Story of Scripture is to understand it as a story where humankind, though created good, became radically flawed by sin. Into this flawed world, Jesus came as the long awaited King of the Jews, who themselves had been the redemptive promise of God for some two thousands years. Jesus came to do what Israel had failed to do. Jesus took on the weight of sin and exhausted it, not so those following him could escape this world because it was bad or evil, but because of his resurrection could become part of the project of new creation, a new heaven and earth, or one might say a new garden. This project started after the first created beings chose to follow themselves and not God. The second coming then, is not a day in which Jesus will snatch away his bride from this evil earth and take them to heaven forever, but a time when the rule of Jesus which was already established in his first coming: birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, will finally be established in peace and justice in a transformed heaven and earth. It is this Biblical narrative that should replace the present conservative Christian narrative, so that this narrative can make a fresh impact on the world in this present time. N. T. Wright was influencial in these thoughts.

I just listened to Len’s Sweet’s Napkin Scribbles (see below) about leaving his Bible behind on a recent trip to West Virginia. It reminded me of the time that I was leaving for a church service years ago and put my Bible on the trunk of the car while helping the kids inside. When I arrived at the church facility, my Bible was gone. I remembered what I had done and retraced my journey but did not find it. It was an interesting loss. It was the Bible that I had used all the way through seminary, with its notes and all. I looked for it along the journey route for several weeks, even looking on occasion, a year of so later. I called all the churches in the neighborhood, thinking some Good Samaritan may have found it and turned it to the church’s lost and found.

Like Len, I have wondered over the years if the church has left behind its use of the Bible which has casued the culture to leave the Bible out of its reading. I hear conversations from time to time about the Bible, usually a small discourse on a verse (versitis) or two or a tip of the hat by a small reading. The story of Scripture should impregnate our lives but that is difficult when the churches we attend leave out this important ingredient of being a Christ-follower. When a church leaves the Bible behind, it is not long before its congregants will also leave it behind. When the congregants leave the Bible behind they won’t be able to learn its Story and the sure results is that they won’t live its Story. Well, at least that’s my opinion.

What if John when he was writing his Gospel was saying by his opening words, “In the beginning,” that his book was a Genesis 1 sorta thing, a rewriting of the story of Genesis 1 with a new Adam (although he doesn’t use the term). What if we read John in that way? Of course, Genesis 1 is about creation given to us in an account of “days” not necessarily twenty-four hour days. On the sixth day, God created humankind in his image. In John’s Gospel on the sixth day, Jesus appears before Pilate and Pilate says, “Behold the man.” Could we understand that as John’s way of saying here is the true human being giving his life for the world God created. Remember, at the conclusion of the sixth day in Genesis, God finished all the work of creation. On the cross Jesus says, “It is finished!” On the seventh day God rested. In the tomb on the sixth day Jesus rested from all the work of recreation.

O Sabbath rest by Calvary,
     O calm of tomb below,
Where the grave-clothes and the spices
     cradle him we did not know!
Rest you well, beloved Jesus,
     Caesar’s Lord and Israel’s King,
In the brooding of the Spirit,
     in the darkness of the spring. (N. T. Wright)

On the first day of the new week, resurrection, a new creation.

What if we read John and understood John that way and became part of that story instead of the story that so many of us find ourselves living in.

What if…

Well, I decided not to blog live but to link to the actual talks that were given at the conference. It was a great time of inspirational learning about being missional. So take a listen. I’m not sure how long these feeds will be here.

Click on the Right Arrow to stream. Click on the link to open in a player.

Enjoy and make any comments you would like to make.

Friday Evening
The Meaning of Missional: Scot McKnight

The Meaning of Missional - Part 1: Todd Hunter

The Meaning of Missional - Part 2: Todd Hunter

Saturday
Reflection: Todd Hunter

Morphing the Missional: Rose Swetman

What Shall I Call This Presentation?: Scot McKnight

Interview with a Missional Minded Atheist: Jim Henderson

Going Missional without Getting Mean: Todd Hunter