An observation and a question...

In talking to several of my friends about some theological issues I've noticed that the way you answer the following question has much to do with how you approach God and the people around you.

The question is...

Do you think that the creator is at work before our eyes molding creation into his beautiful vision or do you think that creation was once perfect and is now deteriorating before our eyes until the point that a final destruction is inevitable?

In other words, is the world becoming more and more like the kingdom of God or is it becoming less and less like the Kingdom of God? Is it possible that all our theological debates boil down to "is the glass half full or half empty"?

(I guess that was more than one question)

Being optimistic is one of the difficult challenges for me. Maybe my interpretation of the Bible was leading me to a pessimistic view of the world, which in turn made me pessimistic about my life. Maybe a different interpretation of the Bible will lead me to a lifestyle of optimism.

What is a Christian anyway?

Chad challeged our group tonight to go back to the basics and come up with a definition of a Christian. I've read about 6 books in the last 2 months dealing with this so it might be good to try and summarize my thoughts at this point. It needs some help, but nothing we said as a group really did it for me.

Here is the summary "definition" of what I have been reading...

A Christian is a person that has caught a glimpse of Jesus’ vision and has become part of a community of activists seeking to bring about that vision.

That is probably too summarized, so here is an explaination of each piece...

1. The centerpiece of Jesus’ message is a vision for the future. This is the often misunderstood “Kingdom of God” which is really God’s vision for the future of all creation. He speaks of this more than anything else. It is a radical vision where the first shall be last and the last shall be first and we love our neighbors and our enemies. It isn’t limited to a place like heaven and its not limited to a particular time and its not limited to a group of people or a specific religion. It is what God wants for all of creation now and forever. God’s vision is more than a church or even a particular religion. This vision encompasses all churches and religions as each are a unique catalyst for the vision. We do it a great disservice by continuing to use the metaphor of "kingdom" because our society doesn't really understand what a kingdom is or really want any part of one.


2. Jesus is central to Christians because he is the way we learned about the vision. In Jesus, God revealed “the way” we make this vision a reality.


3. It means being a part of a community living and working together in this vision. Having a vision is empty without being a part of a community that shares and nurtures that vision.


4. It means being an activist involved in bringing about the vision by changing people’s lives one at time until the changes in people begin to cause a ripple effect that changes social morals and norms, systems of justice, political institutions, the environment, and all of creation. Activism is a natural outcome of a Christian life.
   

Hell...

Every time I think that I may have an original thought or at least a new slant on an existing thought, Brian Mclaren publishes a book about it before I can even write it in a blog post. He did it again with his latest book “The last word and the word after that”. I read it this weekend and I think it really brought home some ideas I had been wrestling with for several months. The book is the last chapter in the trilogy he began in “A new kind of Christian” and although I loved the 1st book, this latest one was much more applicable than either of the first two books. I got a bit bored in the 2nd book “The story we find ourselves in” mainly because it dealt with creation / evolution and I had no real problems accepting evolution the way many Christians here in the Bible belt continue to struggle. I had been having several conversations the last few weeks about the “after-life” and I was shocked to get this book in the mail (I pre-ordered it) and realize that it is all about hell and the warped theology that has evolved about hell through the history of the church.

Of course the book is true to the writing style of Mclaren that wraps his thoughts about theology into story form. Although I am “post-protestant” in my personal theology (to borrow a Mclaren term), I am not very post modern in my line of thinking. I am much more scientific and would prefer a bulleted list of concrete conclusions, so wading through a “story” to get the answer is not particularly intriguing to me. I do however love these characters which he creates to help the story unfold. I really appreciate that I now have several books that represent how I think theologically that I can recommend to friends and family who could never read a dry scientific presentation of facts and conclusions.

The more I think about hell the more I realize how central it is to how we approach our lives. Letting go of a literal belief in hell frees us to see that the reason for following the way of Jesus is all about the “here and now”. Understanding the kingdom of God as God’s dream or vision for things here on earth changes everything. I was afraid that letting go of a good fire and brimstone view of hell would introduce a sort of “anything goes” type of mentality, but I think I can now see how it has a complete opposite effect on my life. I can no longer live this life as practice for something else or hold on to the hopes that whatever is wrong now will get fixed next time around. Instead I am left with a sense of urgency that was missing before. I’m not sure how this will play out in my life, but I know I would rather face tomorrow with a sense of urgency to follow the message of Jesus than a sense of complacency.