Monday, August 13, 2007
Well Said...
This is a great video clip by Brian Mclaren.
I grew up in a church that saw the Kingdom of God as something that happens in the future after we all die. Then I spent 10 years in a couple of churches with people that understood the "now" aspect of this Kingdom, but they thought it was mostly about learning how to perform miracles and telling the future. It is refreshing to finally hear someone within Evangelical Christianity talk about the Kingdom as something other than a fairy-tale, a supernatural phenomenon, or an act of military force. For me, it is all about real people making real changes toward peace and justice right now. I may disagree with Brian's decision to hang onto certain Evangelical beliefs, but I really like his approach to Jesus' message about the Kingdom of God.
1 comments:
I grew up with that same "this world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through" mentality as well and I find Mclaren's view point rings much more truly. Rob Bell has a similar idea of the purpose of the Christian faith not supposed to be about heaven/Kingdom of God being off somewhere sometime--but something that we/God brings down to earth. It's not a reward, it's a reconciliation of the earth and people to what they should be. As Mclaren says, if you truly think about the kingdom of God being here and now--it changes how you see things. For example, Bell has said on more than one occasion that to be a Christian means to inherently be an environmentalist because God is Green. We aren't just ditching this world after some future rapture--so we better take care of it and each other. The traditional viewpoint of the Kingdom of God, in my opinion, really limits the truth of a beautiful concept.
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