The Jesus Way and the world's way

On the final pages of The Jesus Way I found this quote from Peterson. He is writing about the uniqueness of following Jesus,

"It is like nothing else. There is nothing and no one comparable. Following Jesus gets us little or nothing of what we commonly think we need or want or hope for. Following Jesus accomplishes nothing on the world's agenda. Following Jesus takes us right out of this world's assumptions and goals to a place where a lever can be inserted that turns the world upside down and inside out. Following Jesus has everything to do with this world, but almost nothing in common with this world."

This connects with so many things I've been thinking about.

The life of the citizen of God's Kingdom, a follower of Jesus, is counter every culture of this world. However, Peterson's final sentence here won't allow us to escape from the world into some other-worldly kind of existence. Following Jesus is done in this world and engages with life as it is lived in this world (or as Qohelet would have it 'life under the sun'). But the values, the patterns, the means of this world are rejected by the follower of Jesus in favour of the values, patterns and means of Jesus. Living Kingdom lives now will turn the world upside down, for the blessing of all, Gen 12:3. Peterson's final sentences in this must read book,

"But in every generation a few do follow Jesus. They deny themselves, they take up their cross, and they follow him. They lose their lives and save them - and long with their own, the lives of many, many others."

Which culture?

At the CWW re-energise 4 conference a minor theme that came through was the enslavement of the gospel to a modern, rational culture. The challenge was given to free the gospel from this cultural slavery and re-engage with the gospel.

I've only got two problems with this.

1. Even the presentations asking us to free the gospel from a modern culture were at best asking us to locate the gospel in a different cultural expression. We are all creatures of our culture and it is difficult, if not impossible, to wholly step outside our culture. Perhaps the best we can do is be aware of our cultural preferences.

2. The Kingdom of Heaven, which is the theme of the preaching of the Lord Jesus, is counter-cultural. It is not counter one culture, e.g. a modern culture, and at home in another culture, whether ancient or post-modern. The Kingdom of Heaven is counter-every-human-culture. The life of a citizen of this Kingdom, as described in the Sermon on the Mount, cuts across every human cultural pattern and expectation.
The call of the Lord Jesus to live as citizens of his Kingdom is a call to a radical discipleship that will have us live against the grain of our received culture or any new culture we may adopt.

The way is narrow and the road is steep.

Listening to Brian McLaren (3)

This is the last of my posts on my 24 hours with Brian McLaren. Thanks to Keith, Alistair of the New Evangelical Theological Symposium for the opportunity to be with you all.

Brian McLaren on the Big Questions
Speaking to a gathering of over 100 Brian addressed the big questions. He opened with an illustration from his time as a youth leader. He asked the young people what were the questions occupying their church groups, and then he asked what questions they discussed at school with non-Christian friends. The two lists were completely different and there could be no doubt which one was the more significant list. The point is that not only are our ‘church questions’ not relevant to our community beyond the church they are insignificant before a holy God who loves this world.

Brian has been studying the global problems we are all facing and asking what does the message of Jesus say about these problems. You can read of this in Brian’s book Everything Must Change. Brian has identified four global crises:
1) Our prosperity system can’t stop growing beyond the limits of sustainable growth,
2) The growing gap between the rich and the poor is stretching our equity system to breaking point,
3) Our security systems can’t cope with the anger of the poor and the fear of the rich,
4) Our world’s religions are failing to provide a story capable of dealing with the first three crises.

Does our telling and re-telling the story of Jesus and the good news of the Kingdom of God address these pressing crises? If it does not have we misunderstood the message of Jesus? Are we in fact misrepresenting the good news of the Kingdom which Jesus came to announce?
Clearly Brian is not replacing a set of irrelevant questions asked within our churches with a set of culturally relevant but equally irrelevant questions. Every culture does have its own irrelevant questions and the church exists to challenge these with the questions posed by the announcement of the Kingdom. Identifying these crises in this way may well be an example of how God uses such crises to recall his Church to a faithfulness to the good news of the Kingdom from which we have slipped. These are the big questions we must answer, knowing that Jesus and his message of the Kingdom provide the answer for us.

One of Keith Green’s songs had a line about how Jesus rose from the dead but the church is asleep in the light. Brian McLaren should serve as an alarm call to us. If we read or hear what he says we are challenged to reflect upon how we live and tell our Christian story. Even if we do not agree with Brian and find we need to change our thinking about the gospel, our serving of the mission of God in the Kingdom will be more faithful for having reflected upon a challenge offered to us from a brother engaged upon a common quest with us of serving Christ in our generation.