a merry schismatic christmas (part 3)

to talk about what the gospel is is tricky, because one's understanding of the gospel is directly linked to their eschatology. so to argue about what the gospel and salvation are one has to get into what they think "the end" will look like. the gospel that focuses on a get-out-of-hell-free ticket is often dubbed the "fire insurance" gospel. it is a gospel that pictures the world as a sinking ship and the job of the church to get people onto lifeboats before the ship goes down. this view of salvation and the gospel tends to be pre-occupied with death and the future. it tends to have a negative view of creation and is generally resistant to a gospel that focuses on, "changing the world." this is the dominant view of the gospel/salvation/eschatology among conservative american evangelicals, and is the view of the our (anne and i) families.

last year for christmas we bought our mom's mars hill's (our church) worship cd. this made me a little nervous. our church takes a very different view of the gospel/salvation/eschatology than the view of our families, and many of the songs and readings on this worship cd express this view. our church believes in "holistic" salvation, and the term "holistic" tends to creep most american christians out, conjuring up new age images. we put emphasis on changing the world, and therefore, our church also takes a here and now perspective to salvation and the gospel rather than being focused on the future or post-mortem existence.

we also take a different view of the ship. rather than the ship going down, we believe that God is invading and redeeming the ship, and that some day God will completely restore the ship and take command. we believe that when God created the ship he said that is was good, and good it remains even though it is distorted by evil, chaos, destruction and injustice. so rather than having a doomsday focus on the world and current events, we see God's kingdom expanding and invading this reality. God's intentions aren't to destroy his creation, but destroy the evil, chaos and injustice that it is mired in. God is restoring and renewing, culminating in a merging of Gods kingdom and earth (rev. 21:2-4). for most of my life i didn't perceive the gospel this way. i shared the same perceptions as my family, and sometimes it's difficult for me to remember what that was like.

these two perspectives-- the ship going down versus the ship being restored-- not only color how we read certain passages of scripture, but influence how we see the world and live our lives. for instance, one has a much easier time bypassing the recycle bin if they believe that this place is destined to go up in flames. if one is fixed on escaping this world via death or rapture, then it's easy to slip into a mentality that believes it's ok to just enjoy one's suburban lifestyle whilst others strive to make ends meat or starve, because, in the end, the only things that matter are "spiritual things." outside of creating an opportunity for a miniscule number of people to pray the sinner's prayer this world and life aren't worth much. in fact you'd think the sooner it's destroyed the better, because as of right now billions of people are being churned out whose destiny is kindling for the flames of hell.