Last post I blogged on some of the highlights of Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change (EMC). To just reiterate, I found EMC to be a compelling statement for the emerging church's theology (read prior post here). I highlighted several aspects of the book that I felt were valuable contributions that furthered the emerging church's theology. I could have talked about several more. Having said all that however, I also think the book illustrates why emerging theology/writers are often misinterpreted or criticized. For emerging church theology often leaves crucial things unsaid. I see this problem with EMC. As far as specific criticisms of EMC, Tall Skinny Kiwi (TSK) recently posted here some questions on his blog that are similar to mine (and for that matter Scot McKnight's). Where is "the church" in this book? Is EMC's eschatology too immanentist? What do you mean by "the kingdom of God"? I urge you to read TSK's interview with Brian. To me the interview substantiates this problem of emerging writers "often leaving crucial things unsaid."

What I'd like to do in this post is concentrate on Brian's theology of "the kingdom of God." I think Brian is often too opaque in his descriptions of "the Kingdom of God " in EMC. I think he implies things he might not really believe if pressed. I think this then weakens his message as a provocation for change. I hope this little post, along with all the others, furthers the upcoming DeepShift conversation (at Oak Park, it's still not too late to sign up) and encourages Brian further. For I have great hopes that an invigoration of the church can come forth by the Holy Spirit through Brian's leadership. And I think this could be furthered by some clarity from Brian on some issues concerning the Kingdom of God. So here are my questions in brief:

BRIAN - ARE YOU IMPLYING WE SHOULD SEPARATE THE MESSAGE OF JESUS (THE KINGDOM OF GOD) FROM THE MESSAGE ABOUT JESUS (HE RULES AND REIGNS)- if so why?

Brian seems to differentiate "the message of Jesus" (the kingdom of God) from "the message about Jesus" (see for example p.22,98 - this is something I have heard Doug Pagitt do more than once). This hearkens back to the basic questions driving NT Theology at the turn of the last century. For Brian, "the kingdom of God is a framing story (which I agree it is) yet somehow I sense Brian wants to distance this message from the message that indeed the person and work of Jesus Christ as reigning Lord is the means by which this Kingdom is taking place. Am I imagining this? I could be wrong. Because I am sure that Brian would agree that Jesus, the Son f God, having won the victory over sin, death and evil on the cross and in the resurrection, is now sitting at the right hand of God ushering in His Kingdom through the Spirit's work until its final completion. But somehow this seems to be missing. Brian simply does not talk about the Kingdom of God in this way in EMC. Brian seems to be asking us to follow the message of Jesus, the way of Jesus, and if we believe in it then "everything must change." My contention is "everything has already changed." God has begun His reign over evil and sin in Jesus Christ through the resurrection, His exaltation and His reign. Let us now begin to live in/under this change, this inbreaking reality. Is this missing in EMC? Or am I being picky?

BRIAN - WHAT WILL KEEP "THE KINGDOM" MESSAGE FROM GOING THE ROUTE OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST'S JESUS MESSAGE?

Brian's argument is that the proto-type American evangelical gospel domesticates Jesus into a middle-class gospel that has been flattened down and no longer challenges the social status quo (p.3,4,29). Most of us agree wholeheartedly with Brian (including myself!). This is one of Brian's great appeals to us disenchanted evangelicals. But if the above is true - that Brian separates the message of Jesus from the message about Jesus - what is to keep "the kingdom of God" from going the way of this middle class gospel? What is to keep the "kingdom of God" as concept from becoming domesticated in the same way as Jesus was by the American evangelicals: i.e. made comfortable for the same middle-upper middle class American Christians.

Many of us believe this already happened once - in the first articulation of a gospel around "the Kingdom of God." In the mainline protestant social gospel of the 20's 30's to the 70's, the "kingdom of God" became a gospel preached in protestant churches which enlisted thousands for the government programs of justice, "the Good society." The church then, with the job of God's justice being taken care of by the State, settled into its comfortable middle class life. Just as "Jesus" became domesticated into a upper middle class gospel about the afterlife that asks nothing of us socially and politically as a people (evangelicalism), so also the message of "the kingdom of God" became domesticated for ulterior purposes as well: i.e. the kingdom of God became a social program (via the protestant social gospel movement) under the auspices of the government which many would argue became the servant of democracy and capitalism, the very socio-political systems which encoded power, wealth and privilege in the first place. INSTEAD OF EVERYTHING BEING CHANGED, very little was changed.

To just rehearse this theological history, Ritschl, Harnack and others of 19th century protestant theology preached the Kingdom of God was the primary message of Jesus. In the aftermath of the sweeping acceptance of the "Quest for the Historical Jesus": (Schweitzer et. al.), it was accepted that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet, yet the message of Jesus, the Kingdom of God, was the truth of the matter. This "Kingdom of God" got interpreted to refer to what God was doing in the world as understood in the surging progress of democracy (most notably by Rauschenbucsh) and all things liberating the individual from economic and social oppression. Democracy became the stand-in for "the kingdom of God." Ironically, fundamentalist evangelicals (read here pres.Bush) follow in this shadow seeing American democracy and freedom as the hope for the world's salvation.

I have argued this before, that once the church was taken out of the engagement for social justice in society, "the kingdom of God" became used to further the agenda of the powers including the state, capitalism and the multi- national corporate hegemony. Racial justice was all but usurped by government economic aims, the war on poverty and exploitation became servants of a sweeping global capitalism. The "kingdom of God" theology, which placed its hope in democratic ideals and economic progress ala the structures of a benign capitalism, became engulfed by the dominant powers which have formed the basis for what Brian calls the Suicide machine in EMC (I know I sound too much like Foucault here). Many may disagee, but the progress for racial justice in the US got derailed once it left the church (it was M L King of the church who started it) and became a set of institutions fed by State and corporate money. Many may disagree, but the progress in the struggle over poverty got derailed once it became a massive social program that depended on the poor for its enduring existence and profits. I know this can sound excessive, but I look to people like Shane Claiborne to make the same arguments more gracefully. So I think it is a fair question to ask Brian: WE'VE TRIED THIS BEFORE - HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT?

Today, there are some who see late democracy, and its collaboration with global capitalism, as the main culprits of this hideous suicide machine that Brian so brilliantly exposits in EMC (I'm talking about post Marxian Continental political theorists). Yet I argue, this is what happened with the first "social gospel" of the Kingdom. How does Brian's theological proposals in EMC avoid the same fate? I think Brian's work could be helped, as well as many emerging writers', if they would spell out the difference. Emerging folk complain often that they get accused of being protestant liberals falsely. I believe they are pursuing a different direction. Likewise, to many of us informed by postmodernity (obviously not all), protestant liberal "kingdom of God" theology is a failed social strategy. It would further the Kingdom and the emerging movement if Brian could clarify these issues for us.

BRIAN - SHOULD THE TITLE BE "EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE" or "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED"?
I come away from reading EMC with the sense that, according to all of us who agree with Brain about this Suicide Machine (and I am one of them), EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE, and now "it's up to us!" And of course it is up to us. Yet in a way, IT'S NOT … you know what I am saying? The reality is "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" and now we must join in and cooperate with the ongoing work of God to usher in the consummation of His Kingdom. This guaranteed Final Victory is part of our Framing Story (is this what TSK was getting at with his questions concerning eschatology?).

This problem can be solved simply by linking the Kingdom of God inextricably to the affirmation - "Jesus is Lord." Nothing is lost here. For we are not asserting a new universalist coercive foundationalism (Lesslie Newbigen) We are telling the Story we believe to be key to the future of all creation (the Secret Message). To me one cannot read NT Wright and miss the power of this (nevermind the host of NT scholars that went before him (Goppelt, Cullmann, Guelich, Ladd etc.). I read hints of this Lordship Christology throughout EMC. But does it seem to be muted in the book? Why? The funny thing is, I'm convinced Brian believes all of this and more. Is this just in my imagination? Other bloggers, help me out here if I misread Brian here.

BRIAN - DOESN'T EMC CALL FOR A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF THE CHURCH? WHY SO LITTLE TALK OF THE CHURCH AS A STRATEGY FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION?
Very simply, if "the kingdom of God" cannot be separated from "the King," this places a renewed emphasis on the local church as being the instrument of a new politics, the politics of justice, righteousness and social renewal. It is indeed these people, called out ahead of time to recognize the inbreaking Kingdom, who recognize Jesus as Lord already, who shall be empowered to be the subjects of the new dynamic, the victory over the powers that threaten the earth. Indeed Brian talks in EMC as if this is indeed what he is calling for (pp. 291 ff.). Yet it seems this message somehow gets dissipated in the book. The church does not take the central role here. Yet I can only imagine if a person of Brian's stature called for the church to begin a micropolitics of subversion WHOOOAH .. can you imagine 1000's of tiny communities of Christ, gathering under his Lordship to resist the foreign powers that threaten the world. (I think this emphasis on an incarnational subversive ecclesiology is the main difference between the missional movement and the emerging church movement). Somehow this dynamic is present in EMC, yet it misses the punch for the reasons I have stated before, and for a lack of a robust ecclesiology. Again, am I misreading here?

Brian, thanks for your contribution to the coming of Christ's Kingdom. I think you agree with everything I have just said. I just want you to more bold about it.

I'm open for discussion here. I'm open to being wrong. Heck, I want to be wrong. What are your impressions? Blessings on EMC and DeepShift.

It's kind of late in the game to review Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change. So much has already been said. But I thought I'd do a quick review anyway and raise some questions. I think the book is important and well done. And I'd like to throw my hat in the ring and say thank-you to Brian for the book. I also want to remind everyone that Brian's DeepShift Tour on the book is arriving right here next week in Chicagoland: Apr 4th and 5th at the First United Church in Oak Park. I am hoping to be there and urge others to join in the dialogue. I am reasonably sure a good price is still available for most of you. You can find out more right here.


Everything Must Change is vintage McLaren. The book tackles large issues, digesting significant data and theological material. Yet he writes with a prose that makes it all imminently accessible and compelling for those of us who don't have time or the scientific and/or theological acumen to really dig and understand the writers and issues he is engaging. In doing all this, Brian's writing is a service to the church of Jesus Christ.

There are many highlights in the book, too numerous for me to recount here. I'll just offer a few that were highlights for me of Brian's book Everything Must Change.

"Framing stories": Brian says we all have framing stories that make sense of the way we live in our worlds. Brian says that corporately as citizens of the West, our framing stories are failing (p. 68). The evidence of this is the global crises we find ourselves in. Brian's task then is to unfold the alternative framing story offered by Jesus as a counter story ( a counter narration) over against the dominant framing stories that so many of us, even Christians, live by. I think Brian draws closer here to those of us who have argued that the church is about the narration of a counter story to the one that is in power (I am thinking obviously of Milbank, Hauerwas and friends). Admittedly, there are stark differences, but thanks to Brian for opening this particulart way of post foundational of thinking to a much broader audience.

"Theocapitalism": In the book, Brian deconstructs the master framing stories that are killing us (with global crisis). One of these framing stories he calls theocapitalism. According to Brian, the ideology of theocapitalism narrates "the invisible hand" of the market as God and economic prosperity (meaning material wealth accumulation) as a sign of God's blessing. Theocapitalism narrates a world that blesses progress, economic growth, happiness through owning, competition and autonomous unaccountable money making as inherent goods (Pt 6 of the book). Admittedly, this is a critique which makes me smile. In the case of my own evangelical roots, it seems that the values/forces of multinational capitalism have infected everything we do including/and especially church. Thanks Brian for some helpful clarity here for the church.

"The Suicide Machine": Here Brian narrates how three systems - the prosperity system, the equity system, and the security system - work together to create a suicide machine - the earth's ecosystem. The three systems work together to create a system that is headed for destruction. This is best illustrated in the diagram on p. 66. Each system has a framing story which undergirds the system (for example theocapitalism for the prosperity system). I think the explanation and descriptions offered here are powerful, compelling and illuminating. This is the heart and the brilliance of the book. Brian helps us see the framing stories we are believeing which in turn allow us to cooperate with these destructive forces, even in the name of Christ. Brian then turns and offers Jesus and the Kingdom of God as a counter-story. Thanks Brian for the way your writing here exposes things.

MY QUESTIONS FOR BRIAN

My questions to Brian for this book are really the questions I bring with me to the whole emerging church movement. I think this book stands as a wonderful statement of some of the central strengths of the emerging church movement. The sentiments of this book are what draw me into the emerging conversation in the first place and why I try to participate. I have great hopes for the future of this movement. Yet this book also reveals to me some of the issues that remain to be addressed if (in my opinion) the emerging church movement is to have legs. These questions center on asking just how will everything be changed? Most of us resonate with the many critiques of the evangelical church emanating from the emerging church movement and its writers. But any constructive movement must have proposals for the way we embody the coming revolution ("the revolution of hope" as Brian labels it). I recognize this is an easy statement to make (just about anything). Yet I really do seek to engage this issue with seriousness and constructively for the furtherance of God's Kingdom in this movement. So please bear with me (give me a day or two) until this next post. In this next post I wish to pose two questions for Brian centering on the issue - Should it be EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE or EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED (with the empty tomb and the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord). I hope it will add to the upcoming day with Brian McLaren and the upcoming stop on the DeepShift Tour.

Christ is risen, Christ is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice:
Christ has burst the three days' prison;
let the whole wide earth rejoice:
death is conquered, we are free,
Christ has won the victory.

Come you sad and fearful-hearted,
with glad smile and radiant face!
Death's long shadows have departed;
Jesus' woes are over now,
and the passion that he bore
sin and pain can reach no more.

Come, with glad and holy hymning,
hail our God's triumphant day;
not one blackened cloud is dimming
all this glorioius morning ray,
breaking o'er the purple east,
symbol of our Easter feast.

Christ is risen, Christ is risen!
Christ has opened heaven's gate;
we are free from sin's dark prison,
risen to a holier state;
and a brighter Easter beam
on our longing eyes shall stream.

Words: Cecil Frances Alexander (19thC)
Music: Unser Herrscher, Joachim Neander (17thC)
Sequence: Dall Forsythe, Church of St. John the Evangelist

From the Daily Office ... Lord I'm ready ... help me go out now and live in this great reality.

Yes. I'm teaching an on-line readings course on postmodern philosophy/theology this summer. Interested?

Reading postmodern (Continental) philosophy can be a challenge to say the least. Yet a working knowledge of the basic authors can be invaluable when reading theology after the postmodern turn. Geoff Holsclaw (Ph.D. student at Marquette, part of the emergent village coordinating group, co-founder with me of Up/rooted an emergent cohort, and co-pastor with me at the Vine) and I are teaching a 10 week on-line course this summer covering some major authors in postmodern thought and theological responses to it. Northern seminary is offering it. Anyone can take it for credit that has an undergrad degree. You just have to register as either a visiting student or a student-at-large. You can of course transfer the credit to another seminary.

After the course, you should walk away with a good introduction to postmodern thought. We'll be tackling postmodern theorists like Foucault, Derrida, Levinas, Irigaray, Kristeva as well as theological responders like Rollins/Caputo, Milbank, Hauerwas and Rebecca Chopp. As prerequisites, I am recommending that you already have a basic knowledge of philosophy (say an "Intro to Philosophy" course) and theology (the basic Systematic Theology classes) to take the class. But if you're really interested in taking the course, and don't have these pre-requisites, please e-mail me via Northern and we'll talk about whether the class makes sense for you.

Here is a link, if you want more information on the course. If you want a copy of the syllabus, please e-mail here.

LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS SUMMER ON-LINE!!

There has been a broadening discussion out there on the ways we initiate people into salvation. Notice this post. Notice Tony Jones' contest for new metaphors for communicating what happens in salvation. Notice Dwight Friessen's heuristic thoughts on U-theory from a couple years ago (Thanks to someone's comment on this blog). Notice James Choung's book and video offering a new way to present salvation that addresses the issues raised on this blog concerning the Bridge Illustration. Thanks Andy Crouch for that link. I don't have any immediate suggestions for a new tool (I use the word "tool" hesitantly). Based on conversations at our church and over this blog however, here are six things I'll be looking for (in our own church discusssions) in a new initiatory tool.

1.) MAKE THE STORY HUGE When we tell the story, from the beginning of all creation to the coming of the New Heaven and New Earth, we need to make it huge. The story needs to be so huge that my life can only be caught up into the Triune God's work of bringing in the new order, of Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5). I haven't a clue as to how to go about this. Can the evangecube help here? I don't know much about it, just asking.

2.) PUT A DISCLAIMER ON THIS TOOL because no tool will work outside of an immersion into a community of Christ, a living breathing way of life where the language and stories of the gospel can make sense. Let's put a disclaimer on the next evangelism tool: Can only be used from within the living interaction a real living community of Christ.

3.) CHANGE THE CONTEXT OF THE TOOL. It seems that the Bridge is a metaphor for the middle class. It focuses on the issue of life after death or a personal relationship with God. Indeed these are parts of the salvation we have in Christ Jesus. Yet as has already been said, this reduces the salvation won in Christ. And it reduces it to elements that are appealing to a middle class Christendom. For you have to accept some of the basics to believe this pitch, i.e. heaven, hell. And you have to already desire a better spiritual life. These are characteristics of middle class Christendom. In addition both of these emphasies of salvation can be domesticated to the middle-upper class lifestyle without significant adjustments (am I being too cynical?). I believe the mission field in America has decidedly turned away from the middle-upper class. The real harvest is with the poor of all kinds in our declining society. A tool for evangelistic initiation should now focus on the poor, the desperate, those with addictions and foreclosed houses. Here people must be given a way to understand the bankruptcy in our real concrete lives within our equally bankrupt society. We must give a way of hope out of this desperation now that begins with life eternal now.

4.) WE NEED TO INVITE PEOPLE TO "COME AND DIE"
We need a way to invite people to "Come and die" (Bonhoeffer). For I am convinced … that no salvation in Christ really begins until one has died in some way. This has been too cushioned in the Bridge. And I believe it is the reason why I meet countless people saved under these methods who have little sense of the kind of discipleship we're called into and the kind of freedom and new life that awaits. Right up front we need to help people see the way to life is through death, mortification of the enslavements, whether they be materialism or addictive drugs. Strangely I think this kind of appeal will have some resonance with the poor, at least those who have come to the moment of truth that they need God. It will not appeal to those who are happy with their current attachements. But to those who have come to the place where they realize everything they have lived for is worth crap (Phil 2:7), this will be a relief.

5.) THIS TOOL SHOULD CREATE EPISTEMOLOGICAL CRISIS
I think most conversions happen when a lacuna is revealed in a person's cultural Narrative (something like "worldview" but slightly different) they are living. This usually happens in an encounter with another person's life, how it is lived, and the Narrative that undergirds it. It throws everything you believe up for grabs. By the Spirit, an authentic life as witness does just this. This new tool we're looking for should tutor Christians how to live the life of non-coercive simple hospitable authentic witness to the Story of Christ that throws people's lives (outside of Christ) into "epistemological crisis" (McIntyre).

6.) BROADEN THE TOOL'S THEOLOGY OF THE ATONEMENT
The Bridge Illustration reflects the traditional evangelical obsession with the penal view of the atonement. In the words of Scot McKnight in Christianity Today, this gospel is too small. We need a broader metaphor. I might recommend Heim, McKnight and Boersma as a few places to start. I like Oscar Cullman's metaphor of the war resistance in WW2 occupied Europe found in his classic Christ and Time.


The evangelistic tool we use at our church is built on the model of Hyppolytus in the third century. I learned it from Bob Webber in this book. Every year we have a 4 month initiation, beginning after Christmas all the way to Pentecost. It follows Hyppolytus' path of catechesis. We go from seeker (the understanding of the basics of conversion), to hearer (the understanding of Lord's Prayer, Apostle's Creed), to kneeler (self examination in the Spirit and the learning of Rom 6-8), which leads to baptism on Easter morning. It is a rehearsal of the Story of Christ. The goal is that all newcomers, or people seeking, or just wanderers wandering around our community, can be asked "are you ready to take the dive?" It's powerful. But it obviously is not portable. And it takes a four month comittment (In the third century it was a three year commitment). Even with this, to get people there, we are sensing the need for a more portable yet engaging tool for evangelism.

Peace ... and blessings as you walk next week in the path of the Holiest of Weeks.

A few posts ago, I proposed that the way we evangelicals speak about and practice salvation forms us for moral duplicity, for moral schizophrenia, for believing one thing and doing another. Among other things, I said:
1.) Our way of salvation has no account of what happens with desire. Therefore our desires are left untouched by our salvation.
2.) We have separated justification from sanctification, something I called the Lutheranizing of our soteriology (this got some comments over at the much beloved blog: the Boar's Nest - my response to that is that I was not blaming Luther himself, who was living at a different place and time. Rather I was referring to the ways we evangelicals took later developments in Lutheran theology and crassly made salvation all about justification by faith in separation from sanctification. To me, this is so patently obvious that I still believe I need take no additional space to defend myself on this).
3.) This development opened us up to make salvation a transaction between two individual entities (God and humanity) as opposed to the participation of me, a human creature, in the work of God to restore the whole of creation to Himself out of which I as individual am also justified, renewed and reconciled to God.
4.) As a result, we are left passive, to receive God's great salvation is Christ almost as consumers. All of this works to separate our newfound salvific status in Christ from the outworking of a life lived as doxology to God in Missio Dei.
If any of this is not making sense, please read the prior post where I might have done a better job explaining all this. I closed that last post by saying that the classic Bridge illustration "illustrates" (no pun intended) some of these problems. Here's why.




The Bridge Illustration I think illustrates some of these problems with our ways of initiation.

First, the Bridge constructs a "contractual" transaction. We recognize our "need." We receive Christ as the "solution." Then the "benefit" of this salvation is described. Then there is an individual decision to "believe." At the conclusion, we pray this prayer which guarantees me of eternal life. Recent versions construct the need in terms of our broken relationship with God and the solution as a birth into a new relationship with God. This version of the Bridge has significantly improved prior versions like this. Nonetheless, it still has its patented "If you've prayed this prayer and are trusting Christ, then the Bible says that you can be sure you have eternal life."

What's wrong with the Bridge's "transaction" approach? It has the effect of initiating the unbeliever into a salvation "for me" in the worst sense of those words. For in a consumerist society, the words "for me" can longer mean what they meant when Paul spoke them or Luther spoke them. Consumerist society has trained all of us to think, feel and breathe all things as products to be consumed "for me." Jesus, Son of God, very God, has been reduced to an object to be used for some benefit. At this point this simply is no longer a salvation recognizable by Paul, Luther or the Christian church.

Granted, what the Bridge says is true. Yet it has abstracted this truth from the story, which makes it into a consumable. This is what Guder refers to as the constant temptation towards reductionism in the missiological efforts of the church. The church as a result must be continually converted. To me, it is safe to say, that time has already long since arrived.

Second, the Bridge separates justification from sanctification. Although improvements have been made in the recent versions of the Bridge, salvation is still considered static! The plus in recent versions of the Bridge has been that salvation is articulated in terms of one's relationship with God as opposed to the singular penal transaction so common before. Nonetheless, it remains individualized and static. The problem is separation from God. The solution is "bridging the gap" to God through accepting the cross's payment. This makes the relationship with God static, you either have it or you don't.

The effect of this static account of salvation is to separate life with God from the moment of conversion. After praying the prayer, we now have the relationship as if it is already accomplished. The relationship we have with God is like this Thing. And the directions we are asked to follow on how to live the Christian life appear to be hollow individual exercises that hopefully keep you on the right path. They are not written as invitations into an endless expansive life with God and His Mission.

Last, the Bridge Illustration takes no account for what happens to desire. To me this is the most condemning problem of all with the Bridge. It is like once we accept Christ's provision for sin and the separation from God, desire takes care of itself. We are now told to read the Bible as intake, talk to God in prayer, tell others about our new found faith and go to church and serve. These all appear to be individual exercises, which can easily turn into legalistic works to secure a life after conversion. But unless the re-formation of desire is addressed, these directions for life after conversion inevitably produce failed Christian life and moral duplicity.

At our church, the pastors and leadership have started a conversation on this issue. WE NEED NEW WAYS OF INITIATING STRANGERS INTO THE GOSPEL THAT TRAIN THEM INTO BEING PARTICIPANTS IN GOD'S MISSON AS OPPOSED TO CONSUMERS OF THE GOSPEL. WE NEED A WAY OF INVITING PEOPLE INTO THE COSMIC RECONCILIATION THAT GOD IS WORKING THROUGH JESUS CHRIST (not just a transaction), WE NEED WAYS OF IMAGINING THE ONGOING LIFE WITH GOD THAT IS MORE THAN ONE'S PERSONAL PIETY (although it must include that as well). WE NEED COMMUNITIES OF THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES for new converts to be invited into THE RE-ORDERING OF ONE'S BODY (soul and spirit) INTO THE GLORY OF GOD THE CREATOR AND REDEEMER.

On the next post, I hope to discuss my initial thoughts on this as well as what other people are coming up with as well. In the meantime, Do you think I'm overly critical of the Bridge? Which criticism has the most merit in your experience? I could tell you endless stories of people converted through the Bridge at large church, mega church or evangelistic events who simply cannot cross the line towards life in God (and His Mission). Or who struggle endlessly with the issues of re-formation of desire. Does that resonate with your experiences?

Peace