i kinda wonder if life transformation has always been a norm or if it's always just going to be a rare thing.

and not because of the way the gospel's preached, or even heard by the listener.

i think we may be misled a bit by the great writers of history, and their evangelistic fervor. we only see the very surface - if that - or the billions of people calling themselves 'Christian' the past 2000 years. even in acts, i wonder (somewhat cynically, i'll admit) how many of the 3,000 converts in the great sermon peter preached were in the church a year later, and how many had somewhat backslidden to their earlier ways.

we even have the picture of ananias and sapphira - in the church, yes, but a little less than transformed, it seems.

even in aa, you can go to a meeting, and see thirty people whose lives really were turned around. but they represent, at best, 10% of the people that come through the doors.

and we're quick to say the fault is with the individual, that he or she never really surrendered, or never really "accepted Christ." to me, that's an unfair judgment, since we've never walked in their shoes. and, as in this post, we say 'maybe we're not preaching the gospel correctly.'

so, as i may have said here before - how much does an individual's personality play in the transformation that's possible? does God say, well, you know, that's about the best i could do with him - really didn't have that much to work with when i started...

just some thoughts. not trying to belittle the power of God - but, after all, do we really expect those who are mentally challenged to respond the same as others with full mental capability? perhaps the same thing happens when the gospel is heard by those of differing personalities and situations in life.

mike rucker
fairburn, georgia, usa

Then there are those of us who understand that the camps of which Skye speaks are the two sides of a two-headed coin. Whether we are trying to make the Gospel relevant or rethinking it altogether, we have left the Holy Spirit out of the equation. We have decided God's Word is not sufficient in itself so we decide to take over.

The following immediately comes to mind: "...God has been pleased by the foolishness of the preaching to save those that believe."

It seems to me that the Spirit of God decides the relevance and we should be occupied with the foolishness (in the eyes of the natural man).

Further, "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."

And again, "

The "again" (I got distracted) in my last post was with respect to what the Apostle Paul says to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 "...I held back nothing of what is profitable, so as not to announce it to you, and to teach you publicly and in every house, testifying to both Jews and Greeks repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.

Curious question: To what extent is your epistemology formed by Scripture or by the prevailing culture? I must ask myself this question daily.

Woa.. "interdisciplinary pseudonymology?" Methinks karma ran over dogma there..

The gospel that Jesus preached was transformative and created faithful communities. At least, it was effective with the twelve post-Pentecost. Whatever gospel we have been teaching in the past fifty years has not formed people in the disciplines of Christ life. We are the same as the surrounding culture. That cues me that our message is lacking, and not identical to the gospel of the kingdom. Culture is a cultivating force. If we do not have alternative kingdom cultures (ekklesia) then we can't form faithful disciples. But if we don't have faithful disciples (both values and practices) then how will we form faithful communities? However we answer the question, preaching (in this traditional sense) is only one practice in a matrix, and we have placed too much weight on it. See in particular Fitch in "The Great Giveaway"

That's all well and good, Len. I agree.

But how do you do that if it means (and I think that necessarily it does) that we are invited to offload the pseudo-Christianity that baptizes middleclass social values as "true Christianity"?

Whatever gospel was preached to the Corinthians must have been faulty because it produced a divided, carnal, incestuous, short-sighted, unspiritual congregation. Who spoke in tongues and had divorced members.

Was the lack of transformation the fault of the gospel or its presentation (not culturally relevant enough)? What did Paul not do in the infancy stage of that church that he should have done differently? Isn't the canon of NT epistles based on churches that weren't what they should have been? Churches are still filled with sinful human beings. I don't think the fault is with the gospel or with the presentation. It lies with the individual Christian who chooses not to heed the Word.

thought about this a little more last night (acutally, around 4am, awakened by a nightmare about a job interview today...)...

the audience today can be forgiven, can it not, if it doubts some of what preachers preach? we really do have a lot more knowledge about science, anthropology, the ancients, etc.

if a preacher is preaching a literal 6-day creation, that a woman really was created by taking a man's rib, and that all humans sinned when a man and woman ate an apple, is doubt an unexpected response?

if a preacher is preaching God came walking around one day, saw a big pile of rocks, felt frightened by what man could accomplish (the internet must have him cowering in a far corner of heaven), and His best plan to fix everything was mixing up all of man's languages, is a chuckle and a head-shake all that inappropriate?

if a preacher is preaching that all the animals climbed in a boat - in spite of the logistical impossibilities of this - how many listeners wouldn't move a little closer to the exit door?

and if a preacher sums the life of Jesus up into a transactional salvation instant when one says yea or nay to God requiring a blood sacrifice to forgive sin, how unexpected is it that many would leave that day and never come back?

just some thoughts.

mike rucker
fairburn, georgia, usa

I think that J.D Greear of The Summit Church in Durham, N.C. handled this question well in his sermon from this past week. I suggest that anyone interested give it a listen.

I am a product of the Gospel. It was a light that revealed the darkness that controled my life. When I belived the message of the Gopsel and accepted Jesus and surrender my life to him a change began to take place in my Mind and Heart which began to affect my way of living and believing, I think this is what transformation is about, Rom. 12:2. I soon found that I loved God and was thnakful for what he had done in my life and what he promised to continue to do if I trusted in him. This Transformation is a continuing work that goes on and will continue as long as I believe in the Jesus of the Gospel and by his grace continue to stive to walk in his will, and be lead by his spirit. Phil. 1:6

The Power of the Gospel is something you cannot understand by just reading it or watching other people, you have to accept it and experience it for yourself and then you will be able to understand why hundreds of thousands of men and women have given their lives to defend this eternal message and truth.

Hummm.... the following comes to mind.

"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."

The gospel that Paul preached was: "...repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ."

So unless you are not for verbal inspiration of scripture, there is no argument.

As I have read this string I cannot help but wonder at our own blindness. We speak of God in very technical language awashed in institutional praxis. We are theologians adrift on an cloud casting judgement on others who fail to read the bible the way we would like us to.
What if we are all wrong? What if the answer is yes and.... What if we are all right? Are we confident enough in our God and are we confident enough in our baptism to challenge our prejudices?
Have we made Word our crutch? Have we Spirit the scapegoat for enforcement of institutional dogma. Wesley discussed viewing Christ the experience, tradition, reason, and scripture. It is a balance. Have we become so unbalanced that we won't accept Christ but on our very narrow terms. What if God doesn't work that way?

Skye says: "These two groups were not unlike the two groups that formed during the modernist/fundamentalist split that happened a hundred years ago... Many Christians looked at that tangled mess and concluded they needed to adjust the gospel. In doing so they ended up forming mainline, liberal theology. The fundamentalists among them said, "I don't care what's happening to the culture. The gospel's the gospel, and we're not changing it!""

Interestingly, the mainline liberal churches spent the next 50+ years in a death spiral which continues to this day. They took the core truth out of their theology and had nothing left to offer. No wonder people left in droves. The fundamentalists were so put-off by this that they decided not only to embrace core truth but to embelish it with various forms of legalism which in some cases created a new group of 'works' added to grace. Along come the new 'evangelicals' to fill the void and the gospel spread like wildfire. And here we are a hundred years later with another culture shift and the same thing happening again. This time the 'evangelicals' are splitting because a new generation of them (born into it rather than born-again) want to "adjust" the gospel to be culturally relevant. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

To ericpo,

Huh? Are you saying we don't know anything? Do we not "have the mind of Christ"?

To Melody,

Bravo!

Two quotes come to mind Nathan. First, Brueggemann: "For Ezra, as for Moses, new church starts do not aim at strategies for success, but at strategies for survival of an alternative community. What must survive is not simply the physical community; what must survive is an alternative community."
Second, Lohfink: "It can only be that God begins in a small way, at one single place in the world. There must be a place.. Visible, tangible..where the salvation of the world may begin: that is, where the world becomes what it is supposed to be according to God’s plan. Beginning at that place, the new thing can spread abroad. All must have the chance to behold and test this new thing. Then, if they want to, they can allow themselves to be drawn into the story of salvation God is creating. Only in that way is freedom preserved."

Melody, I agree partially with your assessment. And I even agree partially with your critique of "relevantism" ;) It's true that some of the call to reassess the gospel is driven by cultural change. It's equally true that some of the call is driven by God. It seems he has a genuine interest in culture, and sometimes we have to change in order to stay the same. But here I am putting the emphasis on God's initiative in helping us disembed the gospel from the dying culture so we can understand it afresh.

If the concept of a triune God doesn't fit with your experience of the real world, maybe this will help. we know that water exists as ice and liquid and vapor and we also know that that at the triple point they become one substance. In Hia creation He showed that all three forms can become one.

The "Way of the Master" ministry has come to a similar conclusion ("Hell's Best Kept Secret," as they call it). And I think Melody touched on some similar points above.

WotM asserts that the Gospel without the Law is like thread without a needle, but I prefer to say the same thing with a different analogy: The law is the wrecking ball for incompetent structures, while Jesus is the Engineer who will lay the new foundation and the Gospel is his blueprint.

There are probably many ways to say that, but the point is that the Gospel is useless and inappropriate if the Law doesn't precede it. And that is, as I see it, the difference between the Church's currently predominant message and the whole of the New Testament.