Sometimes I don’t dare say what’s really on my mind. At other times, someone else provides the perfect set up. Here’s a definition of the gospel offered by a famous Christian leader I found on another site today.
“The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy, namely, himself.”
Do you agree? Why or why not?
Talk amongst yourselves. Depending on your response, I’ll either weigh in under the comments or post more tomorrow.
Posted on March 10th, 2008 by Kathy
Filed under: Monday's Church
For the most part, I can agree.
My biggest sticking point is with the word ‘happy’. It’s just such a cheap word to describe the entirety of what it means to have our life and our relationship to God restored. The statement also leaves out what God has done for creation as well as the collective of human society, not to mention the creation of the Church.
I can agree with the statement, but I don’t really like it. I think it’s incomplete.
Not a word of it is false. If you want my opinion on substitutionary atonement, you can check my last post (I cannot link it here for bizarre firewall reasons, but such is life.) Holy blood had to be spilled to expiate and propitiate both, but it was for joy the Father, Son, Spirit and we all played our part in this sacrifice.
Oprah is evidently teaching that any god’s a good god, so go forth and be spiritual. If the context of your famous speaker is similar, then your speaker is not a Christian. But sounding like Oprah’s only bad if your whole message is like Oprah’s. I’m sure I could find a quote with a similar tone from Spurgeon, and if I embed this quote into the context of Spurgeon’s gospel, it’s quite beautiful.
What’s it founded on?
For me as a liberal heretic, the source is interesting. (Being a liberal heretic means that I think salvation is not only for individuals, but also about the ‘now but not yet’ eschatological Kingdom.)
I don’t see Oprah as a fully-fledged Christian. In my view, she’s taken the traditional evangelical concept of salvation - which is about ‘me’ and ‘my’ salvation - and cheapened even that ‘me-salvation’ into ‘happy’. But it *is* a logical extension of a salvation that is only about me and not about The Kingdom.
Good comments, all, on the word “happy”
Richard Bolles quotes someone else in his book “What Color Is Your Parachute?”, saying: God calls us to the place where our great joy and the world’s great hunger meet. I find that a more meaningful slogan since it puts the emphasis on the joy that awaits us in ministering to Christ by serving in the here and now.
If anyone could track down the author of that quote I’d be appreciative…
Thanks for your comments. I will respond by private E-mail to tell you the quote’s author’s name. I don’t want to get into a public critique of him.
Like most “definitions” of the gospel, this one is not untrue but it doesn’t encompass the whole truth or the main truth.
Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection are not primarily to make me enthralled with God and eternally happy. They’re for redeeming, reconciling and restoring to wholeness everything in earth and heaven.
Thanks for the email. I’m not surprised, having read his recent book. I’d not want to be seen criticising him either because it would look rather idiotic - my learning and intellect being far inferior to his.
If I may reveal at least that the author is a well-known Calvinist, I have recently written a (not very good) paper for my probation studies. My conclusion - which did rather shock me - was that there are two versions of The Gospel.
I wrote in the introduction to my paper: “This paper will put forward the argument that the ‘moderate evangelicals’ being examined in this paper see the Gospel message as ‘The Kingdom of God is upon us! Repent and believe the Good News!’. The ‘conservative evangelicals’ being examined in this paper see the Gospel message as ‘Individuals are saved by belief in the justifying death of Christ which propitiates God’s wrath and expiates sinners of their sin.’”
The ‘propitiation and expiation’ view of salvation is totally individual. N T Wright wrote stated in his paper ‘The Cross and the Caricature’ that he has actually heard people argue that Paul’s Epistles give the gospel message and ‘The Gospels’ simply give us stories about Jesus. Which was pretty much the view that I also grew up with in confessional Lutheranism.
Lingamish’s quote is by Frederick Buechner:
“The place where God calls you is the place
where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
[…] to Kathy Hanson for tracking down the source of the opening […]
[…] to Kathy Hanson for tracking down the source of the opening […]