David Opderbeck is known to all readers of this blog; he weighs in today on the soul-sort narrative I have done on Brian McLaren.<\/p>\n
That Other<\/i> Soul-Sort Narrative: <\/span>The Problem of People as Targets<\/b><\/p>\n We’ve had some good and robust conversation about Brian McLaren’s “soul-sort” narrative. <\/span>Many of us resonate in some way with the problem Brian identifies, even though we can’t go down the road of his solution. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>I say resonate “in some way” because I suspect that, for most of us, the problem isn’t that there will be a final judgment — a “sort” of “souls” in which some people will be separated from God and judged. <\/span>In fact, I think most people intuitively know that judgment is a good<\/i> thing. <\/span>There can be no “justice” without “judgment.” <\/span>God would not be “just” or “good” if horrific crimes — such as Priests and parents sexually abusing children, Hutus killing Tutsis families with machetes, Thai girls being sold into sex slavery — were never judged and punished. <\/span>The same is true for the multitudes of seemingly petty acts of violence, lies, and corruption in our world — husbands cheating on their wives, children spitting in the faces of their parents, businesses lying to their customers, and on, and on, and on.<\/p>\n I wonder: <\/span>how many of you have had moments of existential angst in which you have thought, “almost everything I do in life is ultimately meaningless, apart from witnessing to the gospel?” <\/span>And how many of you, somewhere deep down, have believed that your primary task in this life is to convince everyone else to think, believe, worship and live pretty much like you<\/b>?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I suspect that, for most of us who are Christians, the The vague discomfort many of us feel, discomfort which at There is no doubt that the logic of the “Chick The spirituality produced by this kind of soteriology is a This kind of spirituality, produced by this kind of Alternatively, many others will opt for a spirituality of So, what sort of <\/span>Is it necessary to give up on the notion I think the answer to these last three questions is a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Opderbeck is known to all readers of this blog; he weighs in today on the soul-sort narrative I have done on Brian McLaren. That Other Soul-Sort Narrative: The Problem of People as Targets We’ve had some good and robust conversation about Brian McLaren’s “soul-sort” narrative. Many of us resonate in some way with the problem Brian identifies,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nproblem also isn’t that God’s plan of redemption runs exclusively through
\nChrist. <\/span>When we take the bread and
\nthe cup during communion, when we meditate on Christ’s cry of “my God, my
\nGod, why have you forsaken me,” we understand at some deep gut level that
\nonly in this way, only by God Himself becoming man and bearing the full weight
\nof evil, could atonement be made for, and victory achieved over, the terrible
\nweight of sin.<\/p>\n
\ntimes bubbles up into despair, I think, is about how we believe the power of
\nthe Cross is made available<\/i> to the
\nworld and about our own roles<\/i> in that
\nprocess. <\/span>Many of us have grown up
\nto believe that people are basically targets for the marketing of the
\n“gospel” and that nothing in life really matters other than
\n“telling people about Jesus.” <\/span>It is a sort of “Christian nihilism” about life in
\nthis world.<\/p>\n
\nTract” gospel, the “evangelism explosion,” the “Four
\nSpiritual Laws,” and so on, produces the beliefs I described above. <\/span>And there is no doubt that this logic
\nhas fueled Evangelicalism at the popular level at least since the Great
\nAwakenings. <\/span>This <\/i> <\/span>is the kind of
\n“soul sort” narrative that I believe cries out for correction.<\/p>\n
\nperduring sense of crushing obligation, interlaced with tired resignation, and
\nunderwritten by a gnawing doubt that this whole project is a delusion in which
\na tiny, tiny handful of people convince themselves that they alone among the
\nbillions of souls in the world are “chosen” or “special.” <\/span>This resignation, obligation, and doubt,
\nturned inwards, produces bitterness, anger, and defensiveness. <\/span>Does any of this sound familiar with
\nrespect to North American Evangelicalism?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\nsoteriology, causes us to view people as “targets” rather than as
\nhuman beings. <\/span>Brian McLaren made
\nan observation like this in one of his early books that literally moved me to
\ntears. <\/span>Tony Jones described
\nsomething similar in one of his books about his early experiences in campus
\nministry. <\/span>Their honesty about this
\nis what first drew me to the emerging church conversation a number of years
\nago. <\/span>Oh, to be free of the feeling
\nthat every moment with an “unbeliever” is at heart a fraught,
\nspiritually supercharged encounter with someone “other,” one of the
\n“lost,” in which my primary objective, perhaps my only meaningful
\nobjective, must be to “win” a convert! <\/span>Oh, to be free to relate simply to others around me as human
\nbeings, to understand their religious and social views and practices
\nrespectfully on their own terms, to enter into the concerns of their lives
\nwithout making judgments, to explain gently and lovingly the basis for my hope
\nin Christ, and to leave the future in God’s hands, with great hope in God’s
\ngoodness! <\/span>Oh, to follow Jesus in a
\nway that flows out organically from my being, to take up his “light”
\nburden and yoke, to be<\/i> as Jesus at
\nthe table fellowshipping unselfconsciously with sinners!<\/p>\n
\nblithe selfishness — one which simply ignores the problem and focuses
\nprimarily therapeutically on self.
\n<\/span>Out of this therapeutic spirituality a self-contained sub-culture
\nemerges to provide products and services that allow adherents to reassure
\nthemselves that they are, in fact, special. <\/span>Does any of this<\/i> sound
\nfamiliar with respect to North American Evangelicalism? <\/span>Oh, to participate in significant and
\nsubtle expressions of culture that are honest about the human experience and
\nhonest with God!<\/p>\n
\nsoteriology can produce this different kind of spirituality? <\/b><\/p>\n
\nof “judgment” altogether?
\n<\/span>Is it better to think of “God” as some sort of benevolent
\nspirit that infuses the evolving consciousness of the world, rather than as the
\ntranscendent Triune God of historic Christian theology? <\/span>Is it best to think of Jesus primarily
\nas a moral teacher rather than as the Christ who made atonement for sin?<\/b> <\/span><\/p>\n
\nresounding “no.” <\/span>In
\nfact, I think the only<\/i> way forward is
\nto recapture a thick understanding of the Triune God and the atoning work of
\nChrist. <\/span>In my view, the tragic
\nirony of popular evangelical “soul sort” spirituality is that it
\nultimately has very little to do with the Triune God, the power of Christ’s
\ndeath and resurrection, or the justice of God’s judgments. <\/span>More on that in a later post.<\/p>\n