The North Valley High Fighting Jesi!

Brian Mclaren asks an important question. He wonders if we have reduced the role of Jesus in christianity to that of mascot. Have we lost the figure of Christ as Lord, and turned him into buddy jesus whose only purpose is our salvation (in the evangelical sense of the word).

Mclaren says

"Jesus defined his own identity not as being served, but as giving his life in service, and in this way, acknowledging Jesus as master means one voluntarily "takes his yoke" and learns from Jesus how to serve God, plus one's neighbor, plus one's enemy, and so the whole world. Confessing Jesus as Lord means joining his revolution of love and living in this revolutionary way.

How many children in Sunday school learn that radical sense of Christian servant identity as opposed to 'Christians are nice people who know the truth and do good. Non-Christians are bad people who don't/ Therefore we need to avoid non-Christians or convert them as fast as possible or try to pass laws to keep them under control and protect ourselves from them- until we can escape them forever in heaven?'"

If I seem to be loving on Mclaren a bit much it is because I am reading A Generous Or+hodoxy.

Mclaren also reminds us that salvation in the OT often came as judgment. Israel desperately sought for God to remove the sin and injustice from themselves. Today we may seek only the avoidance of hell (if it even exists).

Why has christianity become such an otherworldly focused place. Jesus came and spoke of a better place, with better days. Maybe he meant a place here on earth. Maybe (see NT Wright on this one) Christ spoke of the kingdom of heaven coming to earth and meant himself. Maybe Jesus focus was for us to see that we can bring qualities of God here to earth. When we love, when we serve, we are being Christ to the world. Sounds like Heaven on earth to me.

I can't wait to get a macbook so I can blog as I think about things. I had an idea, this morning, that I convinced myself was important and probably would single handedly fix all of the worlds problems. I forgot it on the way home from breakfast... Such is the life of an unaccomplished blogger.