Is Your Jesus Too Small?
Last Monday night I was in a virtual heaven of sorts. I found out that Brian McLaren and Brian Hollen, a professor of Theology at Malone University, were going to debate the validity of the emerging church "movement." McLaren is a terrific writer and has been asking many of the same theological questions I have been asking over the last several years. He articulates these questions much better than I could ever think of doing.
I found it interesting that Brian Hollen stood at the beginning of his opening statement and said, "I don't disagree with you very much Brian." The three critiques that Hollen offered were in my opinion pretty weak. He called emergents weak on dogma and kerygma. He then went on to say that he found very little to disagree with. "After all, I think that your desire to have people really seek after Jesus is admirable."
There was some time for conversation between the two proponents and then there was time for open questions. There were protesters out before the debate calling McLaren a heretic. One of the protesters strolled to the microphone to ask McLaren a question. This man was loaded for bear. He asked "Do you believe in the substitutionary death of Jesus to save people from a literal hell as outlined in the Bible?" McLaren's stance on hell is well documented. He questions the validity of hell as evangelicals would normally describe it.
McLaren's answer to the man struck me in its kindness and challenging nature. His reply was simply, "You make some assumptions about scripture with which I don't necessarily agree. I think though if you ascribe only that to the mission of Jesus, then I suggest you have made Jesus too small. I think what Jesus said about Himself in Luke 4 is so much more than what you assert if you limit Him to that."
It got me thinking. How much have I hemmed in Jesus? Have I domesticated Him? Do I want people to follow Jesus? Absolutely! Do I want people to be real disciples of Jesus? Of course. I am not a universalist, but I do believe that we may have ascribed as dogma and doctrine, things which Jesus never intended. Maybe we assigned doctrine through the lens of modernity. It is not that Jesus changed. Maybe we made Him too small. Maybe Jesus came for more than just our salvation on a personal level.
Well, in this upcoming Holy Week, we will focus on the death and resurrection of our Lord. Will we make Him too small? Will we assign doctrine to Him with which He would not agree?
Am I drinking the emergent Kool-Aid? Is there more to Jesus than just the evangelical tradition of making Him our personal saviour? Is hell real?
What do you think?
I found it interesting that Brian Hollen stood at the beginning of his opening statement and said, "I don't disagree with you very much Brian." The three critiques that Hollen offered were in my opinion pretty weak. He called emergents weak on dogma and kerygma. He then went on to say that he found very little to disagree with. "After all, I think that your desire to have people really seek after Jesus is admirable."
There was some time for conversation between the two proponents and then there was time for open questions. There were protesters out before the debate calling McLaren a heretic. One of the protesters strolled to the microphone to ask McLaren a question. This man was loaded for bear. He asked "Do you believe in the substitutionary death of Jesus to save people from a literal hell as outlined in the Bible?" McLaren's stance on hell is well documented. He questions the validity of hell as evangelicals would normally describe it.
McLaren's answer to the man struck me in its kindness and challenging nature. His reply was simply, "You make some assumptions about scripture with which I don't necessarily agree. I think though if you ascribe only that to the mission of Jesus, then I suggest you have made Jesus too small. I think what Jesus said about Himself in Luke 4 is so much more than what you assert if you limit Him to that."
It got me thinking. How much have I hemmed in Jesus? Have I domesticated Him? Do I want people to follow Jesus? Absolutely! Do I want people to be real disciples of Jesus? Of course. I am not a universalist, but I do believe that we may have ascribed as dogma and doctrine, things which Jesus never intended. Maybe we assigned doctrine through the lens of modernity. It is not that Jesus changed. Maybe we made Him too small. Maybe Jesus came for more than just our salvation on a personal level.
Well, in this upcoming Holy Week, we will focus on the death and resurrection of our Lord. Will we make Him too small? Will we assign doctrine to Him with which He would not agree?
Am I drinking the emergent Kool-Aid? Is there more to Jesus than just the evangelical tradition of making Him our personal saviour? Is hell real?
What do you think?
posted by Larry at 7:07 PM
10 Comments:
Jesus too small? - I don't know of any evangelical who thinks that Jesus' message and purpose only related to personal salvation. By using a disarming manner, McLaren slipped in a simple, but clever straw-man argument - implying this is the only thing traditional evangelicalism is all about. And your question does the same thing, but in a more direct way. It isn't that the Jesus of evangelicalism is too small. If anything, it's that the Jesus of the emerging movement is too small. As emerging develops, it is now beginning to mock the view that Jesus will return in power, glory and judgment as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Any Jesus who does not do that is too small and not the Jesus of the Bible.
The existence of hell? I suggest that nothing more needs to be done to answer this than allow all the relevant passages speak for themselves. The only way to arrive at McLaren's view is to interpret and reinterpret a whole host of rather unambiguous passages - and deny their clear contextual meanings which don't require interpretation. They consistently deal with conscious suffering in flames of judgment. And he uses straw-man argumentation to support his view on this, as well by saying that "if the traditional view is true, then God is no better than the kings of this world and is incapable of forgiving." This is logical sleight-of-hand - because we know that God isn't like the kings of this world and that He is supremely forgiving. But McLaren says you can't have it both ways - even though the Bible clearly declares both concepts as true. He has used a non sequitur to attempt to show a non sequitur. His argument doesn't work with Bible-in-hand.
David,
Thanks for your comments. Interesting that you would think that evangelicals don't paint Jesus as too small. Most of my evangelical friends rarely talk about the redemption of political systems or eco-systems. Sure, personal salvation will help these, but for the most part, Western evangelical thought has become more about consumerism.
The fact is that most of the emergent community is seeking after Jesus. They may not be seeking Him in the same way you or I have. The fact is, that He does promise that if we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him.
I just don't see much in the way of really seeking Jesus going on, in relationship that transforms. I see more a seeking of doctrine.
Larry,
Thanks for this post. I think that our Christian tradition has a plethora of examples of trying to define or capture Jesus into an understandable and obtainable terms when Jesus Himself always transcends even our dimensional perceptions. I think that the forces of the world and of evil that we wrestle with in this thing we call life always wants to paint the self as superior and the other in need of what the self has instead of Jesus' message that we are all in this together in need of a deeper redemption than we can even prescribe ourselves. Jesus illuminates the Kingdom (or as Brian paraphrases as the dream of God) within each of us ready and wanting to bloom into a renewed and awakened world that resurrects into wholeness and God-likeness for God's glory and the benefit of all creation. To me, I don't see the literal existence of hell as being a necessary doctrine to adhere to in order to be one with God and His redemptive cause. Don't we create enough hell already to save people from as humans? When we start getting into realms that are unknowable I think we can lose our way entirely from actually doing any good in the world. Jesus calls us to live a new way of life that brings love and healing to our world. He does not call us to sit in high and mighty positions and tell one group that they are in and another group that they are out of His favor. May you and I thinking, reading, praying, growing and loving.
Larry,
A true, historical evangelical is someone who embraces the Jesus of the Bible as their Lord and Savior and informs their decisions and shapes their lives. Unfortunately, the term has been hijacked by many for political, financial and power gain. Those who identify themselves as evangelical, but do not embrace the truth God has revealed in the Bible or the broad message of Jesus are only quasi-evangelical at best, cultural evangelicals - but not biblical evangelicals.
However, many emerging / emergents discard and disregard huge sections of the Bible and many of the most basic biblical truths in favor of a liberal social gospel of revolution. This is neither biblical nor is it new - and it definitely isn't evangelical.
If you will simply look at the work of true evangelicals - i.e., born-again believers over the last 200 years, they are the ones who have established orphanages, inner-city missions, hospitals, women's shelters, fed and clothed the hungry around the world. They have put themselves in harms way, suffered personal loss, given up everything - to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world.
But the neo-liberalism and neo-liberation theology is being preached and received by a generation that has simply forgotten this has all been done before - with no lasting results anywhere, because the hearts of men were never changed through the preaching of the cross. The message of the cross is a stumbling block and an offense to many emerging advocates, leaders, speakers, writers, pastors - and so they now deny the inherent sinfulness of man, the substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross - who gave his life, not because of the social message he preached, but because he called sinful men to repentance because of their rebellion against a holy God. Every social, economic, environmental problem can be traced to the sinful selfishness. But the message being proclaimed like McLaren is no more than handing out band-aids and painkillers and psychobabble to get people to do what only a truly born-again person can do.
Concerning hell: It doesn't matter at all whether or not any of us think it is necessary or not - and if anyone thinks hell is the horrible situation many find themselves here on earth have not only made Jesus too small, they have made the holiness and justice of God too small - and consequently his wrath too small, and hell too small. It also makes the grace of God far too small, because by diminishing the truth of a literal hell it minimizes the magnitude of what God did to save us from that horrible place by taking the punishment upon himself in the person of his Son.
Dave
First of all, I would have to agree with Dave here and inform him that the cross is central to the gospel message despite his possible perceptions that some might not want anything to do with it. What is happening in this discussion is that the tangible and physical aspect of the gospel is being emphasized in one and the intangible and esoteric aspect of the gospel (which one could argue was a concept introduced to Christianity within the past 200 years) is being emphasized. I bow in the realization that there have been Christians who have been a part of redemptive work, but also realize that a large amount of Christians have truly missed the point of Christianity over the years as well. Regardless, pointing fingers is not what will help make Jesus "bigger". I think that what will make Him bigger is taking His words seriously (and God help us not literally where they are not meant to be).
Where is this mocking taking place that Dave refers too from the emergent conversation? Could we see an example?
De-emphasizing the real hellish experiences that much of humanity is experiencing today due to systemic injustice for a hell that we can't even begin to imagine outside of our own experience today can lead to apathy and a polarized, cognitive-based 'salvation' within a framework of doctrines.
There is a need for a salvation that is more holistic in nature that brings salvation to people in need here and now and then also in a life to come. Can we come together and agree on that? Can we work on emphasizing both physical and spiritual realms rather than one over the other? Jesus, sufferer of empire injustice and lover of humanity who died and rose again to bring new life, make it reality.
The problem with what is being passed off as a holistic approach is that is simply isn't. The only truly holistic world-view is one that is biblical and realizes that this life is but a vapor compared to eternity. Only a biblically holistic worldview that handles this life in view of eternity, rather than the other way around is the only one that will truly deal with social injustices, economic problems and all the other things that the Emergents are concerned about. Again, their thinking, under the pretext of being bigger than that of historical evangelicalism, is actually infinitely smaller.
By the way, I will have to do a little searching to find the mocking that I referred to. I read it in a blog the other day - and the issue was that one of the Emergent guys - I think it was Bell (but maybe it was Jones or McClaren) - saying that the original readers of Revelation were much more worried about what was happening with them than what might happen 2,000 years later - taking a shot at dispensationalism. Furthermore, they were saying that the dispensational view of Christ returning to judge the world was completely contradictory to Christ's message. This is so thoroughly unbiblical that it's hard to know where to begin.
If the choice is between historical evangelicalism (which has its positive examples and its negative examples) and a smaller approach then there could be a strong case for smaller and more tangible ones being actually more holistic in nature. It seems, though, that from what is being written here, that the trajectory you are on is one that you find great confidence in as being the right way to go. I can only wish you the best of wishes in the Lord.
If I may so carefully offer you the smallest bit of advice which you can take or leave and that is to try to avoid lumping people into knowable categories with labels like that of "Emergents" and then saying that their view is infinitely smaller than your view. It could be interpreted as deeply offensive and arrogant even though I am sure that is not your intention. Blessings to you in Christ.
Oh, thank you for doing the searching for that. What I am gathering from what you remember reading here is that what they are doing is pointing out the original intent of the writer of the apocalyptic literature of Revelation which doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted as "taking a shot" toward those who hold to a dispensationalist viewpoint. Don't get me wrong though, I can see how it could be threatening since I was a dispensationalist for a good 20 years or so.
Yeah, what you probably read was something to the effect of them questioning a "fake me out Jesus" who tells us all to love our enemies and then returns to condemn His own with fiery judgement. What is happening is that some are exploring how to reconcile these two clashing views of Jesus and a reexamine the scriptures to try and see if Jesus really intends on being so combative or if this language was being used metaphorically or just to fit into a roman military context. I will be the first to say that I have a lot to learn here on this subject as far as what is being discussed, but the topic really intrigues me. I understand that you may find such conversation heretical and possibly even of the devil, but I do not. Thanks, brother.
The problem with labels is that they tend to constrain the conversation! So we get on one side the idea of Bible bashing evangelicals and on the other neo-liberal emergants! For me this actually tends to make Jesus' body here on Earth so small that in the end we ignore the benefit that we can all be to each other!
Now, I like a lot of what Brian McLaren and others like him say, mainly because they are trying to understand what it means to try to share the Gospel in a world that no longer has a basic understanding of the truth of the Gospel. Does that mean I agree with them on everything? Certainly not, but I do think that we should listen to what they are actually saying rather than what some self-appointed 'quasi-evangelical' arbiters of the truth say they are saying.
If we look at the Church we see a history of 'heretics' who have been vilified by the established church of their age. Martin Luther was one such heretic from whom we have gained a wealth of theology that we now accept as truth.
Larry is definitely right on one thing, the thing that passes for Christianity in the West, the very thing that McLaren and others at different ends of the theological spectrum are speaking out about is the fact that whilst many believe they are saved by the 'substitutionary death of Jesus from a literal hell' the way they live their lives doesn't take into account the rest of the Gospel.
So is Hell real? Yes, although none of us can be entirely sure exactly what it looks like because none of us have actually been there! Is my Jesus too small? Almost certainly because we can only understand so much about the one who died for us because he is God. But I can tell you one thing, the ongoing conversation I have in my faith is extended by listening to all sorts of voices and my Jesus is getting bigger all the time!
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