Faithworks 360 Conference (part 3)

Brian McLaren was a big speaker at the Faithworks conference. He put up this slide - as did Steve Chalke! - I think he's been using it for a while, but it bears repeating.




In case that gets too small...

Our contemporary gospel is primarily: INFORMATION ON HOW TO GO TO HEAVEN AFTER YOU DIE (with a large footnote about increasing your personal happiness and success through God. (with a small footnote about character development (with a smaller footnote about spiritual experience (with a smaller footnote about social/global transformation.))))

He says we do lip-service to all sorts of ideas, but eventually, we have a naive, narrow simplistic gospel very often: something that Jesus really, really didn't.

So what is the theology of 360-degree mission? Well, he began with the observation that "Our theology is perfectly designed to produce the results we are now getting." That is, it seems, bad things, with a disconnect between how we think of the gospel and the way the world to be evangelised thinks of itself. So, he says, in place of a "church that meets my needs" we need to think of all the ways in which society is interconnected - business, government, charities, much else besides - and a world in which God's will is done ... as it is in heaven.

So we recognise that insitutions give stability to our communtiy, and movements try to disrupt them. Institutions preserve the merits of past movements, and movements succeed by creating new institutions or by embedding their new perspective in existing institutions. So the way we understand the gospel right now will - if it is dynamic - bring it into conflict with existing institutions, and require a creative tension as we try to work out how the gospel will transform the lives of people in 21st century Britain.

How do we understand Jesus' message? McLaren's illustration was to get a group of people to come out to the front. One represents Christ. Another represents Augustine, who looks to Christ. Another represents ... Acquinas, who looks to Augustine, who looks to Christ. Another represents Luther, who looks to Acquinas, who... Another represents ... whoever ... Barth, Billy Graham, Bill Hybels, Brian McLaren. The point is that we cannot possibly look straightforwardly at Christ - we have too many interpreters in the way; too many ideas that we bring and apply to the text. (Pick your own teachers; your own chain of thought; the same applies). Perhaps we can gain traction by looking instead at the way Abraham looks to Israel who looks to David who looks to the Prophets, who look to Christ - but he didn't really explain how this helps (given that for all those people, we have the same chain of interpreters, if not more).

There may not be much we can do about that - but we need to be aware that it's there and it's happening.

A development of this was his suggestion that we need to move past a traditional theology - a 'primary narrative'' an over-arching story - based on "six lines" : a picture depicting paradise-fall-rebellion, then a choice between destruction and redemption, the latter followed by a new paradise. I don't think those were his words, but that was the gist. Instead, he talked about a new metanarrative, described by three axes describing the major activity of God: creation, liberation, and reconciliation, with the mission of God - and our mission - being to strive towards all three. [I don't claim to fully have grasped his point, yet: I think there is more about this in his new book A New Kind of Chrsitianity.]

In the final session, McLaren was careful to say that he was not wanting to claim that the past was bad and to be discarded: it's not necessarily so helpful to think of the "wrong" received ways of thinking and new "right" ways: we learn and grow. Understanding evolves: we want to know the gospel better next year than we do this year. What we need to be is a community of humble learners.