I’ve come to believe that much of the backlash towards Rob Bell is not against actually against the Gospel.  It’s a fight for the identity and very soul of evangelicalism, which is much smaller.  But if you live exclusively in that bubble, it’s really easy to think it’s the only thing that exists.

This video is interesting. (Todd, please fire your camera guy.  Shaky came went out when MTV stopped playing music videos.)  It’s really long, but it’s interesting to watch Todd defend his approach to the Gospel, which is based on an old penal substitutionary approach to the Gospel.  This is decent example of the historical evangelical way of thinking, and what I grew up in. It’s rigorous, demanding, in-your-face, and completely bent towards a punitive justice approach.  As Todd’s shows name reveals, everyone is a wretch. And it completely centers on a works theology, which demands a mental assent to that theory to then change God’s opinion, which is then defined by really smart, white guys. (I couldn’t resist that one.)  We don’t like to admit that but mental ascent is still a work.  What Todd misses is that grace is not dependent upon human interaction.  It existed before time, not upon our acceptance.

Todd spends a lot of time defending the concept of justification, which depends upon an angry God.    At 9:00 he even suggests his bent when he says, “Then he needs to apologize alone for questioning of justification.” This, I would suggest, is the real fight.  It’s a fight for long held (actually not that long) beliefs that a few are trying to control.  My friend Doug paints it in even harder tones.

It was this framework that I deconstructed in my book.  Todd makes a classic case for the basis of entrance to heaven, using human goodness as that basis.  Rob doesn’t make that argument. (Todd hasn’t read the book, oh my.) Todd asks the traditional question, which is, “whose standard can we use to judge?”  And historically we always revert to human subjective standard.  I agree Todd.  It doesn’t work.  It’s the original root problem.  The problem is Todd misses the Scriptural basis for an objective standard in Scripture.

Gen 1:31. – God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

God establishes a basis for reality that includes everything.  And it’s all good.  There is no exception.  It even includes the serpent and the tree.  That declaration is not dependent upon humanity interactivity or circumstance.  God doesn’t wait until we show up and then judge after we act.  God judges before.  So to operate counter to this original judgment is the true basis for understanding both original sin, and the problem God is solving in the story.

Much of the criticism against Rob Bell comes from the neo-conservative Calvin crowd (Piper, Carson, Challies, DeYoung) such as Friel. It’s a very conservative group attempting to establish the basis for what is an evangelical. The problem is that people like Bell come from that crowd.  So when one of their (our) own breaks line, all hell breaks loose (pun intended). Todd even states at 11:25, as he points towards a table of historical and dead theologians.

“My question is, ‘Fellas, where have you been?  Where have you been?’  You see five years ago, seven years ago, you would have been dealing with a sappling in Rob Bell. Now he’s literally a mighty oak. Now they’re coming out and saying, ‘We gotta chop this thing down. This thing is dangerous.’”

What always surprises me is how much people like Friel tend to bash love, as though it comes at the expense of justice.  I would suggest justice is deeply informed by love, but not in the way Friel holds it. Justice can never be served at the expense of someone. It must always include everyone, because all of creation is good, which is why the mission of God is relentless to restore all of creation.  And what God is restoring is our perception of reality, not reality.

What’s interesting to me is something my friend Bill Kinnon suggested a while ago. Even if Rob Bell is wrong, why are Friel/Piper/DeYoung/Carson so worried.  Isn’t their concern diametrically opposed to their own Calvinistic belief system, which suggests God is sovereign, so they have no real choice anyway? God only lets in the elect…right?!?

It will be interesting to see how long this approach lasts because at some point, people like Todd are going to discover there is a much better approach. ;-P

Atonement theory is back on trial, and I love it.

When I wrote this post (State of Emergence) I didn’t realize how quickly the emerging church conversation would once again explode. Everything kicked into high gear with the release of Rob Bell’s Love Wins. Emergence Village is stirring again, and Mark Galli is tackling atonement theories over at Christianity Today. The conversation is busting out at the seems.  Even the Tall Skinny Kiwi is talking about it again. As I said in my post, what needed to die was the stereotypes that came with the emerging church, but what never died were the original questions that created it.

One of those questions centered around atonement.  Back in 2005-2008, as the emerging church conversation was really flourishing, for the first time people were talking openly about the apparent dissonance in our understanding of the Gospel.  It was on the table because we can’t ignore that our present understanding of the Gospel are shaped by these theories.  Put relevant information in the hands of the masses and they will talk about it, and we did.  And the most dominant theory in my evangelical heritage is the penal substitutionary atonement theory.  It posits that humanity broke God’s moral law, and God sent his son as a substitute for humanity by paying for our sin on the cross.

In Mark’s post, he takes on the atonement theory suggesting that people are being drawn to the alternative Christus Victor. It is interesting to me to see people try and grapple with their own theories, in order to hold onto them.

“On the other hand, “neurotic substitutionary atonement” needs to be abandoned. The picture of a wrathful Father having his anger appeased by the death of his Son is wrong on many fronts. Here’s one: It separates the work of the Father from the Son, as if they have competing concerns—the Father with righteousness, the son with compassion. It sounds like the Son saves us from the Father! This is manifestly unbiblical, for Paul clearly says that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). While we were sinners, God took action. God would not have come to us in Christ had he not already determined to reconcile with us. This is not the behavior of a God who stands aloof in a huff, waiting for propitiation before he’ll have anything to do with us.”

Mark tries to reconcile the problem by ironically slapping on the word “neurotic”, (I’ve never heard it described that way but the idea of neurotic is telling) rather than our understanding of the problem. He essentially uses Rob Bell’s take on the theory almost verbatim. He says, “It sounds like the Son saves us from the Father.” Mark then goes on to suggest it’s unbiblical because it pits Christ against God.  Well duh!  It does.  The basic assumption in the theory is a God who demands justice for a perfect law.  Jesus saves us from the wrath of God. It’s easy to want to say this is a stereotype but it’s not.  It’s the natural logical understanding of the theory.

Penal substitutionary atonement theory (don’t you just love big words ;-P) is important one of the dominant theories of the Gospel in the Western church (the Eastern church uses/used Ransom theory) for the last 1,000 years.  The Catholics call it a mystery, which I think is intellectually more honest but not any better. Like Rob suggests in his video, if “(if millions of people are going to hell and a few are going to heaven), if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few“.

The problem with Mark’s approach is that we can’t just slap a adjective on the theory and hope that all we need to do is remove the adjective.  The theory does pit God against Jesus.  We can’t ignore the basic assumptions that inform the theory, which posit humanity broken God’s moral law and a punishment must be exacted. (BTW, can you hear John Calvin’s lawyer side in the this theory?) Penal subsitutionary atonement is broken because it’s based on a false assumption.  It’s based on the assumption that God required perfection, which ignores the grace that was present from the beginning. It ignores long periods of silence on God’s part.  It ignores the reality that it is humanity that creates both religion and the basic idea of the law before God ever gives Israel both.  It ignores that the substitution was always FOR humanity, not God.

What if there were a better way of understanding the Gospel?  What if the problem is not the Gospel but our understanding of it?  What if the very problem we are attempting to solve is creating this distorted, warped version that makes people run for the exits.  Because isn’t the best evidence that the theory isn’t working is that it isn’t producing life? I would suggest that Jesus isn’t satisfying God’s demands, but OURS.  And when we begin to understand how demanding we can be for evidence, when we begin to see that God will go to the ends of the earth, that love really does win, then we will be able to have a much different conversation about it.

I make the argument in Discovering The God Imagination that the problem is not that each theory is incorrect.  Each theory exists because there is enough biblical evidence to suggest it.  The problem is with our understanding of the root problem.  It’s our capacity to construct a false reality that sees the self as outside of the kingdom of God.  We become captivated by our own imagination, which leads to death.

I like the fact that Mark is asking these questions.  We asked them in depth 4-5 years ago and go crucified for it.  Now a major Christian media outlet that serves the traditional evangelical church is also talking about it.  That’s progress. Soon and very soon we will be having a new conversation about it.  If you’d like to explore it more with me, I’m leading a class that works through it.

I’ve known Chad for close to 3-4 years now and have had many extensive discussions. We got to hang out this summer at Big Tent and I can say that I have no question of his desire to follow Jesus or his love for God. It’s what gets me about these conversations.  Chad’s desire is that of a pastor seeking the restoration of people, and to create a restorative understanding of God.  Yet that understanding was against a traditional set of beliefs, and got him fired.  Rachel Held Evans posted an interview with Chad that shares some of the details.

Seems kind of strange when a pastor gets fired for believing in love. What do you think?

(AP Photo/Sara D. Davis)

But as the world begins to read and process the book, something interesting has occurred. The reaction is to throw out an accusation and then instead of dealing with the text, the audience is left wondering about the accusation.  My case in point is the ABC News interview.  The title says, Pastor Claims Hell Does Not Exist, which is a remarkably inflammatory statement, yet Rob Bell doesn’t say that. Rob has an entire chapter on hell in the book.

In fact in the interview with Lisa Miller, he specifically acknowledge the reality of hell, but he redefines it in a way that most people don’t like, because it doesn’t fit with our historic orthodoxy assumptions, which locate hell specifically in the afterlife and with a closed door policy.

The  second MSNBC interview is actually the more inflammatory one.  Martin Bashir, who is normally an exceptional journalist, frames his question in a way that leaves Rob with two options.  Disagree with his book or look like he’s trying argue.  Martin asks him the same question twice, “Is it relevant to how you respond to Christ in this life?”  Rob answers yes…twice. And then Martin Bashir quotes a critic who says, “The use of Scripture is indefensible…That’s true isn’t it?” I was a journalist in college and that’s a terrible way to open a line of questioning.  What’s Rob supposed to do?  Bashir does it again when he says, “You’re creating a Christian message that is warm, kind and popular, for contemporary culture, but it’s frankly, according to this critic, unbiblical and historically unreliable.  That’s true, isn’t it?  You’re amending the Gospel message so it’s palatable.”  How do you answer that?

I like Rob’s answer, which is that our choices matter. And this is Rob Bell’s talent.  He takes our historic understanding and filters it through love and the framework of God’s mission, which is based on the restoration of all things. So what comes out is a restorative approach to the Gospel. And because he operates this way, people accuse him of double speak, or not answering the question.  But what he’s doing is reframing it in new way, and it doesn’t look like what people are expecting.

Tim Chailles states this perfectly when he says in his Amazon review: “Does Rob Bell deny the existence of hell? He would say no. We would say yes. He affirms, but only after redefining. And that’s just a clever form of denial.”

Several times on Twitter I’ve had people say they don’t like him because he denies the Gospel, doesn’t believe in hell, and doesn’t answer the hard questions.  None of which are really accurate.  When I press for examples, I get no response.  The truth is Rob doesn’t answer the questions in a way we like.

The reality is that it’s easier to suggest he’s saying something he’s not, than to deal with what he is saying.  Embracing new ideas is not easy.  Our logic gets deeply embedded into our brains and it actually is biased towards supporting what is already there.  So I get that.

I’m just glad we’re having the conversation that God’s love is bigger than we can imagine.

The dust up over Rob Bell’s new book is outstanding.  Lots of great dialog, even when it gets nasty.  We need these kinds of conversations.

To give you context, Jason Boyett gives a great summary of the conflict. I appreciate Jason’s comment when he says:

“There is no meaner, more hateful person on Earth than a Christian who suspects you have gotten your theology wrong.”

I have yet to receive my advanced review copy so I can’t really weigh in yet, but I will do so very quickly when it comes.

But after reading some of the comments, I was imagining an idea. Let’s assume Rob is a universalist.  He’s standing before God, ready to face the reality of what many call the final judgment. Yet he believes that God is big enough to restore all of reality and all of creation.  He’s not really a universalist in the traditional sense, that he believes God just ignores suffering and lets everyone off the hook.  He believes that the work of Jesus on the cross reveals the reality of grace for everyone, even when they don’t see it or accept it.  It’s true because God established grace before time.

In other words, he holds conflicting ideas that are not necessarily orthodox in today’s evangelical world.  He holds an emergent view of restoration but believes in the final judgment. He takes the risk to believe God will restore it all.

What will God do with him?  Is believing something that a specific community deems unorthodox or even heretical grounds for missing out on life?

What say you?

I wrote the following post for Emergent Village. You can comment here or over there.

———————————————————————-

Something has to die before something can be reborn.

For the last two years I’ve had the privilege of sharing a State of Emergence.  2008 saw some significant changes to Emergent Village, and 2009 saw those who identify with the emerging church begin to walk away from the conversation.  2010 turned out to be the year something died and something new emerged from the grave, perhaps a renewed spirit of enthusiasm.

2010 kicked off with an interesting post in World Mag’s Farewell Emerging Church. Anthony Bradley publicly declared the end of emergence as we know it.  And in many ways, this public declaration of death was needed.  What arguably died was a perception of the slick marketing model aimed at middle class, white, hipsters saddled in the corner of Starbucks with their Macs.  This stereotype had run its course and grown out of favor.  It had to die. What didn’t die were the underlying questions that fueled the movement in the first place.  People were still gathering together in pubs, coffee houses and homes, wrestling with questions of faith, reformation, atonement, the goodness of God, what it means to follow Jesus, and how to live in a post-Christian culture.

The North American movement that would eventually be called the emerging church arguably came out of the dialog that was the Young Leaders Network formed by The Leadership Network.  This group was formed to address the growing concern with the GenX leaving the church.  Well the underlying problems creating this rift didn’t go away.  And just last month Christianity Today released a blog post that could have been written in 2001, The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church.  I’ve long argued that the concept of “emergence” will never go away until we’ve addressed the underlying tensions, questions and concerned that have fueled it, namely our tension with the historical meaning of the Gospel.  If its real, why isn’t it producing more of transformation in the church?

While the publishing world walked away from the emerging church, it is fair to say writers didn’t.  2010 saw the release of one of Brian McLaren’s more important works, A New King Of Christianity.  Brian’s book answered some of the deeper questions that many of his critics have asked for a long time.  Yet 2010 also saw a great selection of authors wrestling with these deeper questions, including Dan Brennan’s Sacred Unions, Julie Clawson’s Everyday Justice, Doug Pagitt’s Church In The Inventive Age, my own work Discovering The God Imagination, John O’Keefe’s Boneyard, Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola’s Jesus Manifesto, Diana Butler Bass’ People’s History Of Christianity, Becky Garrison’s Jesus Died For This, Carol Howard Merritt’s Reframing Hope, and Nick Fiedler’s Hopeful Skeptic.  The conversations didn’t die.  They just flew under the marketing radar.

If 2010 marked anything, it was the growing awareness that following in the footsteps of Jesus and gathering together in community is hard.  People were tired of talking about it and just wanted to do it.  Bradley pins the death of the emerging church to this awareness.  Rob Bell, arguably one of the more important but undeclared voices in the emerging church recognized that he had become that big Mega-church.  What was once cool had now become mainstream.  And in losing its luster, the real work of ministry began to emerge.

And its fair to say that the conversations didn’t die either.  2010 saw its biggest year yet in terms of conferences and gatherings. Transform held it’s East Coast Gathering in April.  Big Tent Christianity in Raleigh NC saw some of the better theological and practical dialogs of the year.  Emergent Village took a huge risk to explore post-colonial thought at the Emergent Village Theological Conversation in November. Reflection from Michael Toy, Mike Stavlund, Julie Clawson revealed it was better than anyone expected. Richard Rohr continued to host the Emerging Christianity Conference December 3-4 in Fort Worth TX. The Outlaw Preachers held its first Outlaw Preachers Re-Union this December in Memphis TN.

Next year promises to be just as good with Convergence Mar 11-13 in Troutdale, OR, Wild Good Festival June 23-26 in Shakori Hills, NC, Transform’s West Coast Gathering in April in partnership with Mars Hill Graduate School and Parish Collective, and Big Tent’s Second Conference in Phoenix.

The media also began to see renewed interest.  Jay Bakker was featured in New York Magazine. Next Wave decided to reissue its 10 Year Emerging Church Retrospective. Generate Magazine released its second issue. Emergent Village and ECW Media Society launched Faithcollaboratory.com, and Civitas Press launched its first community project called The Practice Of Love.  Spencer Burke almost placed TheOoze.com into the archives, instead choosing to reinvent the portal in a fresh new way.

The emerging church isn’t dead.  It’s just finally wrestled with the angel and won.  It’s shedding it old image, the one that got people so riled up in the first place.  The conversations won’t ever go away because in the end, we’re looking for what it means to be human.  We’re looking to discover the reality that Jesus was trying to present, one of infinite grace and beauty, stark reality of the kingdom of God in our midst, and a renewed sense of possibility for the restoration of the world.

Here’s to 2011 and a renewed sense of faith, hope and love.  Because the greatest of these is love.

My friend Peter Walker made the above video.  Peter’s sense of humor, and the fact that he calls out a certain absurdity in the stereotypes of Christianity, absolutely made me laugh. And it got me thinking about all of the theological dialogs I’ve had over the years.  So many of those dialogs (and a lot of arguments) were simply my attempt at arguing for what I thought I believed.  It was my carefully constructed attempt to make sense of my own reality.  My desire to fight for truth was for ME.

But his video also got me wondering.  Why does the fight for absolute truth always end up feeling empty, like a battle of specific beliefs that each person deems worthy of calling truth?  At what point at I arguing with myself?

What say you?

So I just finished the Bit Tent Christianity Conference.  And I liked it.

Big Tent Christianity was arguably the first mixed tradition conference I’ve been to put on by the traditional emergent crowd (Doug and Tony).  Over half the speakers were not traditional emergent speakers. Many were from traditional denominational structures including the Reformed Church of America.  I liked seeing this broader conversation.  I attribute this to Philip Clayton, Justin Heinzekehr, and Tripp Fuller for expanding beyond the border to “create a bigger tent” conversation.  Well done.

In some ways the conversation was deeply academic.  Many of the presenters were Presidents of Seminaries.  Yet I couldn’t help but be inspired by some of these academic voices, which are often missing from events like this.  The caliber and content of some of the voices, created a great new mix to the conversation. Yet the same element could be lobbed as the one big criticism of the conference.  The conference was still largely a white male voice.  There were great voices of racial distinction, such as Anthony Smith, Bruce Reyes Chow, and Stephanie Spellars.  But I just hope for a larger participation.  In some ways, it can also be said that this is the white male conversation, which is fair given that the five organizing voices are white and male.

But Big Tent was about expanding the tent. The early conversation included a spirited conversation around the limitations of the metaphor of the Big Tent. In trying to expand the tent are we losing what it means to have an identity, or are we breaking down the barriers of relationship.  I would argue the latter but many people were uncomfortable with it.  Anthony Smith had what I thought was one of the better responses when he tweeted: “how can a tent have boundaries when there are no walls nor doors?”

A large part of the question of denominations seems to be a search for identity.  The tent is important to people because it informs and grants identity.  When we stand under it it helps inform our own understanding of who we are.  It gives us something to stand on. To lose that identity can feel like death.  So to leave that identity can feel like suicide. I can’t recount how many times I heard someone (in some form or other) say, “I’m trying to understand who I am.”  But one thing really stood out to me.  About half the crowd admitted switching denominational identity at some point in their life. That suggests that our desire for permanence is often sabotaged by our own realities.  We sometimes can’t stand the tent we are born in or even choose.

During the first day, the second panel was on theology and the following was on the Bible.  These two panels provided a strange dichotomy between our discovery of God, which we call theology, and our codified conclusions about God, which we often call “Biblical”.  The panel on theology was exploratory and fairly open.  The panel on the Bible was tense yet invigorating. Jo-Ann Badley and Peter Rollins verbally sparred with each other over opposing stances.

The panel on sexuality was the most intriguing. I firmly hold that we need a vigorous dialog in the church around homosexuality, and this panel provided it. Ian Markham gave a remarkably simple review of the historical understanding of Catholic pro-creation, which set a great stage for entering into a broader conversation.Kimberly Knight then shared her experience with hope in the midst of family judgment, and then reminded us that we are a collection of stories.  A critique by Frank Green, who was on the panel, suggested the panel was too male.  A hum of agreement filled the room and I agree. But it was Brian Ammons who stole the show for me. As a practicing monogamous homosexual, he took on some really serious sacred cows within the homosexual culture, the most important being that as human beings we “don’t” have a choice.  Brian called that a political lie and essentially said, “Its bull and victimizing.”  When we remove choice we remove our own humanity.  Very new approach to the conversation.  Brian brought out an intriguing point in that we are searching for an understanding of sacred sex in healthy relationships.  I agree.

We often talk about homosexuality as one of the defining conversations of the emerging church.  But this panel made me think the question is broader.  Sexuality is at the heart of what it means to connect with another human being.  It’s the space where we are terribly vulnerable, yet at the same time are rewarding for that vulnerability with one of the quintessential pleasure experiences: the orgasm. Perhaps God is telling us something in the act of sex that when we demonize it, we miss the deeper meaning.

If there is one common criticism of these types of conferences (having a LOT of speakers in short segments) it is the information overload.  I felt really bad for the last group because I just couldn’t take anymore and my brain largely shut off.  Yet the last speaker Tom Oord closed with an absolutely great confession.  He shared his conflict of living in a denomination that probably wouldn’t commonly participate in gatherings like Big Tent, yet deeply felt that the one thing that must inform his faith in God is love, which is I would suggest is the heart of emergence.

As always, the best part of being at these conversations is meeting new and old friends.  I find the hang time with people who can engage a healthy dialog around God, even in the midst of conflict can be very healthy.  Much love to all of you who got to hang.  Thanks Brandon, Connie, Amber, Julia, Christina, Nadia, Zhina, Steve, Anthony, Rich, Sara, Troy, Mike, Tripp, Travis, Jon, Bill, Doug Tony, Kimberly, David, Chad, Dan, Rachel, Jan, Spencer and so many of the people who shared your heart for God.  May we all live into God’s love in extraordinary ways.

Q | Conversations on Being a Heretic from Q Ideas on Vimeo.

Scot McKnight interviews Brian McLaren at Q Conference in Chicago.  The interview holds so much rich material.  Lots of stuff stood out to me.

First, Brian begins the dialog with a reference to the previous presentation and that, “If our theology doesn’t lead us to be concerned about the kind of things we talked about in the last session, its a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.”  This is the fundamental tension within evangelical Christianity. The world is calling our bluff and saying, “Where’s the love?”

Second, Brian mentions that as he was writing Everything Must Change, people would consistently ask him about what he thought of atonement. At the heart of the Gospel is this question of reconciliation, or how does God bring humanity and God back into harmony.  I believe this question is THE defining question of the “conversation”. It was one of the reasons I wrote my book, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity.  At the heart of the emergence conversation was the tension we hold with our inherited stories.  Everything did need to change because story is what informs our sense of reality.  And if we get the story wrong, our understanding of the Gospel will be wrong.

Third, Scot’s second question is provocative because he calls Brian out for what some (maybe he) see as a direct shift in his thinking from Generous Orthodoxy to the A New Kind Of Christianity.  The question suggests that Brian that the second book disagrees with the first.  Brian’s primary tension is the construction of the Greco-Roman narrative, which he details in his book.  But Brian simply suggests a generous understanding of the story.  In other words, he stays in the tension of disagreement recognizing that some see it differently.  He simply suggests that “some of us need to explore other alternatives.”  He himself doesn’t believe there is tension between the two, and from my perspective I would tend to say he sharpens his own understanding of his own beliefs in ANKOC.

Fourth, Brian does directly address the question of universalism.  He says, “It would not be honest to say that I’m a universalist.” He suggests that the primary conversation is NOT who goes to heaven and hell but how is the kingdom of God coming to earth.  Here’s the concern.  We can’t get to Brian’s question until we address Scot’s.  Scot even suggests its both.  This is the tension.  It suggests that Brian is in a place his audience is not.  Scot calls Brian out for “tickling” people with old questions of salvation.  I can’t state enough how much my book addresses this fundamental tension. ;-P

Fifth, Brian states that the Jewish narrative is about getting them out of Egypt and captivity.  But then he says its not about getting them out of hell, which Scot agrees with.  I would actually suggest that its both.  The narrative of Egypt is a state of captivity, which is hell on earth. In other words, the metaphor or Egypt is suggesting the present reality of hell.

If this interview did anything for me it suggested that Evangelicals are beginning to wrestle with the conversation.  Much of the early stages of the emerging church was simply raising our hand and asking questions.  If what Brian is saying is untrue, it would be easy to just dismiss him.  But we’re not. He’s on the stage and Scot is still engaging him in conversation. It leads to an interesting question.  Has the evangelical church turned a corner in terms of finally engaging the conversation.  Is the evangelical church finally ready to begin wrestling with our understanding of historic orthodoxy. I don’t agree with Brian’s fundamental conclusion in regards to the problem.  But I do agree that we need to talk about it.  And I believe my book is a way forward.

—————————————————————–

Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity explores a profound possibility. What if we’ve misunderstood the Gospel? What if our historical approaches to Christianity have been distorted by the very same problem they are attempting to solve?  Available today from CreateSpace and Amazon. Order from CreateSpace and use code 5GFARGT9 to receive a 15% discount.