http://pomozone2011.blogspot.com/2011/04/protestantism-exhaustible-exhausted.html

It certainly clears up a lot of questions I’ve had about the rapid transience of American Protestant culture.

I wonder if the cosmic aspects of liberation may be stated more forcefully by emphasising how creation’s redemption is (almost?) contingent upon humanity’s redemption.

I also wonder about a greater emphasis on the Spirit’s role as the one who conforms believers, individually and collectively, to the cruciform narrative.

Finally, even though you’ve written on narrative spirituality, I do hope you pick up those threads here, too: participation is after all, the living into and out of the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel.

Oh, and if you’re looking for volunteers to proof-read the MS …

I appreciate your obvious commitment to the proclamation of the gospel as the mission of the church, and that you are examining how we participate in that mission by word, deed and possibly suffering (which tends to accompany verbal proclamation rather than the doing of good deeds).

However, the one phrase of yours which I question is “become the gospel”. I think that it’s wrong to suggest (even if this is mostly a quibble over semantics) that we ‘are’ the gospel, or that we ‘do’ the gospel. The gospel is a *message* which has been entrusted to us to *proclaim* (which always indicates verbalization in scripture). If anyone can ‘be’ the gospel, or ‘do’ the gospel, it is Christ alone–His finished work. Our pastor has favored this type of phraseology for some years now and I think that there is much more to it than words alone as I have seen how it plays out (in his case). As the emphasis shifted farther and farther toward attending to the doing, becoming and ‘living out of’ the gospel, verbal proclamation fell entirely by the wayside.

Your overall view of this subject appears to be far healthier and more balanced than what I now see at our church…..where even the gospel itself has now undergone severe erosion. But I question wrapping up ‘deed’ in the ‘mission’. The mission was commanded by Christ–Matt. 28. It’s certainly true to say that our deeds can open doors for proclamation, and our deeds have value separate from proclamation. I think that Paul in Acts is our example of what it is to obey the Great Commission…which IS the mission. This does not downplay the importance of the cosmic implications of the gospel. The impact of Christians on the world at large is a ‘byproduct’ of a transformed heart–which is a work of God’s Spirit. Not to say that we don’t need to apply effort here, we DO need to be purposeful, as much as we also need to repent of sin continuously. But, this brings us back to the primary mission–to proclaim the gospel so that individual hearts will be transformed, and thus bring light to others.

I’m not trying to be confrontational. It’s just that I’ve heard enough of these theological flourishes and I want theologians who see the world for what it is, not just for what it ideally should be. The latter (ideal state) is a beaten theological dead horse. The former (current state) is where theologians have real potential to do their best work yet. And I’m hopeful that the remainder of your book addresses the situation we find ourselves in. And I’m especially excited to hear the “how” part given that I’ve recently committed myself to a local church and we are trying to do just this kind of thing.