I would like to state for the record that my last post was intentionally misleading. I meant to incorporate some of the old gospel vernacular to set up where I would probably start in my gospel presentation. As such, James' comment is to be expected (especially from our generation) and I would consider it appropriately provoked. His thoughts were not new or surprising to me.
And so, we begin with the "hellfire and brimstone" concept. What role, if any, do judgment and condemnation have in any presentation of the gospel? Is this in fact where we should start?The answer, in short, is no. Unfortunately, I think that starting with condemnation is no longer culturally viable. I am totally comfortable with saying that starting with condemnation/judgment (henceforth c/j) is theologically viable, but theology is never performed or conceived in a vacuum. In the past, it seems that starting with c/j was an acceptable cultural practice. This, of course, had its own limits as such gospel presentations covered the spectrum from fear-mongering to honest concern for another person's "eternal destiny." We have a hard enough time now convincing people that they have an eternal destiny, let alone deciding for them what that destiny will be.
Of course, that decision is not ours to make. That's for another "night," but the point here is simply that if we want to be heard, we can't start with c/j. If we do, quite simply, we'll only be scaring the choir. No one else will be around to listen. Our world does not want to hear any talk of hell, damnation, lakes of burning sulfur, an angry God, etc. John Lennon invited the world to imagine no heaven or hell and it has. As such, we must change our gospel beginnings.
Invoking the James Wood Rule, I have to stop. We'll continue with a few suggestions for where we can start soon.
2 comments:
Dude, why you gots ta hate?
I fear that if I say anything it will just be what you are going to post next.
But I just can't help myself . . . I think we need to re-think our word choices. The word 'gospel' has a lot of baggage that can tend to obscure our message. Maybe we need to start translating the Greek and call it 'good news' instead. So the question that would follow is this: What is good news to lost/unchurched people?
I'm not hating, or at least, I'm not trying to hate. And I only wanted to respond to your legitimate question(s). I think I ended up agreeing with you. If that wasn't clear, my bad.
As far as "gospel" semantics are concerned, I don't think people are turned off by the word, I think they are turned off by what it has or does represent(ed) in their experience. As such, I don't think changing what word you use to refer to the story of what God has done in the world through Christ matters nearly as much as the content of the story you present. Hence this series of posts.
Also, I'm totally disagree about starting a presentation of the gospel (or good news if you will) with the question being what unchurched people consider to be good news. I think that is waaaaay too anthropocentric. The question, regardless of word choice, ought to be, "What is God's good news (or gospel)?"
As always, let me know if I have misunderstood or misrepresented you.
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