~ Roger Olson

As I pointed out in the first post of this series, the center of evangelicalism is collapsing. Countless evangelical Christians are moving to the left or to the right. Namely, they are moving toward liberalism or they are moving toward high church or low church traditions. They are moving toward individualism or communitarianism.

In this post, we will briefly survey the four major streams within evangelicalism with an eye to Christians in their 20s, 30s, and 40s – often called Mosaics and Busters or Generation X and Generation Y (Millennials).

My analysis is based on what I’ve observed in my extensive travels worldwide, speaking in a variety of conferences represented by the different streams (wherein I’ve interacted with the other speakers and attendees), and corresponding with thousands of evangelical Christians in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Like anything else, there are always exceptions, overlaps, and sub-groups that don’t fit neatly into these four evangelical streams. So don’t regard this survey as an exact science. Yet based on my observation and experience, what follows are the four largest and most influential streams within evangelical Christianity today that are populated mostly by people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. The characteristics I’ve outlined below represent the tendencies of most of the people within each stream.

Note that the labels I’m using are simply handles I created to communicate intelligibly about the subject. They are necessary for distinguishing each stream from one another. However, they do not represent any denomination or formal tribe. And they shouldn’t be used to denominate any particular individual.

The four streams are . . .

Stream 1: The Systematizers

* political: tend to be on the right.

* appeal: drawn to propositional truths; seek strong discipline and order in their daily lives.

* search: in quest for theological certainty. Systematizing truth in both thought and life attracts them.

* identification: populates much of the “New Reformed/Calvinist” movement. There is a great deal of theological uniformity within this stream.

* reach: very large online presence; above average on-the-ground presence.

Stream 2: The Activists

*political: tend to be on the left.

*appeal: drawn to causes.

*search: bettering people’s living conditions. Attracted to social causes like acts of mercy, social justice, helping the poor, caring for the environment, etc.

* identification: populates much of “the Emergent Church Conversation,” the “New Monasticism,” and a segment of “the Missional Church Movement.” There is a great deal of theological diversity within this stream.

*reach: above average on-line presence; above average on-the-ground presence.

Stream 3: The Emoters

* political: tend to be on the right.

* appeal: drawn to supernatural encounters.

* search: demonstrations of the miraculous; the healing of emotional wounds.

* identification: populates much of the contemporary “Charismatic Movement” in all of its forms. Strong emphasis on restoring the supernatural: signs, wonders, casting out of demons, healing, etc. and what God will do in the future in terms of revival and miracles. There is significant theological uniformity and diversity within this stream.

*reach: weak online presence; very large on-the-ground presence.

All three streams are part of mainstream Christianity. Consequently, each stream has been featured in the voices of establishment (popular) Christian magazines and e-zines.

Each stream holds conferences that receive wide publicity, being advertised in establishment Christianity magazines and e-zines.

Each stream can be viewed as emphasizing mind, will, and emotion (the three parts of the human soul) respectively in their approach to God. (Systematizers emphasize the mind; Activists emphasize the will; Emoters emphasize the emotion.)

The fourth stream flies under the radar of establishment Christianity because it is not part of it. Yet it’s just as large as the other three streams.

Stream 4: The Beyond Evangelicals

*politically: tend to be apolitical, believing that the local ekklesia (body of Christ) is the newpolis and the kingdom of God is the true government. Beyond that, their political positions are enormously diverse.

*appeal: believe that there has to be something more to Christ and the church than what the first three streams present.

*search: discovering and displaying Jesus Christ in authentic, deep, and profound ways.

*identification: Most have come out of one of the other three streams. They belong to no particular movement, tribe, or denomination. And they do not belong to any single expression of church. “Beyond Evangelicals” can be found in all church forms and structures.

“Beyond Evangelicals” are not seeking a theological system (stream 1). Concepts and ideas don’t appeal to them. They are seeking spiritual reality. They view Scripture as fully inspired and true, but approach it as a narrative rather than a system of propositional ideas.

“Beyond Evangelicals” are not seeking any specific cause (stream 2). Religious duty doesn’t appeal to them. They view “good works” as being the natural outflow of living by Christ. They regard pursuing Jesus Christ and seeking causes that are related to Him as being two different things.

“Beyond Evangelicals” are not seeking a supernatural experience (stream 3). They believe that the emotions (as well as the mind and will) can either reflect or hinder the work of the Spirit. One’s feelings are not synonymous with the Spirit’s leading. Miraculous demonstrations don’t appeal to them either, unless they supremely unveil and glorify Jesus Christ.

“Beyond Evangelicals” are in pursuit of a Person above and beyond ideas (stream 1), activities (stream 2), or feelings (stream 3). They emphasize God’s work in and throughthe human spirit, and believe that mind, will, and emotion are to be governed by the Holy Spirit.

“Beyond Evangelicals” want to know Jesus Christ in reality and in the depths. Yet they aren’t quietists or passive mystics. Outward activity is important, but it’s like fruit falling off a tree. It’s the natural result of living by the life of Christ.

Beyond Evangelicals are evangelical Christians who emphasize four key themes:

• The centrality and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Living by the indwelling life of Christ.
• Experiencing church as a Christ-centered, shared-life community.
• Living for the eternal purpose of God.

Despite the fact that this fourth stream is largely ignored by mainstream Christianity at the present time, it is growing and becoming more visible.

The common link that ties all four streams together is this: Each group believes that classic evangelical Christianity is inadequate. It has failed to give robust answers to their most serious theological questions and depth to their deepest spiritual longings.

More to come in the next part of the series . . .

FRANK VIOLA is a popular conference speaker and the best-selling author of numerous books on the deeper Christian life, including “Revise Us Again,” “From Eternity to Here,” “Epic Jesus,” and “Jesus Manifesto” (co-authored with Leonard Sweet). His blog, “Beyond Evangelical,” is rated as one of the most popular in Christian circles today: www.frankviola.org

If you wish to comment on this post, please post it directly on www.frankviola.org

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One of the characteristics of those who are captured by the same spirit is that such people tend to impute the motives of their own hearts onto those who threaten them.

Christian leaders who have inflated egos or deep insecurities are easily threatened by others. As a result, they will unwittingly read their own heart motives into the hearts of other people. Psychologists call this “projection.” I can’t face my own shortcomings and defects so I unconsciously project them onto other people. I accuse others of the very same dark things that are lurking deep within my own heart.

I’ve watched some Christians engage in projection when they came into contact with those who were just as (or more) gifted than they were. The root is often jealousy. You can call it a “Saul complex,” if you will.

Herein lies a great lesson: Those who judge the motives of others are simply revealing what’s in their own hearts. In Matthew 7:1–4, Jesus points out that those with defective eyesight are all too willing to perform eye surgery on others. Yet within this text, the Lord makes this chilling assessment: If you impute an evil motive onto someone else, you’re simply making known what your motives are.

To put it another way, the piece of sawdust we see in our brother’s eye is simply a small chip off the two-by-four that lies within our own. And a piece of wood will always distort our vision. When people cannot face the reality of what’s in their own hearts, they project it onto others—particularly those who they find threatening to their egos.

One of the most profound influences in my life was a talk radio show host from many years back. When this man first broke into the talk radio business, he sat at the feet of a man whom he idolized. He was this talk radio show host’s mentor. We’ll call the mentor “Nelson” since I don’t wish to disclose his name.

When Nelson discovered that the man who he had mentored began to surpass him in popularity, all hell broke loose. Nelson’s monstrous ego began to flicker, and he was loaded for bear. He launched the first salvo, and the two men waged an on-the-air radio slap fight that marched off the map of dignity.

Pointed insults were swapped. Disparaging remarks were cast. Both men drew blood from one another, and the listeners got caught up in the carnage. It turned out to devolve into something quite vicious, and the exchange deeply hurt my radio friend.

Unfortunately, no one could reel in the egos or squash the infighting. It turned into bad blood. Nelson was radioactive for quite some time, and the two men didn’t speak a civil word to each other for many years.

What happened to these two men is not an isolated incident. I’ve watched it occur numerous times since I’ve been a Christian.

King Saul is not the only gifted man who has been threatened by a younger David. What was at the root of that painful period in David’s life? Jealousy and envy in the heart of Saul and the threatening feeling

(as well as the irrational paranoia) that comes with them.

As they danced, they sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” (1 Sam. 18:7–8)

Incidentally, jealousy and envy are what provoked the religious leaders of our Lord’s day to put Him to death. Tragically, this same drama has played out since Cain slew his younger brother out of jealousy.

I’m no fan of Sigmund Freud nor of his theory of the Oedipus complex. (Please reread that last sentence.) But what led Freud to construct his oedipal theory was a legitimate observation about human nature. Namely, Freud observed that some fathers and some father figures become threatened by their own sons. That is, they fear being supplanted by their sons, and so they grow to hate them.

This only happens when there’s an excessive root of pride and insecurity in the father figure’s heart. The absence of such pride and insecurity is what separates those spiritual fathers who become proud of their sons from those who grow to despise them.

Regrettably, some mentors suffer from both an inferiority complex and a superiority complex at the same time. Their shaky sense of identity cuts in both directions. In such cases, they become masters at the fine art of denial.

Caution: If you’re a person who will one day mentor others, I have a sobering warning. If your ego hasn’t been annihilated by the cross of Jesus Christ, you will end up becoming a Saul in the lives of those who are just as (or more) gifted than you are. And when God begins to elevate them in His service, you will go insane.

You’ll become another sad example of lions eating their young. And as with every modern Saul, God’s favor and anointing will leave you and be given to another. As Peter said, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (1 Peter 5:5 NKJV)

Saint John of the Cross warned Christians to be very careful whom they chose to be their mentors, for, in his words, “as the master so is the disciple; as the father so the child.”

To my mind, one cannot show genuine respect for one’s mentor by perpetuating his shortcomings and flaws. Every father should be extremely proud of the son who surpasses him. True mentors freely give what they have to their spiritual sons and hope that their sons will exceed them. False mentors use their sons to increase their fame and carry on their legacies, and they become infuriated whenever their sons share their glory.

The Lord give us abundant grace so that we will not be captured by the same spirit we oppose.

—

This article is an excerpt from Revise Us Again by Frank Viola (David C. Cook, April 2011)

FRANK VIOLA is the author of numerous Christian books, including the newly released REVISE US AGAIN, the bestselling FROM ETERNITY TO HERE, and PAGAN CHRISTIANITY, JESUS MANIFESTO, REIMAGINING CHURCH. His website contains a vast array of free articles, podcasts, interviews, and discussion guides: www.FrankViola.com, and his blog is one of the most popular in Christian circles today: www.frankviola.wordpress.com.

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One afternoon as I was being my old self and happy in the state, I was not thinking of making any revisions in my lethargic spirituality. Then the daily mail arrived. In the mail was an advance copy of Leonard Sweet’s and Frank Viola’s Jesus Manifesto. I haven’t generally cared much for manifestos since the Communist Manifesto caused so much of a ruckus, so I was in no great hurry to read it.

I am often critical—but then so many deserve it. I am also thoughtful—you know what I mean? I am far too analytical—did I say this right? I can even be caustic to extremely stupid people.

But my worst fault is that I am very gossipy. The afternoon the book came in the mail I was lollygagging around the Evangelical end of the Net, You-Tubing my way around the heroes and anti-heroes, wondering why a particular Calvinist I know has to be so severe and why another creative iconic mega pastor has to always be more clever than deep. Everybody is pro or con on the Emergent Churchmen and many of us nowadays are questioning the new Evangelical, Unitarian virus that is just beginning to surface.

I had a tole lege moment as I picked up the book and began to read. The first line of the Viola-Sweet book is “The body of Christ is at a crossroads right now.” True but not outstanding. I thought. I read a few more pages and still had no idea where Sweet and Viola stood on New Calvinism, the Emergent Church, the rise of the liberal right, Neo-Universalism, or all things post denominational. Why wouldn’t the writers declare themselves?

I read on and on and never did find out. They talked about Christ for 170 pages, but the more I read I could tell this was not a gospel talk show, it was a lot more informed and intense but with a quiet intensity. It became pretty clear I had stumbled into a one-track book. I like one-track books, you never get sidetracked. Then, halfway into the book I got it! Jesus was the point! Then gradually I decided to do what I am so reluctant to do—to let it speak to me, manifesto or not. When I submitted to the message of this manifesto, it elicited a change in me—actually a confessio!

So here is the final fruit of the Sweet and Viola manifesto—my own confessio!

Realizing that the Christ today suffers from a massive Jesus deficit, (Page XXII) I, Calvin Miller, freely confess that Jesus is heaven’s passion and occupation. (Page 5) Like Thomas Aquinas I confess that “I can write no more; compared with what I have seen of Christ, all that I have written seems to me as straw.”(page 21)

After reading the manifesto I can only shake my head and agree: “Jesus Christ is like a vast ocean. He is too immense to fully explore, and too rich to fathom, and I am like a bottle. The wonder of his gospel is that the bottle is in the ocean and the ocean is in the bottle.” (page 34)

And here are the sins I freely confess:

I have belonged too long to cult of the cute. (page 75)

I have too long been unsubmissive to Christ because I have failed to see

See how submissive Christ was to his Father. (page 125).

I have too often preached sermons which failed to reveal Christ. (page 175)

But chief of all my sins has been the sin of forgetting his uniqueness. Political correctness has caused me too often to tip my hat to Buddha and Mohammed, “Jesus’ competition”. I now repent. Christ has no competition.

Jesus cannot be separated from His teachings. Aristotle said to his disciples.

“Follow my teachings.” Buddha said to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.”

Confucius said to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” And Muhammad said to his

Disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.”

But Jesus says to His disciples, “Follow me.”

In all the religions and philosophies of the world, a follower can follow the teachings

of its founder. But not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be

separated from Jesus Himself. Christ is still alive, and he embodies His teachings.

This is what separates Him from every great teacher and moral philosopher in

history. (Page 82)

There is but one way. This is my acknowledgement that rises from his Testament. The mystery I swim in rises from his splendor. My proclamation rises from his acclamation. My confession rises from this manifesto and demands my allegiance or betrayal. Jesus is all! The first, last, word—Genesis and Logos—Jesus.

–

Calvin Miller is the professor of preaching and pastoral ministry at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, and the author of Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition and The Singer.

For the official Jesus Manifesto website, click here: www.theJesusManifesto.com

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—

One.Life by Scot McKnight

Yes, in some ways this book fills in what was missing in the gospel and Christian life that I embraced as a young adult. I don’t want to summarize the whole book because it won’t do it justice, but I’d say the big missing elements were: (1) an embracive understanding of what it means to embrace Jesus. He was embraced in my tradition too much as Savior-from-sin and not much more. The more I read the Gospels and the New Testament the more I am convinced that just doesn’t describe anything recognizable in what Jesus or the apostles taught. (2) Jesus’ vision was for a new and radical community – one marked by justice, love, peace, wisdom and holiness. Too often the first three of those terms are seen as what we do in society (social justice) but it seems so powerful to me that Jesus saw that as the way his followers were to live amongst themselves, and thus create communities – churches is what we call them now – that were just and loving and peaceful and wise and holy.  (3) The big thing missing for me was community; the gospel was about me and God (bad grammar but you get the point). But Jesus’ vision was about a community and he invites me (and you and you and you and you) to join and enter in on what God is doing in this world. Finally, (4) Jesus’ visions the Christian life in ways I never heard: it wasn’t just about pious practices, like Bible reading and praying, but about bigger and better things that take our pious practices and put them into community (of faith) service.

2) If readers could only read two chapters in your book, what would they be and why do you feel they are the most important?

Frank, why do you do me like this? It’s like asking me to choose one of my two children! OK, I’ll bite. I loved writing chp 3: The Imagined Life and chp 14 The Cross Life and Resurrection Life. But I liked them all – and think I have a few suggestive points to make about heaven and hell in that chp.

3) There are many books on “discipleship” today . . . the subject is getting resurrected once again among believers. How is your book different from the other books being written on discipleship today?

Discipleship too often is about pious practices or about programs or about spiritual formation. This book sets discipleship into the context Jesus gave it: kingdom living. In other words, a disciple is someone committed to what Jesus was committed to. How many discipleship programs are shaped by the Lord’s Prayer? That is, by pursuing God’s holy name, God’s kingdom, God’s will, daily bread for all of us, forgiveness and forgivingness, and being led away from what will destroy the kingdom? Not many. Why? Because we are using programs we’ve created instead of the vision Jesus gave us.

So, let me boil this into one expression: Our discipleship programs need to be reframed into vision programs, kingdom vision programs.

4) You discuss the issue of hell in the book. Give us a sketch of your view of hell and eternal punishment.

Frank, this is just too hard; too hard because it requires so much sensitivity to talk about these topics. I want to believe in the hell Jesus believed in, and he believed in a judgment that was fiery and that was destructive and that was horrific and that was real and that was final. But too many use hell as a hammer and not as a warning by someone who has the best alternative possible: kingdom of God.

5) You talk about the new heaven and new earth near the end of the book. What’s your view on the second coming of Christ? Do you believe as N.T. Wright seems to, that all the texts where Jesus refers to about His coming in the Gospels refer to what happened in 70 A.D., and thus we must look to Paul to learn about Christ’s coming at the end of the age? Or do you take another view?

I’m a partial preterist. I think most of what Jesus talked about in the future, what we would call his eschatology, is about what was to occur in one way or another in 70AD. But, he saw the Next Event (70AD) in God’s program to be the Final Event, and in this he was like all other prophets in Israel. They spoke of the next big event as the end event because they wanted their listeners/readers to see it as having ultimacy. Jesus wasn’t mistaken, but was instead limited in what he knew of the future – and our Lord says that very thing in Mark 13 when he said he didn’t know the hour or day on which these things would occur, he just knew what would happen.

6) In connection with the above, where do you stand on what will happen at His return? Both before, during, and afterwards.

The contemporaries of Jesus were dead wrong when the First Advent occurred, and I assume we’ll be wrong in what will happen at the Second Advent. So, I’ll keep quiet because I don’t know. What I do know is that it will be glorious and all eyes will turn to Jesus and the World will become what God wants for this world.

7) What was the most difficult part of the book for you to write and why?

The Heaven and Hell chp. Why? Because the topic is so volatile and there are so many bad, bad ideas about both – heaven isn’t ethereal and hell isn’t fire. It’s all about God’s presence and our presence in God’s presence, or (tragically) utter absence in God’s all-consuming Presence. Those are not easy ideas to communicate, especially when some people seem to want God to torture people forever – believing too much in what Dante wrote in the Inferno.

Who is your target audience and what do you hope to see changed in them (specifically) after they finish reading One.Life?

I wrote this book for a stage in the journey, not an age group. It is for those who need to hear that the summons to discipleship is for them. That discipleship Is not an option. Some people need a kick in the “Old Testament” and that’s what this book might do. Others need to hear the resolve Jesus expected of them, and this book can do that. Others need to hear all over again – as if for the first time – that covenant relation with God is not some casual “I’ll sign up for that too” program. Instead,it is an all-consuming summons to give our OneLife to Jesus Christ.

9) You talk a lot about the kingdom of God in the book. What’s your best definition of the kingdom, and can you explain how that definition becomes practical in the lives of every believer?

Frank, people get mushy on this one, so here it is: The kingdom is the society in which God’s will is done. You simply can’t say “kingdom” in the 1^st Century and not think of a King, and a Land, and a citizenship and a Law that governs the citizens. You can’t get by with thinking it is nothing more than the personal experience of God as my king. The word “kingdom” has to refer to society. It’s the society around Jesus living as Jesus wants it to live.

10) Justice is a recurring topic throughout the book. There’s a lot of high-abstract talk about justice today in certain Christian circles (mostly a re-packaging of liberation theology from years past). If a Christian wanted to “do justice” in her or his city right now, what are some very practical, “do-able” ways they can be doing justice in your opinion?

There is only one way to do Jesus’ vision of Justice: living the kingdom vision with one another as a church of local believers. Justice is not what we do in society and holiness what we do in the church. Justice is behavior and conditions that conform to God’s will as taught by Jesus, and it is begins in the local church.

11) If you would, give us a listing of all of your other books with a one or two-sentence summary of the main points they make.

Frank, my bibliography is too long.  Here is a listing of some recent books:

The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (an explanation of discipleship through the lens of the Jewish Shema)

A Community called Atonement (an expansive understanding of the various metaphors of atonement in the Bible)

The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (a sketch of how to read the Bible as Story and an explanation of women in ministry that affirms and expands what women need to be doing in the church today)

Fasting: The Ancient Practices (what the Bible says about fasting; it’s not about denying food in order to get but a denial of food as a response to grievous situations)

The Real Mary (an attempt to offer a Protestant, Bible-shaped view of Mary)

Order One.Life at a discount

Book Review: “A Community Called Atonement” by Scot Mcknight

Recent:

Rethinking the Love of Christ

A Unique and Amazing Look at Jesus Christ

David Ruis: I Would Give Anything For Love

A Book Every Church Should Own: Health & Wellness

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Today, I’d like to give Joseph his due.

By my lights, Joseph was one of the most righteous men who ever lived. Now when most modern Christians think of a “righteous man,” they think of things like being a good husband, a patient father, a trusted and successful employee who lives a good clean life (doesn’t smoke, drink, chew or run with those who do), and so on.

I have no doubts that Joseph was upright in these areas. But the Bible gives us a much deeper peek at what a righteous person is and how he or she reacts to certain situations. Consider Matthew 1:19-20:

Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to put her away quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Matthew says that because Joseph was a righteous man, he chose not to publicly disgrace and shame Mary, even though (according to his knowledge at the time) she deserved it.

Wow!

Let that marinate a few moments.

How many Christians today would react the same way that Joseph did if they were standing in his shoes?

Joseph wasn’t out for blood. He didn’t justify in his mind the act of bringing public disgrace upon Mary. Instead, he took the high road and put her away privately, lest she face public humiliation and shame.

I’m sure Joseph’s blood boiled when he heard that the woman who was betrothed to him in marriage was pregnant . . . and not by him. But because he was a righteous man, he showed mercy. He treated her as if he were in her own shoes and was guilty of what he had assumed she did.

Perhaps Joseph thought to himself what his step-son would say to a woman worthy of death almost thirty years later, “He who has never sinned, let him cast the first stone” (John 8:7).

Perhaps after the initial anger, pain, and rage subsided, Joseph took a good, hard look at his own life and recalled the many times where he himself missed the mark.

Perhaps he reflected on his lineage and recalled the many grievous sins that his own kinfolk committed in the past (see Matthew 1:1-16; Joseph’s lineage is populated by those who committed murder, adultery, prostitution, etc. Beyond that, this is the very lineage that God the Father selected for His own Son, Jesus).

In Joseph, we find no self-righteousness at all. And therein do we find a wonderful definition of righteousness. It is to react like Jesus, living void of self-righteousness. As I’ve often said, there is only one Person in the universe who has the right to be self-righteous, and He isn’t.

Consider for a moment the people who Jesus spent most of His time with, who He ate with (which in that day was a sign of union, friendship, and acceptance), who He showed mercy to, who He extended grace to, and who He removed shame from. These were the very people who the religious leaders of His day regarded as the most sinful. Their sinful deeds being at the top of their lists. This is why Jesus earned the title “the friends of sinners.”

Some specific examples:

• He broke bread in the home of a tax-collector who was siding with Rome in oppressing his own people (Zacchaeus).
• He completely forgave a woman caught in the act of adultery.
• He allowed a prostitute to anoint His feet with her hair in the presence of judgmental Pharisees.
• He communed with and later broke bread with a multiple-divorcee who was living in sin.

Granted, all of these people later repented of their sins and followed the Lord, but Jesus loved them, received them, and their sinful lives didn’t put Him off. The harshest word He said to any of them was “go and sin no more.”

Now . . . shift gears and look at the sins that literally made Jesus angry and provoked Him to issue hot-boiling, scathing rebukes. It was the sins of self-righteousness. And it was aimed at those who sought to shame and humiliate others because of their wrong-doing.

The pure and spotless Lord Jesus Christ turned the pyramid upside down.

Back to Joseph.

Note that Matthew says that while Joseph was considering doing this righteous deed (putting Mary away privately to spare her public disgrace), the angel appeared to him.

How many angels have passed us by because we chose to take the low road of shaming other people because of their sins or shortcomings, without any regard to our own sins and shortcomings?

(At this moment, someone reading that last line is thinking of Matthew 18:15ff. where Jesus says to announce to a local assembly that someone has been put out of the church because of sin. But please consider two things about that passage. First, Jesus said to go to the person privately so as not to shame them, but to bring reconciliation in a private way. Second, the person in view had stubbornly refused to stop sinning after being approached multiple times in private. Only then was it to be “told to the assembly.”)

Joseph’s decision to take the high road and spare Mary public shame is echoed throughout the entire Scriptural narrative. Even beginning at the beginning in Genesis.

Remember Noah’s night of binge drinking? His son, Ham, uncovered his father’s nakedness. Shem and Japeth, on the other hand, walked into the tent backwards with a blanket, refusing to see the shame, but covering their father’s disgraceful state. Ham was cursed as a result.

It’s difficult on our flesh to walk into a tent backwards, holding a blanket. But that’s God’s way. It’s the way of righteousness.

He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. (Prov. 17:9)

Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs (Prov. 10:12)

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (1 Pet. 4:8)

Jesus Christ, your Lord, is in the business of removing people’s shame.

Our Lord’s first miracle at Cana demonstrated His heart to remove public shame from a bridegroom who had miscalculated how much wine to provide for his wedding. Jesus remedied the situation by providing the best wine at the very end, covering the social disgrace that would have been leveled at the bridegroom’s feet because of his error.*

If you’ve done something in your past that you have repented of (ceased from practicing), but it still haunts you with regret, take heart. Peter, whose many sins grew in their severity until the most grievous of all—the betrayal of his Lord—was not only fully forgiven and restored by Jesus, but he was used mightily by the Master, even earning the title “the greatest apostle.”

Echoing the promise of the New Covenant in Hebrews 8:12, A.W. Tozer rightly says, “When God forgives, He forgets.”

Let us take our cue from God Himself.

I am blessed by Joseph. I am encouraged by Joseph. And I am challenged by Joseph. It’s no wonder that God picked him to be the father of Jesus. (Joseph was also from the line of David, fulfilling the prophecy of the Messiah’s lineage.)

This Christmas season, let’s remember Joseph. The Life that dwells in every Christian . . . the Life of Joseph’s step-son, Jesus the Christ . . . will always lead us to treat others the same way we would want to be treated if we were standing in their shoes. No one wishes to be shamed and disgraced if they’ve repented of wrong-doing. And self-righteousness is not in His nature.

*see JESUS MANIFESTO p. 164 for the historical context.

Related:

Have You Heard?

Forgotten Words of Jesus

Anyway

Remember Peter: Rethinking the Love of Christ

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Ironically, we addressed this very point all throughout the book, stating that we were writing the book precisely *because* we love the church and no longer want to see her hindered (at best) or sabotaged (at worst) by human-invented systems that have often smothered her personality and robbed her freedom.

Here’s one such place in the book where we make this point loud and clear:

Why are you so critical of the church? God loves the church. It angers me that you’re so judgmental about it.

This question is a good example of the problem we are trying to expose in this book. Namely, many Christians are confused about what the Bible means when it uses the word church. The word church refers to God’s people. More specifically, it refers to the gathered community of those who follow Jesus. It does not refer to a system, a denomination, a building, an institution, or a service.

We have written this book because we love the church very much. And we want to see her function in a way that brings glory to God …. In short, it is because of our love for the church and our desire to see God’s people set free that we have written this book. And it is our hope that God will use it to help change the course of church history. (Pagan Christianity, Viola/Barna, Tyndale, 2008, p. 251).

Historically, every reformer and every revolutionary loved the church. Though each one was accused of hating her. In fact, this love for the church was the very reason why past reformers tried to change the religious systems of their day … systems that they believed subverted the church. It’s also why past revolutionaries left the religious institutions to which they belonged in order to begin new church expressions that they felt were closer to what Scripture envisions.

When my book From Eternity to Here released earlier this year, some who were under the impression that I do not love the church were shocked. The reason being is that I make the church the center of God’s eternal purpose in Christ.

I recall reading one person who said in front of a group of Christian leaders: “Frank really loves the church. He is passionate about her. He just has an issue with certain religious practices that have been traditionally accepted and called ‘church.’”

This man got it. Precisely.

Yet it’s incredibly difficult to get this idea across to many Christians. The concept that there is a difference between the church (ekklesia) of Jesus Christ and an order of worship (that people call “church”), a pastor preaching a sermon (that people call “church”), a denomination (that people call “church”), a building (that people call a “church”), and a clergy system (that people call “church”) is terribly hard for some folks to see.

The circuitry of the brain simply won’t allow that difference to take hold in some people’s minds.

How can it when the word “church” has been so profoundly redefined from what it was understood in the New Testament? In our day, people who watch a preacher on television give a sermon believe they have been to church. This sort of thinking is the basis for all the “Internet Campus Churches” where people will watch a sermon on the Net and say they’ve been to church. So “church” has been reduced from a local community of believers who assemble regularly (as all New Testament scholars would argue) to watching a sermon on a screen.

My love for the church is so strong that I’m an opponent of the popular “postchurch” view that’s beginning to take root in the West. (You can read my thoughts on the postchurch perspective here: http://www.ptmin.org/postchurch.pdf.)

In this article, I’d like to take another crack at trying to distinguish between the system that many call “church” and what I mean when I say “church.” It’s the latter that I love very much. As for the former, while God uses it and blesses His people despite of it, it should never be confused with the ekklesia of God and, therefore, is open for strong critique, massive adjustment, and even disposal in the wake of what God intended for the body of Christ.

Recently, I was in a conversation with a person who was playing devil’s advocate with me regarding my passion for the church of Jesus Christ over/against the system that many people call “church.”

Here’s how the conversation went:

Question: Are you saying that God doesn’t use the institutional church?

My answer: Not at all. As I say in “Pagan Christianity,” I owe my salvation and baptism to it. But what God uses doesn’t equate His approval. God uses many things that do not reflect His perfect will or His original intention. So God’s “use” or even “blessing” is a flawed metric for determining God’s original intention. Remember, God blessed His people when they were living in Babylon, but that was not His perfect will. Neither were the synagogues that they built while there. God’s perfect will was for His temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem.

Question: But God’s people are in the institution.

My answer: Right. But that doesn’t make those institutions “churches” or sacred. God people are in hospitals, businesses, school systems, and governments. They are even in the nation-state (which was created and sustained by violence). But that doesn’t make hospitals, schools, governments, and nation-states the ekklesia of God.

Let me use the illustration of an automobile to demonstrate the difference between the *institutional church system* that Christians often call “church” and the ekklesia of God — a local group of believers who assembly regularly and share life together as a community under the headship of Christ.

Follow the logic …

God use churches. Yes, but God also uses automobiles. That doesn’t make automobiles churches.

God’s people are in these institutions. Yes, God’s people often drive automobiles too, but that doesn’t make them churches.

God uses institutional churches to save people. Right. But I’ve shared the gospel numerous times with people in an automobile, and I have two friends that have had profound encounters with God in automobiles, one of them being saved in a car. Yet these things do not make automobiles the church of Jesus Christ.

God uses institutional churches to teach Christians. Right. But I’ve had many occasions where I’ve been taught by or I’ve taught someone the things of God in an automobile. Especially on long road trips.

God’s people worship God in institutions. Right, but I fellowship with the Lord often in an automobile, have had some of my best times of praise and worship in an automobile, and I have even sensed God’s presence to the point of tears in an automobile. But that doesn’t make automobiles churches.

God loves the institutions we call “churches.” Really, how can you be so sure? Does He love automobiles too? Reflect on the above and tell me why He would love a religious institution more than He would love an automobile, when in fact He has chosen to use both. God certainly loves His people who are often in various religious institutions, but to say that He loves a system or an institution is something open for debate.

So while God uses automobiles, God’s people are in automobiles, and automobiles have often been used as a tool to save the lost, teach God’s people, and worship the Lord, that doesn’t make automobiles the ekklesia of God.

And so it is with those institutions and systems that we call “churches.”

Point: I deeply love the church, but I do not love the religious systems that call themselves “churches.” Such systems are not the bride of Jesus Christ. My feelings toward them are pretty much the same as automobiles; they can be used for good or bad; but they aren’t “sacred” and should never replace or substitute the ekklesia. Further, I have no loyalty nor allegiance to these systems, just as I don’t have any allegiance to the nation-state. My allegiance is to Jesus Christ, God’s Kingdom, and the body of Christ.

The ekklesia is the fiancé  of my Lord. She is the most beautiful girl in the world (to quote Charlie Rich) and God is out-of-His-head in love with her.

Thus a person cannot rightly love Jesus and hate His wife. But neither can they honor Him properly by replacing His glorious wife for a man-made substitute that has coopted her name. Jesus isn’t marrying a building, a denomination, an order of worship, a clerical organization, or a religious system.

There’s massive confusion today because some have confused the ekklesia with a religious system. And if one raises questions about the latter, some confuse it with an attack on the former.

And therein lies the rub.

[This article first appeared as the Cover Story for Next-Wave Issue #128, August 2009]

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Christians have made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.

Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.

It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.

Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.

Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.

What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.

In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.

We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically . . .

The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.

Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.

God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.

Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation-the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch–is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?

To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.

The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.

It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.

Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.

It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.

Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.

The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.

Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)

The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.

In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like

© Howard Noel | Dreamstime.com

Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”

If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world.

We call on others to join us–not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.

The two of us may disagree about many things–be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.

But in our two most recent books–From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful–we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ– “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:

Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.

Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.

Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.

Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.

Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:

Ask ye what great thing I know,

that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win?

• Whose the name I glory in?
  Jesus Christ, the crucified.

This is that great thing I know;

this delights and stirs me so:
faith in him who died to save,

• His who triumphed o’er the grave:
  Jesus Christ, the crucified.

• Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.

• He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.

• Amen.

  To discuss this manifesto and its implications, go to A Jesus Manifesto Blog at

http://ajesusmanifesto.wordpress.com/

We also suggest listening to the YouTube song Give Me Jesus while reading this manifesto.

Leonard Sweet

Frank Viola is an influential voice in the contemporary house church movement. For the last 20 years, he has been gathering with organic house churches in the United States. Frank has written eight revolutionary books on radical church restoration, including God’s Ultimate Passion and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. He is a nationally recognized expert on new trends for the church, holds conferences on the deeper Christian life, and is actively engaged in planting New Testament–style churches. His Web site, www.frankviola.com, contains many free resources designed to enrich the spiritual lives of God’s people. Frank and his family live in Gainesville, Florida.

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Jesus Manifesto

1. Jesus: He’s the central figure of our faith, and yet in so many ways He’s like a living Rorschach test – everyone sees what they want to see: Mystic, sage, redeemer, prophet, reformer. Who is your Jesus? Is He the Jesus of history? The Christ of faith and inner experience? What are your sources, and what need do you feel that Jesus Manifesto is fulfilling in publishing, yet again, about the Most Talked About Man in History?

Frank: We believe that the Jesus disclosed to us in the New Testament is the same Christ whom the Holy Spirit reveals today. He is the Christ of the cosmos, the Christ of Eternity, the Alpha and the Omega, as well as the Christ who lived on this earth as the quintessential human – the second Adam, or more accurately, the Last Adam – who then died, rose again, was glorified, ascended, enthroned, and now lives in His people.

By my lights, the Christ that is presented to us in Colossians and Ephesians is little known or preached today. Mind you, He’s the same Christ as the One born in Bethlehem. But His incomparable greatness has been lost sight of in so many quarters.

We feel that for many Christians today, their Christ is simply too small. And so we chase all sorts of other things . . . good things, religious things, spiritual things even. And Jesus becomes a mere footnote or a stamp of approval – an Imprimatur – that we place over those other things.

We expound on the following point in one of our chapters, but take for instance Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Scholars have spent a lot trying to figure out the exact nature of the erroneous teaching that captured the minds and hearts of the Colossian believers.

One of the reasons why there is so much debate over it is because Paul never directly addresses the problem. Paul’s primary way of dealing with church problems is to give God’s people a stunning unveiling of Jesus Christ. (Therein lies a valuable lesson for all church leaders.)

For Paul, Jesus Christ is the solution to all problems. And any problem that a believer or a church has can always be juiced down to one common denominator. They have lost sight of the Head, Christ. They have lost touch with the living Christ. Or to put it in Paul’s words, they have stopped “holding fast to the Head.”

But whatever the error was, we can be sure of this: The Colossians thought they could graduate beyond Jesus Christ. They took Him as Lord and Savior, but they felt they could advance to higher and deeper things. Higher and deeper things beyond Jesus . . . hmmm.

In short, if we ever get to the place where Jesus Christ isn’t enough … if we ever get to the place where we feel we can advance beyond Him … then we haven’t met the Christ of Colossians. And our Christ is too small.

In the same connection, there is a debate within much of Christendom presently. It’s not new, but it’s grabbed the attention of many young believers, so it seems novel to some.

One side argues for the Jesus of justice – who is largely derived from the Gospel accounts. The other side argues for the Jesus of justification – who is largely drawn from some of Paul’s statements in Galatians and Romans.

While Len and I embrace the Jesus of justice and the Jesus of justification, our book attempts to present a Christ who is far greater, far more glorious, and far richer than simply being the Justice-Giver or the Justifier.

We feel that this third vision of Jesus is sorely neglected in our time. It’s possible to put justice and justification on the throne, and leave the living Christ out in the cold.

The indwelling life of Jesus also seems to be a missing note in both discussions.

In this regard, I don’t think I can improve upon what Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, said about the book:

“This is a really exhilarating reintroduction to a Jesus who seems sometimes to have become a stranger to the Church; a passionate and joyful celebration of God with us, which cuts right through churchy quarrelling and brings us back to wonder, love and praise – and the urgent desire to make Him known to all.”

Len: When I was 17, I deconverted from Christianity and became an atheist. After college I decided to go into academe and study the history of religions from a scientific, critical perspective. When I was in graduate school, and gradually finding my way back to faith, I made an appointment with a professor to talk about my return journey to orthodoxy. This theologian confessed that for him personally, “I am in pursuit of truth. Whatever truth is, and wherever it is to be found, that is the journey I’m on. When I seek truth and find it, and if truth turns out to be two hydrogen atoms that accidentally collided, and no more than that, I will kneel in front of those two atoms and give them my worship and praise.”

I shall never forget the power of his words which sought to embrace the meaning of meaninglessness.

At about the same time, I encountered a letter Dostoevsky wrote to Natalya Fonvizina, in which he admitted that he was a “child of unbelief and doubt” and would remain so “until my coffin is closed over me.” That got my attention. But then Dostoevsky went on to say more: in the letter he laid out his conviction that “nothing is more perfect than Christ . . . .” He then adds: “If someone succeeded in proving to me that Christ was outside the truth, and if, in reality, the truth was outside Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth.”

It suddenly hit me that here were the two choices I was facing in my spiritual journey: the worship of a Big Bang, or the worship of a Savior, Redeemer, Sanctifier and Friend who sticks closer than a Big Brother (Proverbs 18:24).  That was a decisive moment for my spiritual pilgrimage, and I immediately immersed myself in our sacred texts and traditions and learned from them that it is dangerous to separate three things that enliven and enfaith us: Jesus, Scriptures, Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings Christ to life, and the Scriptures point us to Christ. Separate one from the other and you risk writing another chapter in the history of the waylaying and wrong-footing of the Christian story.

2. The Jesus Manifesto started out as an online declaration by you two; now it’s a book. How did this come together?

Len: I smelled Jesus all over Frank and wanted to know how he had kept his faith “fixed” on Christ. Frank and I met at a GFU event, and stayed in the same bed & breakfast. In the course of coming and going, we both commiserated about how, to hold on to tolerance, so many of us think we must let go of Christ and just hold on to God. So the Christian story becomes Unitarian, primarily about God, only peripherally about God’s Spirit. But Jesus no longer has the leading role . . . that belongs to God alone.

Then I mentioned to Frank that I could not get to Colossians 2 because I couldn’t get past Colossians 1, where it says that “the secret that has been kept hidden has now been revealed, and that secret is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” When I found out that Frank also was transfixed and transfigured by Colossians, we first talked of jointly writing a commentary on Colossians. But then we were led in this direction, and now no one knows the rest of the story …

Frank: In August of 2008, Len and I began conversing via email and phone. One of the things that came up in our conversations (as a pleasant surprise to both of us) was that we both felt that Jesus was getting short-changed in His church, being eclipsed by other “hot” topics and subjects.

In February 2009, we both spoke at a seminar hosted by George Fox Seminary, and we were able to spend some time in person to discuss what was on our hearts. Our burden only increased, as well as an awareness that God had something for us to accomplish together to discharge it.

In April, the idea of writing a joint article/essay emerged. We wrote it in approxiamately18 days, titled it “A Magna Carta,” and subtitled it “A Jesus Manifesto.” It was published online on June 22, 2009. It went viral immediately. I’m told that it was viewed 500,000 times in 8 weeks.

Thomas Nelson was interested in turning the essay into a book (and we were as well), and that’s what happened.

Folks can visit www.theJesusManifesto.com and read sample chapters, hear some brand new songs that were recorded by professional Christian artists based on the book (one of them by the man who wrote some of Amy Grant’s most popular tunes), check out the iPhone app, read endorsements, etc.

3. Frank, you’ve been identified with the ‘house church’ and ‘organic church’ movements – how has Jesus Manifesto been nurtured in that soil? In what ways do you think if functions as a kind of prophetic critique to it?

Frank: In 2005, I began working on a project that I finished at the end of 2009. The project has come to be called the ReChurch Library – five books on radical church reform and the restoration of God’s grand mission in the earth.

The dominating subtext of these five books is the absolute, functional headship and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Each book in the series themes around this subtext. The afterword of From Eternity to Here is fully dedicated to it.

In short, the organic expression of the church and the supremacy of Christ go hand in hand. Christ is the head; the church is His body. They are organically connected by life. I’ve defined the (local) church as a group of people who are learning to live by the indwelling life of Christ together and displaying that life in their locale. I don’t believe the New Testament knows of any other kind of local church. In addition, the church has no other specialty but her Lord. Everything else flows out of that relationship. Thus for me, the issue of the church has never been its structure. The issue has always been its center – Christ. If Christ is truly the functional head in a particular church, the expression of that church will be effected—sometimes radically. This is my chief argument in Reimagining Church.

Jesus Manifesto takes the thread Christ’s supremacy and builds an entire volume around it. Consequently, the book is a blending of both our (Len and mine) hearts, voices, and burdens regarding our shared vision that Christ should “have the first place in all things” (as Paul put it). Our book explores what that means exactly.

In short, I view Jesus Manifesto as an enlargement of the thread that runs through all of my previous books.

On a lighter note, for the last two years I’ve been writing cook books, but this is my first sweet book

With respect to your last question, I am of the opinion that the driving force of much of the house church, organic church, simple church, and missional church movements is not Jesus Christ. And so I’d like to see this changed. Hopefully, God will use the book toward that end.

4. Len, you have been a pioneer in Christians’ being responsive to the postmodern cultural and philosophical turn – what is now known in different circles as ‘emerging’ or ‘missional’ church. Is Jesus Manifesto a departure from your earlier fascination with cultural change and its impact on faith, or in some ways a fulfillment of it?

Len: Even though my primary field is history and semiotics, I challenge you to find one of my books where I do not make the case for the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in some fashion. In fact, for the last decade, in one book after another, most blatantly in So Beautiful (2009) and Out of the Question, Into the Mystery (2004), I’ve been obsessed with making this case for understanding Jesus as “The Truth” and for understanding discipleship as becoming a Jesus manifest. I am only saying here what I have said in other places and other forms and other ways: how do we speak the name of “Jesus” in such a way that the world we’re in can actually hear us, not the world we wish we had but the world we actually have. The difference is that here, I feel like Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society,” where he has the students throw away and tear up the text books and instead stand on top of the desks and speak at the top of their lungs. In Jesus Manifesto, maybe I’m back to my “shouting Methodist” and holiness Pentecostal roots.

5. Up until last year, I would have never expected Sweet and Viola to be sharing a book byline together! What was it like collaborating for this? Did your styles naturally gel, or was co-authoring difficult?

Frank: We were given a very quick deadline from the publisher after the book idea was finalized. As a result, we wrote the entire book in roughly six weeks. We were laboring on it Christmas Day even, rushing to meet our January 1^st deadline. The book was also bathed in prayer. We deliberately prayed for one another as we wrote our chapters.

But despite the haste, the process went smoother than I expected. We complimented each other’s chapters, adding to them our own unique ingredients and seasoning them with our own peculiar spices. Len made my chapters stronger, and I hope I did the same for his. I trust that readers will feel that the mix works.

Len: For me, what Frank and I did was not “work” but “play.” You don’t “work” a violin. You don’t “work” basketball.  You play a violin; you play basketball. All the best creativity comes from a play paradigm, not a work paradigm. “Labor” was what we got when we were banished from the garden, and in writing this book I felt that I was back in the garden, living out of God’s Prime Directive to Adam (“Conserve and Conceive”), with my pen a plow and my keyboard a seedbed.

I always feared that co-authoring a book would stymie rather than stimulate my creativity. When I tried my hand at woodworking, I never could master the art of mortise and tenon joinery. But I found that Frank’s passionate investment in the project opened the sluices of my soul and the rain that flowed out from both our beings is what you hold in your hand. It’s a fine line between drawing out a colleague’s best and dredging. Frank never crossed the line. It was a joy to play with him in making mudpies of praise out of soil and rain. But as Frank says, the reader is the ultimate judge and jury of our Back to the Garden project.

6. You all were up against some pretty strong critiques toward your original online Jesus Manifesto last year. Some folks thought that you were so ‘Christ-centered’ that you weren’t Trinitarian enough; others thought you magnified Jesus’ person at the expense of His teachings and deeds. Reading the book length Jesus Manifesto, I see that you more than address Jesus’ place in the Triune dance; perichoresis, the community life of God. But what would you say to the readers approaching your book who are looking to integrate this high view of Jesus with their desire to pursue a witness of good works and social justice toward expressing God’s Kingdom?

Len: Actually, we spend a lot of time talking about this in the book, maybe too much time (two chapters is a lot). But we did it because justice is now top dog among social values, and for many in both the more liberal and emerging sectors of the church, justice is another word for “equality”—making more equality more just than less equality.

The truth is no one knows what justice is. No philosopher in history has been able to satisfactorily define justice, whereas everyone knows what injustice is. Injustice is subject to Justice Potter Stewart’s “you-know-it-when-you-see-it” test (first applied to pornography). In fact, one of the best definitions of justice may be this: justice is what emerges in the struggle against injustice. If you don’t believe me, read Amartya Sen’s new book, The Idea of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2009), where he argues that justice is not a philosophical category or principle (“niti”) but a practice (“nyaya”). Justice is a practical matter of dealing with injustice; justice is asking “what is best to do in the here and now, given what can be done.”

In other words, even philosophers are bringing us back to Micah 6:8 where we are to “love mercy,” and “do justice” all the while “walking humbly with our God.” Notice what we’re to love: mercy. We’re to “do justice,” or to “practice justice,” but we are to “love mercy” and “walk humbly.”

My critique of the emerging movement is precisely here: it’s like these “young evangelicals” discovered the “social gospel” movement a century after liberals did, or fifty years after their boomer parents did in “Sojourners.” I’m a “social gospel” person (is there any other gospel than a social one?). But when you replace the “kingdom of justice” as the “framing story” rather than Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as the framing story, there ends up everything “social” and nothing “gospel.” In the Scriptures the kingdom is never something you build or create; the kingdom is something you receive as a gift and enter with your whole being, because the kingdom is the presence of Christ. A couple of years ago Relevant magazine interviewed me about my critique of Emergent and the emerging church along these precise lines, so you can read more about it there.

Frank: Someone once counted almost 200 blogs on the original essay. As I recall, there were only five that were negative. The ones I saw did mention that we neglected to discuss the Trinity—a correct observation. The others felt that we were somehow pitting Jesus against justice.

We certainly failed to talk about the Trinity in the essay. Right or wrong, we didn’t feel it was necessary to discuss it because our entire focus was on Jesus, and we were attempting to point out those aspects about Him that we felt aren’t getting enough air-play today. The Trinitarian nature of God wasn’t one of them; hence, it didn’t come up in our radar. We also wrongly assumed that most of our readers were familiar with our other books that go into the Trinity in detail.

On the other point, we tried to state as clearly as possible that it’s a gross mistake to separate the Jesus of the Gospels from the Person of Christ depicted in the epistles. And that it’s a profound failure to separate His Person from His teachings. For us, neither should be neglected; both should be held together. I addressed this very question (as well as the topic of God’s kingdom and liberation theology) more fully in an interview last year.

Having more space to unravel our vision and burden in the book (which is roughly 190 pages of actual text), we discuss the Trinity and we explore why the Person of Jesus shouldn’t be separated from His teachings and the problems that (we believe) ensue when we divide the two.

7. There seems to be a lot of grassroots energy behind this book, as well as some high-profile friends of its message via endorsers from across the Christian spectrum. If your fondest dreams could be actualized, what do you hope Jesus Manifesto will accomplish – on the literary landscape, in the Body of Christ, in the marketplace of ideas?

Len: When the Marx brothers were in the early stages of their career, the New York City family home was heavily mortgaged to the “Greenbaum” banking firm. Often the payments were very hard to come by. When the three elder brothers (Chico, Harpo and Groucho) and two younger brothers (Gummo and Zeppo) were on stage, their mother would stand in the wings. When her five zany sons began to improvise too much (especially Groucho) and depart  from script, she would snap them back with a loud stage whisper: “Greenbaum! Remember Greenbaum!”

With this book Frank and I are hoping to snap the church back with a loud whisper: “Remember Christ. Remember Christ. Remember Christ.” It’s okay to improvise as long as you stay on script/Scripture and don’t short-shrift Christ. Don’t ever forget the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ.

One more thing: Christianity has lost its liturgical and devotional language. To be sure, English is not the best language for liturgy or piety, as it has largely lost its stately, magisterial register that makes the 1611 King James Version (which was mostly cribbed from Tyndale’s 1537 translation) so resonant and thrilling. Frank and I purposely wrote this in a worshipful way in an attempt to re-introduce the church to a devotional way of talking about Jesus that seems to be missing in the life of faith today.

Frank: Yes. We are thankful that we have over 20 endorsements from some of the most influential leaders on the Christian landscape today. They include Baptist, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, Charismatic, Pentecostal, New Monastic, Neo-Anabaptist, Missional, etc. It’s a nice mix of theologians, biblical scholars, pastors, and renowned authors, all of whom share our passion for the supremacy of Christ.

My dream in a nutshell: That the Spirit of God would taken the unveiling of Jesus that’s presented in the book and press it upon the hearts of every reader, bringing us all to our faces in the presence of so great a Christ. That we would make Christ and Christ alone our chief pursuit, our chief love, our chief passion, and our chief obsession in life, in ministry, and in our churches – at whatever cost it may exact. That the body of Christ would begin to learn how to live by His indwelling life, which (according to the New Testament) is a major part of “the mystery of the ages.” And that churches all over this planet would be built upon the only foundation that exists – the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Not in rhetoric, but in reality, thus discovering and displaying His inexhaustible riches to one another, to principalities and powers, and to a lost world.

All told: I see the body of Christ in battle with its own. Some are fighting on the left; others on the right. This is true politically as well as theologically. May these timeless words from our Father stop us all dead in our tracks:

“This is my beloved Son, hear HIM.”

Jesus Manifesto is our frail attempt to reflect this heavenly voice.

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Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ (Thomas Nelson) releases Tuesday, June 1^st and will be available on discount from Amazon.com that day.

You can read Mike Morrell’s bio here.

This article originally appeared on http://TheOOZE.com

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