2 minute read
In some circles, it has almost become cliché to say that the Gospel isn’t intended as a “get out of hell” card. Yet even in those spaces there isn’t a widespread renewal of what the Gospel actually is. There’s seldom a compelling vision capturing its true depth and breadth. Instead what we often find is this rather clumsy refitting of a deeply flawed paradigm. It’s like remodeling a house with a bad roof, poor carpentry, dangerous wiring, terrible plumbing, and a foundation broken beyond repair instead of razing the whole property and starting anew. Jesus‘ Gospel deserves better.
By confining our vision of the Gospel to Christ’s atoning death on the cross and the subsequent forgiveness of individual sin so we can go to heaven upon death, many have oversimplified the Gospel to the point of distortion or abuse–if not altogether redefinition. That’s an egregious error. The same is true of those who’ve tacitly decoupled the Gospel from its eternal significance, thereby turning it into merely a collectivist vehicle for social justice and social change in the here and now. Both visions are myopic and flawed. The Gospel is bigger, better, and fuller.
We’ve all heard that “gospel” means good news. If you’ll forgive me for waxing theologically here for a second, the Good News is that Jesus’ incarnation, life, ministry, death, and resurrection are collectively the culmination and climax of the Bible’s redemptive metanarrative while His present-future Kingdom is its conclusion. Jesus brought shalom to the very world He created. He Himself is the first fruit of that reconciliation and renewal, and He will return to put the whole of creation to rights, as N.T. Wright describes it. This story is our source of eternal life and hope.
Now let’s translate that message from the lofty pulpit to the bar stools at the pub. It means that your deepest intuitions about reality are right: God did create us, God does love us, this world is beautiful yet broken, and humanity is made for connection. Unfortunately, that harmonious connection–with God, with one another, and with the natural world–was badly damaged. That’s why our Creator became part of creation to restore that connection. It was the ultimate act of love and solidarity. Now, and into eternity, we’re invited to participate in that restoration project.
The original beatniks were a fascinating amalgamation of belief systems and philosophies. They had a humanistic belief in our capacity to pursue human flourishing yet saw brokenness as part of the human condition. They had an openness to spiritual realities and ways of knowing yet viciously criticized organized religion‘s glaring hypocrisies, especially in Western Christianity. It’s too bad nobody brought it all together for them as Jesus putting the world to rights without all of Christian culture‘s BS and dogma, but that’s what beatnik Christianity aspires to do.
