A response to Justin's challenge to describe the Gospel in your context.
First assignment; describe your context. Hmm. That's an interesting one, because in my context we don't think about context. :-) I am one that finds himself caught between the modern and the post modern, leaning toward the safety of the modern way of thinking. Frankly, I don't know that I understand post-modernism at all, I only know that modernism's biggest failing is it's assumption that it can figure it all out and that context doesn't really matter. So here I sit, having been brought up in a modern, well defined world, looking around and seeing that things don't always fit in a nice neat package, but not feeling quite equipped to deal with that.
I think that modernism's way of looking at things, defining problems and seeking concrete solutions has much to say for itself, just not as much as it claims. But neither does post-modernism either.
But this is supposed to be about the gospel, not a comparison of world views. The gospel to me is good news that is defined as much by the bad news. The bad news is that I have no idea what I'm doing here, how to live, how to treat people, how to be Right. Not just act or seem right or do right but be right. I fall short, way, way short. I don't want to but I can't help it. I fail my wife, my kids, my family, my job, my neighbor, my God. I try, and try hard but I fail. I've learned many lessons on how not to fail, but they do not produce less failures. No, they reveal deeper chasms in my character, deeper failings, more things to work on.
I am not what God wants me to be, by any Biblical measure, likely any measure. Bad news indeed.
The good news is that God, in his infinite and amazing love has come to my rescue. He's sent me a scapegoat, someone to take my burdens, my problems, my failings as His own. Jesus takes my sin, takes the punishment, takes the blame. "Put it on me.", He says, "Don't worry about it." My failings are no longer fatal, they no longer need to drag me to me knees in disgust. Jesus takes them away and I am free. Free of the burden of guilt and free to go at it again. What a relief to be able to shake off this guilt and focus only on becoming my best, something I could never so before because my failures stayed with me, distracting me and preventing me from moving on. I was ever chasing the unattainable dream of perfection, and suddenly it's been handed to me, undeservingly. Now I am seen as perfect, though I'm not. What can possibly keep me down? What can keep me from greatness?
Now that's good news.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Very well said.
A few questions to tease out a little more of what you mean...(you like a challenge, right? :)
1)Would this work if the actual facts about Jesus that Christians believe were false? In other words, if there is no Jesus or God, and your beliefs as outlined above enable you to live a happy, guilt-free life, is that a good thing?
2)What if other people disagree with you about Christians' ability to use Jesus as a scapegoat? How do we respond to the inevitable irritation that comes when a group of people excuse all of their failings by making some complex theological reference to a man who lived 2000 years ago?
I very much like the idea of moving on, because in putting it this way you are not minimizing the seriousness of the problem of sin and evil, but simply saying that it's not the whole story. There is a solution, and a way to get past the limitations of our mortal selves.
Very nicely said, Salguod.
Oh, and your post made me realize that I forgot to describe my own context. Hehe.
I thought this was a neat thing, so I took my hand at it. Granted, I think I got the assignment a bit wrong, but I hope it's educational somehow. I think about the gospel in terms of dialogue, so it's not as simple to me as making a big statement.
You can find it here
Although I don't have a vague idea as to what modernism and post-modernism thinking is. I do know that much contemporary thinking is the need to put understanding in a box. It seems that we need difinitive proof, and logic in order to accept anything as fact. Moreover, we tend to think that our own opinion is the only truth necessary. In other words, "if I don't accept, believe, or agree with you, then it must not be true." Of course this is just well disguiesed arrogence. To often I will not try to assume that perhaps I might need to unlearn some things in order to learn the truth. I think that there are many contributing factors in this line of thinking. One is the intense saturation of education, religion, and media. Feeling well informed, or believing that we are well informed should somehow give us the authority to be the difinitive giver of truth. Finding the right context is one thing, but to define what is truth in the gospel is another. Context is simply perspective, no? I often wonder how certain bibilical concepts are understood in different cultures in different times in history. I do believe that the human heart remains the same, but culture surely persuades the context.
OK Justin, I finally have time to respond to your questions.
1 - The gospel if God and Jesus don't exist? Isn't that like asking what kind of driver you'd be if there were no cars? Seems disconnected somehow. So I guess the answer is no, it won't work outside of the context of Jesus. Then it's just avoiding responsibility. The beauty of the gospel is that responsibility isn't avoided, it's transferred to Jesus. He willingly takes it from us.
2 - See #1. :-) Seriously, it's going to be hard to explain, but I think the nature of being Christlike is to accept responsibility even as we know that we cannot. What I mean is in our dealing with others, we own our sin against them, acknowledge it and proactively right the wrongs as best we can. I think with Jesus as our scapegoat it can actually give us the ability to do that. With out Jesus, owning our sin is quite a serious and permanent thing. With Jesus we own it for the here and now, for the sake of the one sin against, but not forever.
Oh, and your post made me realize that I forgot to describe my own context. Hehe.
Here's how little I understand postmodernism thought: I read you post, and then read it again, looking for the context. I couldn't figure it out. In the end I assumed that it must be there and that I just didn't 'get it' and moved on. :-) So, are you going correct that?
I probably won't add anything about my context, unless I publish the post on a different site, since my regular readers tend to know where I am and what it's like (from the sidebar, previous posts, and Seattle's reputation).