Oh how I wish more people would have spent some time in a journalism class!
I’m so tired of people quoting only half of a statement because that’s all they chose to hear.
I’ve got the day off today (nice) and I woke up and read another section of “Jesus for President.” Bought it last night before going to the Dallas Museum of Art with Laurie.
I was good and ready to write a quick blog post about the what I had read before when my friend John forwards this to me from a site he forwards stuff from pretty constantly:
EXCERPT:
There is a word that describes John Dominic Crossan and that word is Heretic.
On a related note: Brian McLaren of the Emergent Church in his latest book Everything Must Change quotes favorably from Crossan’s latest book. McLaren and Crossan reinterpret the message of the gospel in such a way as to practically eliminate the doctrine of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement (This is the Biblical teaching that tells us the Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and died as our substitute on the cross in order to propitiate God’s wrath against our sins). After quoting Crossan on pages 122 and 123, Brian McLaren concludes that rather than die for our sins, “Jesus will use his cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.”
That is not the Biblical gospel!
That is a bunch of Emergent goblidy gook!
But here again the scriptures tell us plainly what the gospel is and so we ask who are you going to believe?
Mark 10:45 [Jesus said] “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Arrghh! I’ve read the book. I knew exactly when I read the email which portion of the book it came from. I had to jump up immediately. Head out to my truck and grab the book.
My response
again… taking one line out of an entire chapter.
McLaren NEVER says, “rather than die for our sins…” McLaren is making the point about Jesus’ framing story compared to that of Ceaser Augustus.
Now I’ve got to type this whole thing out to prove my point……. geeze….
The empires “good news” is a framing story of peace through domination, peace through redemptive violence, peace through centralized power and control, peace through elimination of enemies. (Sounds a lot like modern America doesn’t it*) It involves the gods legitimizing those in power so that resistance to their sacred regime becomes not only treason but also heresy. The imperial narrative that drives them to dominance often drives them to self-destruction. Jesus’ alternative framing story, as we’ve seen involves God bringing down those in power (Luke 1:52-53) so that the poor can be legitimized (Luke 4:18) and so that the religious collaboration with the empire can be exposed as hypocrisy. The empire uses crosses to punish rebels and instill fear and submission to the oppressed: Jesus will use a cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.
*my note
I have to wonder – would we really have that much to talk about, blog about, write about, get angry about if we’d only quote the whole dang thing. Maybe if, rather than listening for a sound bite to put on YouTube we’d actually take a couple hours (or maybe minutes) and read the entire chapter or book, or listen to the entire message.
Example 2
I have to share this from Kevin Hendricks re: the recent hub-bub about Jeremiah Wright:
Wow. The craziness is flying over comments made by Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. I’ve read reactions from people stronly opposed to Wright, and from people defending Wright (or at least giving some helpful context — Knightopia links to several more).
Some of what Wright says is clearly off the deep end (i.e., the government invented AIDS to wipe out people of color). But I think some of his comments are right on. Like the “God Damn America” comments:
“The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people — God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” (Seattle Times)
The ABC News story left out the last sentence, which I think helps give some context. Wright is preaching prophetically, like the prophets of old, who spoke out against injustice. I love America and the freedoms we have, but it’s not anti-American to speak out against injustice committed by America. That’s patriotic. (I wish Obama would have made that point.)
And America has some injustice going on when there are more black men in prison than in college.