From John to Brian

We recently posted re. John Franke’s forward to Brian McLaren’s book a Generous Orthodoxy. See post on March 21. I’m finally getting into the book proper, so let’s go from John’s views to what Brian is actually writing. Regarding his being enriched by the views of various major denominations and their beliefs concerning Jesus, he says this about The Eastern Orthodox Jesus:

For the first time, through the Eastern Jesus, I began to have a glimpse of how Jesus could indeed be the Savior of not just a few individual humans but of the whole world. I began to see the wisdom, the necessity of the incarnation, and its expanding impact – not just beyond this life and this history, but within it. And somehow I began to see how my personal salvation was not apart from the salvation of the world but was a part of it. The more I learned from Jesus “the ways of the king,” the more I could influence others in his ways, too, and the closer we came to the salvation of the whole world. This dynamic, transcendent, and cosmic Eastern Orthodox Jesus opened the door for three more. (pp. 65-66)

God’s life, love, joy, and power are so great that all our death, hate, pain, and failures are eradicated, swallowed up, cancelled, extinguished, and overcome by being taken up into God. In this way Jesus will ultimately bring blessing to the whole world, to all of creation…Second, as humanity (and all creation) enters into God through Jesus, God also enters Jesus’ people, species, and history. And by entering all creation through Jesus, God’s heart is forever bound to it in solidarity, faithfulness, loyalty, and commitment. God will never give up until all creation is healed of its diseases, cured of its addiction, retrained from its foolishness, reclaimed from its lost state. Jesus saves by coming, by being born. (pp.63-64 - emphasis has been mine)

I will withhold assertive conclusions about any of the author’s spiritual world views until a later date. One of the areas of interest to me will be in the discerning of his degree of possessing a koinania-like love for human kind and in a discerning of just how that love is supposed to impact world society. He seems to feel that as we learn “the ways of the king”, to that degree we will impact the world for good and help bring about “the salvation of the whole world”. God’s love is so powerful that death is going to be “swallowed up” by being “taken up into God”. Further, “God will never give up until all creation is healed…”

Let’s stop here. Books can be written regarding this page alone. To those of us who are animated in any way to serve Christ, questions demand to be asked, and answered:

Where is The Second Coming in all this? His first coming (incarnation) should indeed impact society as we live, but is that process going to swallow up death by “being taken up into God”? If there are many who are going to enter in by the broad way, and there are few who are going to enter in by the narrow way (Mt. 7:13-14), then a little more sobriety needs to be exercised here, don’t you think? It seems more likely that death is going to be swallowed up (destroyed) by the coming of a great king outraged by death and all that it (he) entails. As previously alluded to, He is not going to negotiate with bad people, the Church is not going to turn the world around, niceness is not going to win the day. The Second Coming of Christ with the armies of heaven is going to win the day!

Now here is the question that the 800 pound gorilla demands be answered by all who proclaim the name of Christ: Is it the eschatological intent of Christ through history to heal a community (the world), or is it His eschatological intent to call out a remnant people uniquely unto Himself (the Church)? Eternal life and death may be in the balance!!