A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [111]
“If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” Jesus says, but our conventional interpretation of John 14:6 turns this all upside down: “Reinterpret me in light of your old tribal, chauvinistic, exclusive, elitist views of God and religion. In place of circumcision and dietary laws to exclude the outsiders, now substitute mental markers or belief markers about me.” Once this alternative understanding hits you, once you see it, it’s truly heart-breaking that John 14:6 can be used the way it so commonly is.
Of course, we haven’t even begun to resolve all the issues of living in a multifaith world as deeply committed Christians seeking a new kind of Christianity. But I hope this much is clear: there is a way to be a committed follower of Christ that doesn’t require you to be flatly and implacably against other religions and their adherents. And not only that: there are reasons to believe in and love Jesus beyond having him save you from the bottom line of the Greco-Roman soul-sort narrative.33
How wonderful if lovers of Jesus, rereading John 14:6, would discover that Jesus, outside the conventional narrative, is even more desirable, profound, mysterious, gracious, and indispensable than he appears within its confines. How wonderful if they could discover that he didn’t simply come to save us within the terms and conditions of the Greco-Roman framing story. Instead, he saves us from that whole sad story itself and introduces us to a new and better story—a story that sends us into the world with Christlike love for our neighbors of other religions, not suspicion; with humility and respect, not disdain; with a desire to understand, serve, and know, not a desire to conquer and colonize; with a passion to share—both receiving and giving—because we each have been given treasures for the common good. May it be so, before it is too late, because even now some people are loading their weapons and enriching their uranium in the name of God.
PART X:
THE WHAT-DO-WE-DO-NOW QUESTION
20
How Can We Translate Our Quest into Action?
In the time of Jesus and the apostles, there was a Jewish sage and Pharisee named Gamaliel (Acts 5:34–39). Many of his colleagues saw the new Jesus movement as a threat, so they were hatching plots to stamp it out. Gamaliel dissented. Give this thing some time and space, he counseled, and if it’s only of human origin, the wheels will fall off and it will swerve into the ditch on its own. But if it is from God, he warned, it will be unstoppable; to fight against it will mean fighting against God. Looking back on what we’ve considered so far in this quest for a new kind of Christian faith, some of us will feel like Gamaliel’s colleagues—wondering how to stamp this damned thing out before it spreads. Others, like Gamaliel, will be more open-minded, willing to give it a chance. But either response raises the same question: Is this quest only of human origin? Or, in spite of and alongside all the human frailty and stupidity inherent in this quest, is God at work in it?
I have been somewhat shy about speaking of God’s agency so far in these pages. In part, my shyness flows from a temperamental preference for understating rather than overstating.1 Sadly, few things are more common in some religious circles than people claiming that God is at work in their endeavors. As evidence of divine involvement, they may testify of thousands being saved, healed, delivered, transformed, added, touched, and so forth. (Some friends of mine call these numbers “evang-elastic.”) These statistics are often followed by an inspired plea for tax-deductible donations, which are desperately needed now for this vital work to continue. Making these claims may have some motivational value (at least for the ones making them!), but, based on my observations, the loudness and frequency of the claims may be inversely proportional to their validity.
But there’s an equal and opposite ditch on the other side of the road. We can back so far away from the ditch of overstating God’s support for our work that we fall into the opposite