A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [78]
From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets…. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. (Acts 28:23, 30–31, emphasis mine)
In Rome, the headquarters of the kingdom of Caesar, Paul preaches the kingdom of God. In Rome, the seat of power of Lord Caesar the Emperor, Paul teaches about Lord Jesus the Liberator. As in his Letter to the Romans, Paul does not preach a different gospel; he is still carrying the same gospel he received from Jesus Christ in a vision, the gospel of the kingdom of God. Whether in person or by letter, he calls people everywhere to be reconciled in the kingdom of God—reconciled to God by grace through faith, reconciled within themselves, reconciled with others whatever their class, ethnic, cultural, or religious background, and reconciled with all creation, because all creation groans in pain, waiting for humans to become what God intends them to be.
Paul is a “Jesus and the kingdom of God” guy from first to last. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ and of his servant/apostle Paul: the kingdom of God is at hand.7 Repent and believe the good news. Be reconciled.
Add it as fine print to your existing theological contract if that’s all you can manage right now, or fully rewrite the contract around this good news if you can. But either way, repent. And believe the good news, for it is good indeed.
BOOK TWO
EMERGING and EXPLORING
I imagine some readers at this point are feeling liberated and energized. Having explored our first five questions, you may feel like an Alka-Seltzer has been dropped in the center of your brain, and your imagination is fizzing with possibilities as relief comes to some of your theological indigestion. The Christian faith has never looked so good to you, and you’re saying things like, “Wow. Maybe I can be a Christian after all.”1 Others are outraged, and what you’re saying about this book and its author probably shouldn’t be made public (although it probably will be). A lot of readers are somewhere in between, maybe a little shaken and dizzy, with all kinds of ambivalence churning. You feel a lot like I did staring into my hot and sour soup at the Chinese restaurant I mentioned back in Chapter 14—disturbed, unsettled, baffled, maybe even guilty for entertaining new perspectives, but maybe a little hopeful too, and relieved, free, curious.
I’m sympathetic with your ambivalence. When I began asking these questions, it wasn’t simply an academic matter of interpretation and understanding for me, nor is it now. It isn’t just a head thing; it’s a heart thing, because I don’t just aspire to believe in God or think correctly about God. I want to love God and worship God and serve and experience God. If my view of God changes, well, that changes everything for me. This quest stirs up all kinds of psychological issues for me too, because my theology and my biography are deeply integrated in my “beology”—my sense of who I am and what I want to be as a human being.2
On top of all that, this is a social thing for me, and I know it’s the same for you too, because this Sunday a lot of us will show up in churches where the ideas we’ve been considering would cause some people to choke. We could lose friends, and if we’re pastors,