“Is Jesus a social, economic, and political revolutionary? Is the mission of the church primarily to confront society’s structures so they can be transformed? Or is its primary goal to confront individuals within these structures and pursue change in individuals that impact the structures they serve?” – Darrell Bock commenting on Jesus’ sermon in Luke 4 (Baker’s Exegetical Commentary on Luke 1:1-9:50, p.400)
Ok so the heading is a little misleading, but after reading this quote I couldn’t but help think that it does a good job of summarizing the difference between Brian McLaren’s view of the church’s purpose and my own personal view. As far as I can see McLaren and I want the same thing – we’ve just got radically different suggestions on how to get there.
That’s pretty cool that Bock talked about you in his commentary.
Thanks for the quote.
Good quote Stephen. Tell me though: Do you think this cuts at the fairly recent interest in planting city-center churches – you know, impact the structures that impact the culture – for favoring more typical church planting – redeem the people and disciple them in such a way that they then impact every sphere of their lives (home, work, play, etc…)?
Just a thought…
To be honest I’m not sure. I must admit though that historically Christian mission has very often been concerned with structures as well as the individual. We’ve fallen pray to the individualism of modernism. It could be though that the interest in city-center church planting has the same agenda as the more typical church planting – its just that when you start affecting the home, work and play of the city dwellers it tends to spill over far more than if you do it elsewhere. Not sure really.
My aim is to proclaim the gospel, see it transform people’s lives and then help facilitate (pastor?) that transformation (with the same gospel) so that transformed people exist in transformed communities that transform and attract those on the outside at multiple levels (individual and structures). For me everything centers around the word of the gospel – we proclaim it and keep proclaiming it with a radical orthopraxy that is informed by that gospel alone and God does all the work.
That was the division that drove me out of Western Christianity. People arguing about either/or when it should be both/and.