The Religious Wrong. Part 1

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” -Ghandi

The way one understands the gospel affects everything…evangelism, the role of the church, discipleship, worship, mission, the public and private practice of the faith, etc… Therefore a simple misunderstanding of the gospel can have grave consequences (i.e. crusades, church abuse, the religious right). 

I am amazed at when I ask Christians what the gospel is how many times they get it wrong. A Typical answer has something to do with Christ’s role in the atonement of sins and how it paves a way for eternal life. Where as this is foundational to Christian belief, and I do not deny this, it is not the good news Jesus came to proclaim in the Bible. 

Jesus spent his ministry talking about one thing, the Kingdom of God. His miraculous power proclaimed the Kingdom was supernatural, his work with the least of these showed the Kingdom’s priorities, and his parables gave insight to his notion of a Kingdom that was radically different than anything we’d known before. Jesus was constantly proclaiming, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Now why isn’t Jesus’ atonement the good news? All throughout the gospels Jesus sent out his disciples to proclaim what? Did they go out and proclaim that Jesus was going to die for their sins, and if they wanted to go to heaven all they needed to do was repeat a prayer and they’d be written in the Lamb’s book of life? Absolutely not! Heck, any time Jesus told the disciples he was going to die they called him crazy and denied it. But what the disciples did do was go out preaching what Jesus preached, “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The basic message was, the gospel is here, change your worldview so you can enter the kingdom of God today.

The classic street corner question is this: if you died tonight would you be in heaven? But Jesus asked people, if you are alive tomorrow who will you follow and how will you live your life. Jesus constantly called his disciples to follow him, deny themselves by taking up their crosses daily. They didn’t have to wait until they died to enter this reality called the kingdom of God. The gospel of the Kingdom is for life today, and not jut for death.

Growing up in evangelical America, I have been taught I am not of this world, and that when I die paradise is waiting. When one excepts this worldview, your priorities become to spend your life convincing as many people to believe what you believe and waiting to die, all the while allowing this world to go to hell because the next world is better.

Basing the foundation of your faith on the afterlife is like voting for McCain/Palin because there might be another terrorist attack. If we are honest with ourselves would we really follow Jesus if there wasn’t something in it for us. In my own journey I’ve had to ask myself, if there was no heaven would I still follow Christ? So I pose this same question to whoever reads this, would you follow Christ if there was no Heaven?

I encourage every single Christian to explore Jesus’ Gospel by seeking first what the kingdom of God is and who it is for? A good start is Matt. 5 it will radically alter your American Reality!

***end part 1…part 2 “What the Hell, Heaven isn’t real?” coming soon!