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<\/span><\/p>\nThe central portion of Harvey Cox\u2019s new book The Future of Faith<\/a><\/b><\/i> lays out the New Perspective on The Church \u2013 which is no longer new. It is broad brush summarized as follows:<\/p>\n Jesus taught and enacted a kingdom vision.<\/p>\n His immediate followers were committed to this vision<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s disavowal of the necessity to submit to Jerusalem demonstrates that it was Spirit driven<\/p>\n At its core the movement was a rebellion against human, particularly Roman, empire in favor of what could be \u2013 Kingdom of God<\/p>\n The diversity of texts found at Nag Hammadi among others demonstrate that belief in the early church was not uniform<\/p>\n The Gospel of Thomas is as old and as faithful as any of the four in the NT<\/p>\n Luke in Luke-Acts was setting forth a Christian epic to compete with the Aeneid and other epics<\/p>\n This community (ekklesia = gathering with political undertones) became distorted into a hierarchical church emphasizing beliefs and authority<\/p>\n \u2192 The distortion is apparent as early as the first epistle of Clement (ca. 92 AD)<\/p>\n \u2192 The distortion develops through Tertullian and Origin and Cyprian\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2192 The distortion crystallized with Roman favor and Constantine<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The council at Nicaea, far from being a sober and Spirit led occasion marked the end of the beginning. The transition was complete.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the Christian bishops went on debating the fine points of theology, Now they argued over what homoousious<\/i> really meant and the nature of Mary\u2019s relationship to God and Christ. They composed more creeds and excommunicated more people. After the fall of Rome in 476, the ensuing centuries toll a dismal story if the repeated failure of using creeds and excommunications to achieve any result, except for further rancor. (p. 108)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So here is a question to ponder:<\/p>\n Which parts of Cox\u2019s perspective on the Church ring true \u2013 and which parts don\u2019t? How would you tell the story?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I ask this question in this fashion because we cannot simply dismiss what Cox has to say. Many of these ideas are running through our church today.\u00a0 We see them in NT Wright\u2019s work \u2013 and Greg Boyd\u2019s. Isn\u2019t some of this revision of church history the background for The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution<\/a> Church history continues \u2026 and Cox continues\u2026<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The reformers saw some of the excesses of church hierarchy and moved away \u2013 but then developed equally constrained formulae and creeds. Saved by faith became saved by believing in justification by faith.<\/p>\n As we entered the twentieth century, the fundamentalists saw the loose approach to scripture leading to an \u201canything goes\u201d Christianity. Inerrancy and belief in inerrancy became the rock-bottom foundation. This is the creed. Cox has an interesting view of fundamentalists \u2013 and he classes his Fundamentalism is the current Protestant variant of the toxin of creed making that entered the bloodstream of Christianity early in its history. Fundamentalists collapse faith into belief. They define themselves by their unyielding insistence that faith<\/i> consists of believing<\/i> in certain \u201cfundamentals.\u201d\u00a0 (p. 141)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Cox sees changes at work though \u2026<\/p>\n Conservative Christianity in America \u2013 and in many other parts of the world \u2013 is not a phalanx. The Spirit is moving. Faith is becoming more salient than beliefs.\u00a0 \u2026 Worldwide, evangelical movements are moving, changing, dividing. They are vigorous in many ways, but often ambivalent about their mission. Many of their leaders who once condemned the \u201csocial gospel\u201d are now searching for a social theology of their own that includes peacemaking, striving for racial justice, and combating poverty. The opportunity for useful conversation with the \u201cother wing\u201d may be more promising than ever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He believes that his audience \u2013 secular Christian liberals \u2013 should seize this opportunity and open a dialog with more conservative Christians.<\/p>\n What of the future?<\/b><\/i> We can argue with Cox \u2013 and I certainly think that his picture of both the Christian past and the Christian faith is deeply flawed \u2013 but many of the trends that he sees are true. Perhaps some of them are necessary correctives in the ongoing stream of the church. For example \u2013 there is a growing realization that the Christian faith demands a social theology that includes peacemaking and combating poverty and oppression (Samaritan\u2019s Purse<\/a> and World Vision<\/a> are examples, but there are many more). But as we move forward this also requires that we think deeply about the faith we claim \u2013 the rock on which we stand. The story of the gospel (see last week\u2019s post<\/a>) and the story of the church (above) must be considered as we look to the future.<\/p>\n Cox has given his perspective. This perspective begs a response \u2013 a new response for a new day.\u00a0 We can see (perhaps) the shortcomings of the \u2018fundamentalist\u2019 approach.\u00a0 But the future is not so clear. Cox will throw up his hands in disgust, but there are core essentials to the faith \u2013 and these are grounded in beliefs. Belief in God and in his work in the world, past, present, and future. <\/p>\n What are your thoughts? Does a new perspective on the kingdom message of Jesus\u00a0 require response? How?<\/b> If you wish to contact me, you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The central portion of Harvey Cox\u2019s new book The Future of Faith lays out the New Perspective on The Church \u2013 which is no longer new. It is broad brush summarized as follows: Jesus taught and enacted a kingdom vision. His immediate followers were committed to this vision Paul\u2019s disavowal of the necessity to submit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[456,76,1772,1736,1774],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christianity","category-church-history","category-emerging-movement","category-problems-for-faith"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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\nforay with IVCF in the 1940\u2019s as his experience as a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n\n
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