Scot McKnight believes that the question, What is the gospel?, is a crucial question for the church. He also believes the church to be confused about the 'real' answer to the question, the biblical answer.
I've not long finished a stimulating book by McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (2011).
Provocatively he argues that Evangelicals (those supposedly concerned about the evangel, the gospel, good news) today are not really evangelical at all! They are more accurately called soterians! (He's coined this word to denote those who are primarily concerned with salvation at the expense of the gospel.)
He believes that evangelicals--and included in this description would be many charismatic and Pentecostal churches as well--have built 'salvation cultures' (p. 29) rather than 'gospel cultures'. The two he affirms are not the same thing even though the former is part of the latter. Once might say that the gospel is the big picture whereas salvation is one of the smaller pictures within that.
So we might ask, So what is the gospel?
He's not quick to answer that until he mentions some of his concerns about modern-day evangelicalism and also the traditional, mainline denominations (one of which I attend).
Starting with the latter first, he says that to baptise babies or young children and then onto confirmation is leading to big problems. In many cases, the baptised are never brought back to church. Their parents don't ever bring them back and hence they never get the instruction preceding confirmation. The mainline, traditional churches generally as we know are slowly dying of old age. They often have 'members' of the church who have never personally believed on Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
But what is happening in the evangelical world is sometimes not much better! Although some sort of personal response is called for and made, those decision-makers don't always go on to become disciples. They come to church perhaps and worship but during the week their discipleship of Christ is lacking. For example, from personal experience I am been shocked by what some 'Christian' converts claiming to be 'born-again' imagine is acceptable moral behaviour.
McKnight does not believe that people should not be challenged to make 'decisions for Christ' and elect to believe on him as the Saviour of the world--what he calls 'the decided' group. But it should not stop there. The 'decided' need to be discipled, to be disciples of Christ.
And yes I know, we still haven't got to the answer to the question of what is the gospel. To do that, McKnight says, we have to distinguish (but not separate) four elements: the Story of Israel/the Bible; the Story of Jesus; the Plan of Salvation; the Method of Persuasion. McKnight states that Evangelicalism, and even Catholicism and Orthodoxy would align the gospel with the Plan of Salvation. Under that understanding, the Plan and the Method are often merged (but that is another issue).
He believes the Story of Jesus as it is embedded in the Story of Israel is essentially the gospel (particularly as we find it in 1 Cor 15.1-8) and in the historic creeds of the church (Apostles' and Nicene Creeds).
Next time I will give an outline of how he arrives at that idea and whether it is sustainable.
Provocatively he argues that Evangelicals (those supposedly concerned about the evangel, the gospel, good news) today are not really evangelical at all! They are more accurately called soterians! (He's coined this word to denote those who are primarily concerned with salvation at the expense of the gospel.)
He believes that evangelicals--and included in this description would be many charismatic and Pentecostal churches as well--have built 'salvation cultures' (p. 29) rather than 'gospel cultures'. The two he affirms are not the same thing even though the former is part of the latter. Once might say that the gospel is the big picture whereas salvation is one of the smaller pictures within that.
So we might ask, So what is the gospel?
He's not quick to answer that until he mentions some of his concerns about modern-day evangelicalism and also the traditional, mainline denominations (one of which I attend).
Starting with the latter first, he says that to baptise babies or young children and then onto confirmation is leading to big problems. In many cases, the baptised are never brought back to church. Their parents don't ever bring them back and hence they never get the instruction preceding confirmation. The mainline, traditional churches generally as we know are slowly dying of old age. They often have 'members' of the church who have never personally believed on Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
But what is happening in the evangelical world is sometimes not much better! Although some sort of personal response is called for and made, those decision-makers don't always go on to become disciples. They come to church perhaps and worship but during the week their discipleship of Christ is lacking. For example, from personal experience I am been shocked by what some 'Christian' converts claiming to be 'born-again' imagine is acceptable moral behaviour.
McKnight does not believe that people should not be challenged to make 'decisions for Christ' and elect to believe on him as the Saviour of the world--what he calls 'the decided' group. But it should not stop there. The 'decided' need to be discipled, to be disciples of Christ.
And yes I know, we still haven't got to the answer to the question of what is the gospel. To do that, McKnight says, we have to distinguish (but not separate) four elements: the Story of Israel/the Bible; the Story of Jesus; the Plan of Salvation; the Method of Persuasion. McKnight states that Evangelicalism, and even Catholicism and Orthodoxy would align the gospel with the Plan of Salvation. Under that understanding, the Plan and the Method are often merged (but that is another issue).
He believes the Story of Jesus as it is embedded in the Story of Israel is essentially the gospel (particularly as we find it in 1 Cor 15.1-8) and in the historic creeds of the church (Apostles' and Nicene Creeds).
Next time I will give an outline of how he arrives at that idea and whether it is sustainable.
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