One of the striking features of Jonathan's argument in the book (for a more comprehensive summary and reaction, see my last post) is the simplicity of both the root problem and God's solution. The subtitle "Reconstructing a whole new Christianity" will no doubt be sufficient for many evangelicals to smell serious heresy here. They will zero in on the phrase "a whole new" and will argue that there's nothing wrong with the one we already got. But the concern here is not the demolishment of everything we've ever believed to be true. What needs to be questioned continually is whether our theologies are really still completely in line with the original story.
Reconstruction is not a whole new proposal but a call back to the source and an examination of the foundation we're trying to build on. Just as the reformers argued that selling indulgences was not in line with the original good news of unlimited and unconditional grace, Jonathan argues that the belief that God needs to be appeased (or needs to appease Himself) through the cross is not in line with the unchanging nature of His love and grace. Atonement is a demonstration of an already existing reality, not an alteration in God's attitude towards human beings.
When I was thinking about the simplicity of Jonathan's proposal yesterday, I was struck by the similarities to what evangelical subculture most likely would consider its own simple summary of the root problem and of the Gospel: The Four Spiritual Laws (now called: "The Four Spiritual Principles"). Let's compare those 4 statements side by side with the God Imagination:
1. "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life."
Essentially there is no difference in Jonathan's reading of the most fundamental and most important truth revealed in the Bible. God's love is there from the beginning. God IS love! Nothing can and nothing will change that, not even our sin. It is this basis of objective truth people need to see and know. They are loved right now apart from anything good or bad they have done. And the goodness and love of God includes His design for our lives. What makes His plan so wonderful is that there is unlimited permission to live out our God-given potential and creativity. The whole earth with everything in it is given to us to enjoy and to preserve. The only boundary God sets is anything that would harm us or others. We are free to love and to be loved.
2. "Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life."
The way this statement might be read is that "being sinful" implies unworthiness, a loss of dignity and accordingly something that pushes God away from us because we are evil. But the statement itself also easily accomodates a very different reading: Our sinfulness is the state of having created a reality ourselves where we no longer believe that God loves us (or could love us the way we are). We created the separation from God ourselves by running away from Him and looking for all kinds of other things to fill the felt void and to seek validation elsewhere. This reading is actually supported by what follows. It's because our perception and mindset is screwed up that we are unable to know and experience the love that is still there!
3. "Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life."
Again, a common reading implies that "only provision" means: the only place and the only way God can really love us. But this would actually contradict law / principle #1. Jonathan's proposal fits the context better. The provision God makes for our inability to see His love and act according to His love is by sending His Son into the world and becoming human and showing His love in a way that it could never be denied: by laying down His life for us - allowing to be killed and becoming the embodiment of sin itself in a gruesome sacrifice demanded by sinful men. Because this love is so amazing and so undeniable in Jesus' own definition of this act as one of unlimited grace, we can now break through the lies and the smoke screen of our perverted mindset and know and experience God's love.
4. "We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's plan for our lives."
Evangelical subculture no doubt interprets this to mean: we all must pray some kind of prayer where we tell Jesus that we want to receive him and that we desire to make Him our personal Savior and Lord, and in response God grants us this wish. We MUST do this and if we don't God does not accept us and we are not really Christians.
Now I'm not arguing that the original writer (I assume it was Bill Bright) didn't have something in mind along these lines. But this would be neither biblical nor logical after considering everything that was stated so far. The only reading that does make sense actually is this: the only way to know and experience God's love and design for us is by recognising and embracing it. A prayer is one way a person can do that (as a first step of acknowleding and embracing God's truth) but it is not the only way. Again it's not what WE DO that changes reality but we get to embrace a reality that is already true and existing and we consciously enter into its realm by acknowledging it and giving ourselves over to it.
How could we illustrate our root problem and God's solution visually? Would the old picture of the chasm that Jesus bridges through the cross still be usable? I personally don't see why not. After all, the chasm is still there and it is created through the deceitful power of sin. We just need to point out that the chasm is OUR CREATION and does not accurate reflect how God sees us. The cross is the ultimate bridge God does create by absorbing our sin into Himself and manifesting Himself in a way that the chasm can no longer prevail. The only thing that needs to be strongly emphasized is that the picture of God on the other side of the chasm is actually an illusion. He's always embraced us. He's never left. Grace has always been true. God has always been for us and always been with us. He has crossed the chasm in the cross in such a way that we could finally see it. And when we do, the chasm that seemed insurmountable in our minds and reinforced as proof of its existence through our actions, dissolves into nothing. We KNOW now that God is for us and that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love He has shown so clearly in Christ.
