Theresa and I just finished reading Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ, by Neil T. Anderson as part of Christar’s required reading. To be honest, we weren’t really thrilled with the book, although that’s probably due more to the fact that it didn’t have a lot of relevance to where we were currently, rather than the book’s quality. I have personally known many people who have benefited from Anderson’s books. However, something he said revived some things that have been bouncing around in my mind recently and so I decided to share my thoughts with you. I don’t know if my comments are going in exactly the same direction he was headed in in the above quote, but his term struck me and I think what he was addressing is a symptom of the same problem I am wrestling with.

“Many Christians are living under a half gospel. They have heard that Jesus is the Messiah who came to die for their sins, and if they pray to receive Christ, they will go to heaven when they die and their sins will be forgiven.” (p. 44)

Half Gospel… If you spend any time in evangelical circles, the word gospel gets thrown around a lot. To most, the gospel is the facts of salvation. Jesus died and rose again to take the punishment for my sin. If I accept his gift of salvation, I can have eternal life. The fact that these are well understood is good. 1 Corinthians 15 makes it obvious that Christ’s resurrection is pivotal to our faith. But what I am struggling with is that these are all that is talked about.

As the people of God, our mission is to join God in his work of reconciling and restoring all creation from the effects of the curse. The effects of the curse were not just spiritual, and I think God is just as concerned about how we build his kingdom in the here and now as what goes on “in the sweet by and by.” Unfortunately, many Christians’ misunderstanding of what the gospel fully entails leads them to view salvation primarily as a transaction. I give my heart to Jesus and he gives me eternal life. “…we end up with,” as Anderson puts it, “forgiven sinners instead of redeemed saints.”

I believe one of the best encapsulations of the gospel is found in Jesus paraphrase of Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.” (Luke 4:18-19)

I don’t think Jesus is talking in all spiritual metaphors here. It seems clear from his ministry that he is actually concerned with the poor, the handicapped, and those bound by societal oppression. As Christians, we should be on the front lines in dealing with these issues. Being a Christian is as much about working to make our world reflect what God originally intended, as it is about getting our ticket to heaven. Certainly spiritual separation from God is one of the catastrophic mars of sin on the world, but it is not the only one. As we work to bring people into right spiritual relationships with God, we must strive to combat the other affects of the curse as well.

As someone involved in evangelistic cross-cultural ministry, I know how easy it can be to become a spiritual head hunter, simply looking for that next convert. The challenge is to say, “How can I engage people where they are and make their lives better, healthier, more how God intended?” We have been given a mission, and it is vital that we live out all of it.

PS – I recently saw a website promoting some projects in areas mentioned above. If this is new to you and you want to see some examples of these types of things in action, check out http://www.fermiproject.com/projects/

Before you begin reading this post, you’ll need to plunk down two one dollar bills down on your keyboard, because I am going to give you two doozie words. They are consumerism and narcissism, and one can hardly go through a holiday season in the US without being assaulted by them. Before I talk about how they have affected our culture, let me define them.

Consumerism - an attitude that values the acquisition of material goods
Narcissism - excessive self-admiration and self-centeredness

These two attitudes combined have set our society on an increasingly troublesome path. Because of the way we are connected across the US and across the world, we can look up anything we want, talk to anyone we want, or buy anything we want, virtually any time (sorry, no pun intended). We have been taught to be consumers, to “shop around,” to only extend our loyalties as far as our needs are met. Especially for people in the younger brackets of society, this reinforces what we have been told during most of our growing-up years – you are special, you are unique, you deserve to have opportunities in life, and you deserve happiness. While this should be true in some ways, getting told this all the time has heightened our narcissistic belief that we are the center of our own universes.

I was particularly struck by this while watching a Toyota commercial on TV the other day.

Did you catch the tagline? “Anyway you want it, that’s the way you need it.” This is where consumerism and narcissism come together in our culture. We have gone beyond the attitude that you can have things anyway you’d like, to the understanding that how you want something becomes you own personal need – essentially wants turned into needs.

This comes out in a strong way at Christmas time when Americans are unwittingly turned into over-consumers. Under the guise of holiday spirit, we are encouraged to meet everyone else’s consumerist needs. Not that there is something wrong with giving someone a gift to show that you care, but we should stop and question the purpose and the difference between a symbolic gift and the debt creating splurges or obligations that we often see.

However, Christmas isn’t the only time this is present and the US isn’t the only place this happens. In Japan, young people are absorbed with having a good job so they can afford the luxuries of life and busying themselves with the latest fad or amusement. Consumerism is even present on a small scale in underdeveloped countries where making it big simply means having a nice mo-ped and a cell phone.

In the end it’s all a symptom of trying to fill a void that is part of the fall, a need that can only be satisfied by a relationship with our loving creator. That’s what makes a real understanding of Christmas so important – God gave us the only gift we really need in Bethlehem. It wasn’t just a tiny baby; it was his son, who lived and died to fulfill God’s redemptive plan, to allow us to once again be in relationship with our creator.

As you celebrate the holiday season with your family, take time to pray for those around the world who are still trying to fill that void in their souls. Pray that they would hear the message of the gospel and that it would break past the forces of materialism and consumerism and into their hearts.