Marginal Christianity

Emboldened by Jesus’ announcement of the coming of the kingdom of heaven (4:17), his direction for living through this period of crisis and judgment (chs.5-7), and a litany of ten demonstrations of power by Jesus proving his authority to act as the Messiah and agent of God’s coming kingdom (chs.8-9). Now we come to his transferal of his own authority to his disciples and sending them out to spread the news of the coming kingdom throughout Israel (ch.10). It is crucial to read this passage in light of this 1 st century context. Jesus explicitly delimits this mission to Israel: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near’” (10:5-7). This inter-Jewish mission is a key component of Jesus’ effort to regather and reconstitute Abrahamic Israel under the shadow of God’s coming judgment of his people. Unlike the so-called Great Com...

The Story To-Date We have seen so far that Mark has demonstrated Jesus’ authority and the scope and spread of his ministry. Opposition has sprung up to meet him, both human and supra-human, a mortal threat. Jesus gathers his New Israel and they join him in his New Exodus procession. The time has come, though, for them to fully participate in the work. The FoK is Launched As he teaches in the villages, Jesus summons the twelve. He pairs them up and sends them out to exercise his authority over his mission’s spiritual opponents (v.7). The Fellowship of the King is launched. Jesus sends his people out to face the real enemy behind all human ills and evils. That’s why he gives them his authority to prevail over them. Elrond’s words to the dwarves on the eve of the Fellowship of the Rings’ departure parallel, I suspect, something of the weightiness of Jesus’ call to mission to his Fellowship of the King. "You do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is bu...

(I have shamelessly stolen this approach and some of its main ideas for this piece from Chris Crass,” Expecto Patronum: Lessons From Harry Potter for Social Justice Organizing,” Sunday, December 15, 2013, Truthout ) J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is far more than a work of young adult fiction. Like Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles and Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , her Potter stories encode a way of being she promotes. It’s not the Christian vision underwriting the Lewis and Tolkien tales. But neither is it antithetical to it. Rowling’s vision seems to reflect the kind of secularized Christianism that used to order life in the West. I say “used to” because of late He Who Must Not be Named and his Dementor and Death Eater minions are shaking the already rickety foundations of that secularized Christianism. They are the antagonists that threaten Rowling’s similar world in the Potter stories. And that attack is focused on Hogwarts, the wizarding academy ...

Opposing the church in our world is a foe of great power with its own design on world domination. Whether we personify this power in a devil figure or see it as an impersonal power or force is less important than recognizing the existence of malignant intent in the universe and its strategic plans to usurp God’s place in the world. I like to picture this power as an unholy trinity – Mars, Mammon, and Me. The undoing of our Hogwarts, the church, has its focal point in the primacy of the self, the power of “stuff”, and the efficacy of violence.

Alan Hirsch May 23, 2017 One of the most basic assumptions of the incarnational missionary is to assume God is already involved in every person’s life and is calling them to himself through his Son. Our mindset should not be the prevalent one of taking God with us wherever we might go. It must be, instead, that we join God in his mission. This means that the missionary God has been active a long time in a person’s life. Our primary job is to try to see where and how God has been working and to partner with him in bringing people to redemption in Jesus. Understand- ing that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27), and in the deepest possible way made for God, we can assume that every human is motivated by spirituality and search for meaning. Even idolatry indicates that people are seeking to worship something beyond themselves. It is deformed spirituality to be sure, but it is spirituality nonetheless—and you can work with that. Recognize that behind...

Wed, 01/03/2017 - 11:48 | Andrew Perriman I’ve just got back from a missions conference at which the idea that believers in general and “missionaries” in particular are being—or should be—transformed into the “image of Christ” got a lot of airtime. I can see what people are getting at. The assumption is that Jesus represents either an ideal way of being human or an ideal way of doing ministry. He’s Jesus, after all! Therefore, to grow towards spiritual maturity is to be conformed to his image. It’s a central plank of evangelical piety. Tim Challies quotes Jerry Bridges : “Christlikeness is God’s goal for all who trust in Christ, and that should be our goal also.” It is used with reference to character: Jesus sets the standard for holiness, love, justice, faithfulness, etc. But it was also suggested at the conference that Jesus perfectly embodies the APEST functions of Ephesians 4:11 in himself, therefore he constitutes the standard for the ministries...

By Jason Goroncy March 25, 2013 One does not have to hang around the church very long to hear some weird stuff. 1 For example, when I converted to Protestantism, one of the dominant narratives as I picked it up—usually via some kind of epistemological osmosis but sometimes quite explicitly—was that the incarnation was God’s attempt to get the reconciliation ball rolling, that Jesus had laid the foundations for reconciliation and then he went back to heaven to sit down next to God in the great lounge room in the sky to watch over how events would pan out. But just before his exodus, Jesus formed a little community who would work as subcontractors to the big boss upstairs. And foreman Jesus trusted this community to carry on his work while he was away, promising to turn up again when the job was nearly done just to check that it had all been done according to his instructions. What this means, as one often hears, is that if God’s costly work in Jesus is to make any real di...

Jun 25, 2016 I used to wonder how large percentages of nations—including many Christian leaders—could support political leaders who advocate racism, misogyny, torture, hate, division, conflict, and authoritarianism . . . But, recently, we’ve seen the rise of political figures (all over the world) appealing to xenophobia and nationalism (and even Christendom). We’ve seen the magnetism of this message, in various parts of the globe, and the acquiescence of Christian leaders. I don’t want to name any particular politician here. In fact, I can think of many contemporary politicians who are appealing to these toxic cultural and social phenomena, all over the globe. The contemporary social conditions are ripe for a certain kind of politics and politician (as we’re seeing in many parts of the world at the moment). Those conditions support racism, misogyny, torture, hate, and authoritarianism. The church needs to address its complicity in these things, and cultivate a distinct ...

June 11, 2015 by Michael F. Bird 1 Comment At the moment the state of Pauline scholarship could be divided into four basic camps: (1) Traditional Protestant . Paul was preacher of grace that stands in contrasts to the legalism/nomism of second temple Judaism. In some versions, this is accompanied with an implied or even explicit supersessionist view of the church as replacing Israel. (2) The New Perspective on Paul . The problem with Judaism was not legalism, but ethnocentrism. Paul was arguing that Jews need to accept that God has acted in Christ to bring Jews and Gentiles into the new saving event ahead of an eschatological consummation. (3) The Apocalyptic/Barthian Paul . Paul proclaimed God’s invasive and cosmic act of salvation to rectify and renew the whole creation rendering the old order with its religion as obsolete. (4) The Radical Perspective on Paul . Paul was Jewish and Torah-observant. He tried to bring Gentile communities into closer fellow...

One November several years ago, I was attending a conference in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. It was late in the afternoon on Sunday. I had bowed out of a couple of sessions to finish some paperwork in my hotel room. Time slipped away from me and when I finally took to the streets to find a place to eat, I found that the only thing open late on a Sunday was a McDonald's. Fast food is not at the top of my list in reference to bill of fare, but it was going to have to do. As I approached the entrance to the restaurant, a young man, who was obviously homeless, approached me asking if I would give him money for something to eat. A police officer stepped in to keep him from bothering me. I told the officer that I very much appreciated him doing his job, but that it was OK; I would talk to the young man. Instead of giving him the money, I offered to buy him dinner. So we took our place in line and when we reached the counter we both ordered our meals. As we left the counter with our...