Kingdom Harbor

Every scholar-teacher has their favorite topic — those aspects of their field of study they are most passionate about.  When a student raises a question related to one of your favorite topics, you get instantly energized, your voice gains added force and you launch into lecture mode.

In my Bible Studies and discussions with people and students over the past few years, the topics that get me most fired up are the following three: Platonic distortion of biblical theology, the politics of Jesus in “Christian” America, and radical discipleship in the 21st century church. Let me explain.

1. Platonic Philosophy’s Distortion of Biblical Theology & Cosmology. I have greatly benefited from N. T. Wright and others in their insistence that we don’t read the Bible through the lenses of platonic or gnostic dualism.  That is, the physical is not inferior to the “spiritual”, heaven is not some unphysical “spirit” realm in the sky, and God is not out to destroy the earth and rescue us from our physical bodies to live eternally in non-physical ghostly spirit-bodies.  I get really fired up in responding to teenagers when they begin sharing their views of the rapture and heaven based more on Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind novels than the Bible as understood in its Jewish context.  I heartily recommend everyone read Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N. T. Wright for gaining a more biblically grounded understanding of Heaven, the afterlife, the resurrection, the goodness of creation and more.

2. The Politics of Jesus in Christian America. Perhaps nothing gets me more fired up than the topic of the unique, cross-shaped politics of Jesus and His Kingdom in contradistinction from the politics of the world.  More specifically, I am very passionate about making sure the politics of Jesus are not mixed and conformed to the values of American patriotism.  I am weary of culture-war Christians and their attempt to “take America back for God” as if it ever remotely had much in common with Jesus’ unique cross-shaped Kingdom.  I have been deeply influenced by John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Shane Claiborne and Greg Boyd in this regard.  I recommend reading The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church by Greg Boyd.

3. The Church as an Irresistible Revolution. As a youth pastor I have the greatest burden for teens who have been inoculated to the power of the gospel and bored to tears in their experience with Christianity, and are now leaving the church in droves to find a larger, more thrilling cause to give their life to.  Nothing excites me more than inviting teens to rediscover the truly revolutionary nature of being the church in the world.  I had the awesome opportunity to start a grassroots Jesus movement in the smaller community of Mound, where I used my influence among the local teens to tear down sad stereotypes of Christianity and the church as boring, dull, lifeless religion and rituals.  I tried my best to give them the fuller picture of what God is doing in the world and our significant, thrilling role in this world-renewing, life-transforming global revolution of love and justice.  The book that I gave to teens who jumped on board the Revolution in Mound was Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. I now serve a wonderful church and am still constantly seeking ways to help teens see this bigger, more robust, thrilling understanding of Christianity, the church, and discipleship to Jesus the Revolutionary.

What are your theological hobbyhorses?  What topics get you most fired up and engaged?