I have found no evidence for an afterlife. I think we do people we attempt to help an injustice if all we have to offer them is a place in an afterlife.

And, no, I do not believe Jesus resurrected either.

I guess you would have to say the God I feel I know is a process God.

I cannot espouse a magic worldview.

Great post. As a black sheep of the churches of Christ, I definitely understand restoration movements. My belief that we cannot exactly reproduce the early church has not made me any fans.

I am not a church planter/domestic missionary. We are planting a network of micro-churches. These groups meet in Starbucks, pizzerias, an assisted living center and homes (lofts/apts).

I found your website by someone’s search for Chicago Microchurches and somehow they found my website. I clicked on their search and then found you.

Thanks for your great insight.

Brian

One cannot will oneself to believe what one does not believe. My experience has been when I needed grace to find intellectually consistent answers at many times in my life, the grace has been provided. That has been true even when it has taken me to strange theological places to answer questions no one else even needed to ask.

We essentially agree, I think. I am certainly not one to want to defend other-worldly religion. But, I think a blanket negation of other-world theology is just another imperial move.

I don’t who your sources are for talking about Jesus and imperial theology are. There is ample evidence in the Gospels, themselves, to understand Jesus as divine. I guess its a question of how you spin it. Divinity of Jesus can serve imperial theology or justice for the oppressed.

Personally, by itself, I see “one-world, this-world” theology as itself an imperial theology. Even a one-world, this-world concept is totalitarian by denying or ignoring any other. One World, One Peace, One Justice – Pax Romana.

In my reading of black, Latin-American, Asian, and even feminist theology, the promises of another world are very important. It brings meaning to the sacrifices and purposes of this life and life with others. The promises of another-world-to-come are specifically significant. This world-to-come is precisely the motivation to engage peace and justice of this world. Denying this realm of God, either in heaven or on earth, would silence these important voices. that is something imperial theology has been doing for years. There is no self-righteous individualistic salvation theology in this theology, as I read it.

I have a problem with another world. I believe this world is all there is. At least I haven’t been to another and come back to testify of it. Until I know a lot more then I do now, I prefer to think this world is “it”. Therefore, I believe we must work as hard as possible to make this world one of peace and justice…for all.

When I say salvation for this world, I mean after confronting the message of Jesus, we should be able to make the necessary changes in our lives to be able to be a change agent in our world….even if it is just our local world.

I am not being critical of Protestant Christianity as much as I am being critical of our own brand of Christianity. We teach otherworldly salvation theology in this church too.

I believe the early movement adopted the idea of “divinity” for Jesus from Roman Imperial Theology. I believe it also helped them understand why their “messiah” died instead of over throwing the Romans.

The very earliest Jewish members of “the way” did not consider Jesus to be divine. They were the people of the one God. As you said, I believe each one of us has the spark of “divinity” within us.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

I appreciate your freedom with your views. I’d like to respond to this one.

I don’t think your view is slightly different. To deny Jesus’ divinity is a huge difference to me. To me, to deny Jesus’ divinity denies the divinity of all people as God’s children. Jesus’ divinity and our divinity are intimately connected, though not the same.

Denying the resurrection, also, is not a slight difference either. Orthodoxy aside, denying the resurrection snubs almost 2000 years of Christian consensus. Heresy isn’t bad, so don’t get me wrong. But, there are more than ample resources within the Christian tradition to make the same point you are making.

I, personally, agree that Jesus worship is a problem. But, on this point, I think our criticism is much more of mainstream American Christianity, which should not define our view of Christianity as a whole. This is why theological study is so important and I fault the church for not getting up to speed with this.

You are doing salvation theology when you say salvation is here in this life. Again, I see the kind of salvation theology you are trying to throw out as mainstream American Christianity, which itself is a modern expression of Christianity and should not be conflated with “Christianity” itself. We do not need to dispose of all things leading to “other worldly” religion in order to turn our attention to this one. In fact, I think Christianity’s other-worldliness is crucial for the very attention on this world you/I call for. The other-world I look for is both in this world, and the next.

Jesus’ message was a social gospel. I agree that we should be emphasizing it above all else. But, our social gospel is empty without a vision of an-other world. Jesus’ resurrection, his divinity, and the divinity within created life, I think, are good foundations for believing in that world.

I hope the purpose of my thinking, here, is more clear now. The New Testament moment I’m describing in this post is not a turn to American mainstream Christianity. One way to see my ultimate hope is to bring back some basic Christian themes that have been lost. I think seeing Christianity through some RLDS strengths can help do that. To get there, we’ve got to first get over our sectarian obsessions. I believe the church has largely dismantled this sectarianism in the last 40 years, but it still lives in the way we think about the church and our desire to be different. For some of these ideas, Jesus – as someone we share with others – corrects some of that.

Thanks for commenting!

I think we, as a church and as individuals, need to stop emphasizing salvation theology and begin recognizing that salvation is here in this life and we cannot just save it for ourselves. There’s a world of need out there and even in our own communities. That’s where we need to work on salvation. Education needs to be provided for those who cannot afford it. Trade schools or college, whatever the person can handle. Education is the answer to poverty.

Jesus’ message was a social gospel and that’s what we ought to be emphasizing too.