This newsletter roundup opens with a reflection arguing that Jesus's core message was the present availability of the kingdom (empire) of God, which subverts human empires, their domination hierarchies, and authoritarian images of God, and that Jesus does not legitimize nation-states. It then excerpts pieces on fear, on translating 1 Corinthians 16:13, on turmoil at Christianity Today, and on Kregel's leadership, with the author suspecting multiple causes for Christianity Today's changes and lamenting its distance from the theological skill of Carl Henry and Kenneth Kantzer. It closes by sharing his co-author Tommy Phillips's guide to reading Romans in light of its small house-church audience.
Reviewed . Its Doxa Score waits for a researcher's decisions.
Its text teaches none of the positions Doxa lists.
Keyword counts
Woke keywords
Counted51 points from 22 keywords, 41 matches in 2,624 words
- domina… 6
- america… 3
- nation… 2
- cultur… 4
- gender… 3
- econom… 2
Doxa counts words and phrases from a fixed list, each worth some points. It doesn't read context, so a word counts however it's used, and a keyword ending in … counts every word that starts with it.
Jesus's core message was not a set of steps for going to heaven when you die but the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand.
The kingdom of God being "at hand" means it is within reach and available now, which is revolutionary.
Few Christians grasp Jesus's kingdom message because of misguided teaching traditions and confusing translations.
The Greek word for kingdom means empire, and Jesus announced God's empire as a challenge to Caesar's, calling people to deconstruct their empire-dominated assumptions and see the world anew.
Too many Christians have shrunk God into the image of a human emperor, seeing him as a supreme, dominating, authoritarian autocrat.
Jesus inverts the ways of empire: where empires kill, imprison, forcibly relocate, and build domination hierarchies, Jesus dies as a nonviolent witness, heals and frees, meets people where they are, and leads as a servant from below.
God as Father is not a Roman patriarchal father but a merciful parent who does not punish the disobedient child but welcomes him home with celebration.
Jesus does not legitimize human nation-states and their top-down systems of control but exposes and inverts them, and Christians should do the same.
The upheaval at Christianity Today likely stems from several pressures: a board worried about being "woke," financial need, evangelical politics, journalists resisting editorial oversight, and above all an American public wearied with evangelicalism.
Today's Christianity Today is far from the theological skill of its early editors Carl Henry and Kenneth Kantzer.
No comments yet.