Key Terms and Discussion from The Great Omission: Introduction

Taking a cue from Mike's first couple of posts on the Didache (and wanting to actually contribute something here), here are some thoughts on The Great Omission in note form. (Numbers in parenthesis are page references)

The Great Disparity (x) -- the observed difference between the hope for life expressed in Jesus and the actual day-to-day behavior, inner life, and social presence of most of those who now profess adherence to him.

I first realized the Great Disparity existed when I was in high school, and that realization has been the primary seed for all the development of my personal theology since. The Great Disparity is so omnipresent that it was very hard to discern; yet once discerned, it is so staggeringly gigantic that I wondered how I had ever missed it.

The car analogy (x-xi) -- Dallas compares the life of the average Christian to someone who has tried to economize on gas by pouring some water in his or her gas tank but is then confused about why the car isn't working. It's not that the car's badly designed or manufactured, it's that it's not being used properly.

Disciples vs. Christians (xi) -- This seems to be the key idea for the whole book.

[D]isciples of Jesus are people who do not just profess certain view ... but apply their growing understanding of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens to every aspect of their life on earth. In contrast, the governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be "Christians" forver and never become discples.

Discipleship is my personal theological hobby-horse, stemming (as the title of the book alludes to) from the Great Commission. Simply put, the Great Commission is not about evangelism -- it's about discipleship. It says "go and make disciples" -- not mere admirers, not mere converts, not mere believers, not even mere worshipers -- disciples.

A disiciple is a learner, a student, an apprentice--a practitioner, even if only a beginner.

Where common evangelicalism puts its emphasis on knowing or believing, discipleship-oriented Christianity puts its emphasis on being and becoming. Where common evangelicalism puts its emphasis your relationship to abstract doctrines, discipleship-oriented Christianity puts its emphasis on your relationship to Jesus as teacher and master.

Missionaries to the Christians (xii) -- our shared sense that our own churches are amongst those who need to be told the Good News -- a Good News that goes beyond securing life after to death to fostering life before death.

People in Western Churches, and especially in North America, usually assume without thinking that the Great Commission of Jesus is something to be carried out in other countries. .... But in fact the primary mission field for the Great Commission today is made up of the churches of Europe and North America.

My own sense of alienation from the evangelical culture I grew up in has sky-rocketed over the past year and half I've been back home. And that's given me a new appreciation for wide swaths of Scripture. The relationship between the prophets and the Jewish people, or between Jesus and the Pharisees, or between Paul and the Judaizers have all taken on new resonance because it seems to echo my own feelings for my fellow evangelicals. And the common theme there is the battle over the value of participation and membership in a particular religous culture. And it is simulataneously infuriating and comforting to discover that this is not a new dynamic, but a very, very old one.

Disicpleship, Eschatology, and Mission (xiv) -- I can't remember if this was actually our jumping off point for our discussion of eschatology last week or not, but these sentence reminded me of it:

As disciples of Jesus, we today are part of God's world project. But realization of that project, it must never be forgotten, is the effect, not the life itself. The mission naturally flows from the life. It is not an afterthought, or something we might overlook or omit as we live the life.

The area where my still-developing theology of discipleship has given me the most comfort is eschatology. Growing up, "eschatology" meant Left-Behindism. Fortunately, discipleship-oriented Christianity seems fundamentally incompatible with Left-Behindism, and I think that first sentence there captures a big part of the reason why. Left-Behindism's God is basically just biding his time before he wantonly destroys his creation. But the God-who-disciples is actually doing something, building something, creating something -- he has a world project. It won't see fruition until this creation undergoes death and resurrection, but we're not sitting around waiting for the special-effects show to kick in. We get to participate in what God's doing now to prepare for later.

The second part of the quotion is a useful corrective that I'm still soaking in. So far as labels go, I'm very attracted to missional Christianity (as opposed to the label emergent or other similar ones). And I can very easily imagine how, over time, a commitment to mission could lead to the belief that pursuing mission brings life. Dallas' statement that receiving life then flows into mission is something that I want to internalize.

The Shack in one sentence (xiv) -- The eternal life, from which many profound and glorious effects flow, is interactive relationship with God and with his special Son, Jesus, within the abiding ambience of the Holy Spirit.

My sense of calling in one sentence (xv) -- So the greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heart-breaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as "Christians" will become disciples--students, apprectices, practitioners--of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.