ReJesus – Conclusion: Read This Bit Last by Craig Brown

While I am not tasked with writing a blog that draws Frost’s and Hirsch’s work to a close, it is fitting for me to at least reflect on the application they offer in the “Conclusion: Read This Bit Last”.  The fictional conversation between Peter and Paul and the drawn conclusions serve up a few new questions.

I became a Christian at the age of thirteen and began attending a small rural United Methodist Church.  I remember with vivid detail praying and inviting Christ into my life on January 17, 1982.  The prayer, while sincere was profoundly formulaic.  I attended college at a Christian University and majored in Biblical Studies and Theology with a clearly fundamentalist bent.  I remember memorizing the “Four Spiritual Laws” created by Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.  I likewise remember being trained in the nine domains of systematic theology, street evangelism, apologetics and a variety of other skills requisite to function as a leader in the fundamentalist world.  The only problem was that I was not a fundamentalist.  What it afforded me was insight into how that part of the Christian world functions.  Frost and Hirsch are part of a group of “de-toxing” fundamentalists searching for a new vision of what the church is.  The essence of this church is relational and missional.

On the other hand, I also have a strange third person relationship with United Methodism which, for some strange reason, has an aversion to talking too much about Jesus.  There were many times I would sit at Annual Conference both in plenaries and in worship before being ordained and questioned why I seldom heard the “J” word.  In the late 80’s we seemed enamored with new names and images for God but Jesus was mentioned little.  In the 90s we struggled to redefine our mission on the cusp of the 21^st century with little acknowledgement of Jesus at all (anyone remember Vision 2000?).  Now we are beginning to engage in a process of “jones-ing” up to Jesus.  It is a welcome return to becoming a church that is relational and missional.

While Hirsch and Frost actually ask an old question, “What would happen if we went back to being the church of the first century?” there is nothing at all wrong with asking it!  In my opinion, we live in a fascinating age in which two seemingly segmented arms of Christianity are beginning to ask the most fundamental question, “What does Jesus have to do with who we have become?”  Having had feet in two theological worlds, I am finding joy in observing these two polarities of the church asking the same question!  Every movement, as it ages, must ask this question of what to do with Jesus?  Both fundamentalist Christianity and mainline liberal Christianity are approaching an intersection around this question.  It only seems appropriate as they are both beginning to show their relative age!

If we are serious about this question of what to do with Jesus, then these new questions being raised in the conclusion bear asking as well:

Will we engage in assessing all we do in light of Jesus’ life and ministry?

Will we be honest about the authentic call to faithful discipleship and eschew the milquetoast commitment many of us express toward Jesus?

Will we become leaders that model and create authentic Christian community instead of telling others what it should be like?

Will we allow the Holy Spirit to be our guide and leader rather than our own machinations of strategy and vision?  (More importantly, do we have the spiritual skill set to allow that to happen?)

Will we be simply parochial or will become pastoral in temperament and mission?

Will we stand for maintenance or mission?

-Rev. Criag Brown is the pastor at San Diego First UMC