We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: Shane Claiborne once asked, What if Jesus meant everything he said? You bring more depth to that question in your Committed.Life chapter by commenting that the mark of a follower of Jesus is following. You quote musician Rob Thomas who famously sang: Give me your heart, make it real or else forget about it; as a summary of Jesus’ expectations for his followers. There are many well intentioned self-proclaiming followers of Jesus who say they have surrendered their heart to the way of Jesus. But some suggest their actions speak differently. How can we expose ourselves to know our actions and our heart are indeed in the right place, committed to Jesus?

Scot’s Response: Gotta say this. It doesn’t mean having Shane’s hairdo! (It’s OK, Shane, I love you. Call it hair envy.)

Two points, Andrew. First, Jesus’ radical claims on his followers are not games. They mean business, but we are wrong to interpret them legalistically – as if he gave up one form of legalism to shape a new kind. No, those radical claims are designed to get us to see that Jesus wants “us” – the inner you and the inner me – from the inside out. Totally. All of us. Every one of us. Each day. All day long. So, his words are powerful rhetoric of summoning us to give ourselves unreservedly to Jesus.

Second, we have to get to know the Gospels better. (Not just the Gospels, brother, but the whole Bible for only in reading the whole Bible do we see what the Gospels are getting at.) We need to read them, to listen to them, to gnaw on them and let them gnaw on us. We need to listen and learn and to hear and to heed.

I can’t say more.

Followers of Jesus follow Jesus, and to follow Jesus, we have to know Jesus and to know Jesus we have to learn about him by reading and listening to the Gospels.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: On page 93 you said “Enemies can be loved easier than conquered.” Wow! So profound and so relevant to our culture wars today that exist only to conquer. What are your thoughts about Jesus’ message of loving your enemies in relation to the acceptable medium of engagement in our society to conquer, dominate and win? It seems to me that many feel that reconciliation, or peace, cannot happen unless there is a winner and a loser.

Scot’s Response: When there is a winner and a loser, there is no winner but two losers. Andrew, I’m a pacifist and an Anabaptist and that means I’m grieved by war – even if I read and comment on political postures we take in this world. But deep inside I am convinced that our interventions with war do not and cannot bring genuine peace – they may stop war but they only drive the desire for revenge and war to deeper places. Over time they will come back in harsher forms, and that is what we are seeing played out in the international state right now. And I’m not blaming just the USA; the world’s power brokers are to blame. It’s a power game.

Followers of Jesus are called to a different ethic. He calls us – in everything – to love God and to love our enemies, what I call the Jesus Creed.  That means also in political rhetoric (we are to be “with” as a “for” even in political discourse) and in international relations. To be sure, maybe we are so far from the table that we can’t engage the powers. But we can pray and we can protest and we can make the way of Jesus known, and urge our leaders to sit at the table until a genuine and peaceful form of resistance can work its way into how the nations relate.

You may call me a dreamer. Go ahead, because I’m appealing to the kingdom dream of Jesus. We are called to follow him, not to win in the war games of this world.

Perhaps you wonder why I’m talking about “war.” The cultural wars are one degree lower than the international wars we are experiencing. For us to sort out as Christians how to relate to the political and cultural wars today we have to be willing to acknowledge that sometimes the “other” is our enemy. That’s flat-out wrong for a follower of Jesus. I don’t care if you don’t like Sarah Palin or Barack Obama – if you are a follower of Jesus you are called to love Palin and Obama. That means being “with” them as someone who is “for” them in the way of Jesus, even if sometimes your “for” means you have to disagree. But the posture is what matters: do you love your (cultural, political) enemy? If not, it’s time to follow Jesus in a new way.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: You devote a whole chapter to wisdom, and say the most important posture for one who wants to be wise is to be receptively reverent to those who are wise, as wise people sound like their mentors. That challenged me to think, do I sound like Jesus? Besides the not-so-trivial daily acts of reading the Bible and spending time with God, how can we continue to engage culture and be oriented each day towards God sounding like our mentor Jesus?

Scot’s Response: Let me clarify your excellent brief summary. Wisdom is not honored in our culture; newness is honored; youth is honored. To honor wisdom is to honor the wise, not the famous, not the celebrity, not the rich, not the powerful, not the youthful.

The wise are those who have learned to live in God’s world in God’s way in the way of Jesus Christ.

We become wise only by a posture of listening to and walking with and learning from the wise; we become wise by developing a posture of receptive reverence of the wise. That means listening to them –

Andrew, brother, nothing in our culture favors this kind of biblical wisdom. Everything is about what is new and youthful. In fact, for many today anyone over 40 is old and can be ignored. I’ll say it biblically: this is foolish, and it cutting into the fabric of culture and church.

So, my advice is to ask you this: How many older people are speaking directly into your life in a way that you reverently receive their wisdom and go with it? Until that happens we can’t have a wisdom culture.

Reading the Bible is important because we learn from Jesus’ wisdom (and Paul’s and Peter’s et al). That’s the first step. But the second step is to connect yourself to someone who is genuinely wise – pick someone over 50 – and to spend time “with” them and let them become someone who is “for” you – I’m speaking the language of love.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: I thought your short chapter titled Peace.Life was very direct. Let me summarize some of your thoughts… Jesus’ version of peace was a very Jewish version of peace (shalom) that was based on: material prosperity; loving relationships with God, family, Israel and other nations; and moral goodness and integrity. You mention that peace is a result and not a goal—peace is the result of years in good relationships as the result of love. “People who want peace but who aren’t willing to love will not find peace” (p. 73). Based on Jesus’ teachings, how do you see warring or opposing communities finding the will and strength to come to the table to seek a result of peace?

Scot’s Response: I’ll put this down right away: it’s OK to sit down at table to seek peace.

But seeking peace won’t necessarily bring us peace.

To get peace we have to learn to love our neighbor; to get peace we have to love our enemies.

In other words, we need to realize that the big table of peace is in a home whose door is called “love your neighbor, love your enemy.” Until we walk through that door, we’ll never get to the room or to the table.

I’ll put it this way: many people want peace but they are sitting at picnic tables in the park chatting away. The only way to get to peace is to love, and that means love our neighbor and love our enemy. And it means being willing to be “with” that person as someone who is “for” that person in the way of Jesus Christ.

In our communities we need to have people sit down with one another, but they won’t get to peace until they are willing to love that other person for that person’s good. Until they honor the person as someone who is worthy of my “with-ness” and “for-ness” and not just as someone I’d like to get persuaded to my way of things.

Do I have a witness? 

Most definitely Scot! You’ve got a witness

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: I loved this: “Often you can learn what a person is for by listening to what they are against. I’ll give you what Jesus was against, and you can infer what he was for: 1) Jesus spoke against authorities who ignored oppression; 2) He spoke against the tax collectors who ripped people off; and 3) He spoke against his disciples when they ignored the children” (p. 59). You then go on to suggest that Jesus was for the proper use of power, for justice and for the value of everyone. It seems to me that those three simple ‘for’s’ could end the obsessing culture wars that continue to dominate our world. How do you define the proper use of power, justice and dignity of everyone and what would that look like for us to live it out?

Scot’s Response: In a word, the only proper use of power is love. The only just conditions are love of one another and love of God, and the only dignity we can give to someone is to love them.

In one word, each of these is about love. But let me explain love a little bit.

We are in trouble in our culture today for many reasons, not the least of which is that we just don’t get what the Bible means by love. Love is not toleration – that’s a condescending “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kind of relationship. Love in the Bible is about three things: presence (a pledge or commitment to be “with” someone); it’s about a plot (a pledge to be with someone as someone who is “for” that person in making that person to become the person God wants them to become) and love is about Jesus Christ (the ultimate form of love in the Bible is God becoming one of us – hence “with” us – as someone who worked redemption “for” us).

We use divine power when we commit ourselves, through the difficulties and in the good times, to be with someone but not just “with” but as someone who is genuinely “for” that person. We are committed to helping them to become all God has for them … folks, this is tough and it is hard and it takes more effort than tolerance ever had in mind. And this means we are to love them by pointing them to Jesus Christ as the ultimate revelation of God – as the one who lived for us and died for us and who was raised for us and who rules for us. That’s genuine power, genuine justice and genuine integrity.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: A very interesting section of your book was when you talk about the 613 laws of the Torah (p. 49-52). You mention that each of the 613 laws is broken down into two broader categories: either an expression of how to love God better or how to love each other better. How do you explain some of the more obscure laws, or severe punishments, within the 613 to reflect an expression of how we are supposed to love God and love others?

Scot’s Response: Now you’re asking a tough one. The focus of Jesus’ teaching that the entire Law (and Prophets) hang from these two commandments is to say: At the bottom of all of God’s directives for God’s people are these two commandments: love God, love others. I take that to be not something I’ve invented or figured out, as if I’ve got a pet theory. No, this reduction to love is Jesus’ own perspective on the laws of the Bible. So, he’s right.

Now it’s ours to explain some things. There are some commandments, or some punishments that are commanded by Israel’s God in the Old Testament, that appear to be brutal or over the top – however you might want to say it. But if you stare at those commands long enough, and think them over and over, you will often find your way into the deeper pools of love.

Take, for instance, making a man marry a woman because they have had sex inappropriately, even in the case of rape. This strikes us today as brutal. What we learn in studying texts like Deuteronomy 21 is that violated women were set loose in that ancient culture – they couldn’t return home and they couldn’t find a husband because they were violated. The law of Moses, and here is where love starts to shine through, was shaped to protect that woman and punish that man and require that man to be faithful to that woman – and that is a step toward redemption away from turning that woman loose to become a prostitute or somehow dependent upon others. At the guts of this somewhat brutal law then is a love for a woman, God’s love for that woman, and Israel’s need to care for that woman.

It’s a bit too easy to settle down on the barbarity of ancient conditions, and harder to see how that law functioned in that world, but when we do we see that laws are designed to help us love one another and to love God.

There’s so much more that could be said; so much more that needs to be said; but the only way to move forward here brother is to look at tough examples and see how Love God and Love Others works in those settings. I’ve given it a fair shot.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

We are continuing the Q&A between myself and prolific theologian, author, professor and blogger, Scot McKnight, about his new book, One.Life. You can check out a number of his award winning books and blog here.

Andrew’s Question: In the chapter Kingdom.Life you talk about Jesus’ understanding of kingdom (God’s dream for this world come true) versus our Christian cultural understanding of kingdom today (personal experience with Jesus). Can you explain for us more about a ‘kingdom’ that encompasses the society and community of God rather than an experience-driven kingdom of God?

Scot’s Response: There’s a history here, Andrew. The foundation for most of what evangelicals think about “kingdom” is a scholar named George Ladd. George Ladd was fighting old guard dispensationalism, for whom kingdom was (for Ladd) too much about a place and an earthly arrangement with a king. So Ladd pushed for the kingdom meaning “God’s dynamic reign.” The next thing you know, evangelicals colonized “kingdom” into our personal experience of salvation. That is what kingdom means: God’s personal reign in my life.

I’m not a dispensationalist (and there aren’t many classic dispensationalists left), but they had a view of kingdom that pointed to something that is coming much more into focus today: kingdom is about God, about land, about citizens, about a law, and about King Jesus. In other words, those early followers of Jesus didn’t say “Jesus is talking about kingdom. Come along, guys and gals, and we’ll get saved.” They thought “Wow, the promises to David are about to happen. Jesus is the Messiah.” The first word was “Messiah” not “salvation.”

Which brings me to this, Andrew: when Jesus talks about kingdom he is talking about a society shaped by God’s will as taught by Jesus, about a society where Jesus is king, a society where we are his citizens, a society marked by doing justice and peace and love and grace and forgiveness and holiness and righteousness. The word “kingdom” always and forever will be a society – and never just a personal relationship with God.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

I love Scot McKnight. I love his balanced thoughts, writing and his ability to communicate what many need to hear – but not necessarily want to hear. He’s the real deal … not just in his academic work but also as a person and friend. I read Scot’s new book, One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow, earlier this year and was quite taken back by a number of deeply profound insights about life, faith, culture and sex that he (in his classic manner) communicated in an easily accessible way for those of us who aren’t as smart as he is. I reached out to Scot with an idea for a series on my blog regarding his new book and he so graciously agreed to answer my questions!

I know, without a shadow of a doubt, you will not only enjoy, but get so much out of Scot’s responses to my questions. Scot also has one of the most read Christian blogs in the world, and if you’ve never visited, please do so! It’s the only blog I go to everyday. Let’s begin…

Question from Andrew: In the intro to One.Life you describe the three things you have learned about Jesus in the 34 years you have been studying and teaching the Gospels: 1) Jesus didn’t define the Christian life the way I (Scot) did and the way many do today; 2) Jesus defined being a Christian as “following” him; and 3) Following Jesus is bigger than the single-moment act of accepting Christ and the personal-practices-of-piety plan. What do you see today as the biggest conduit that continues to lead Christians to fall into these same old paradigms that, as you say leads to, “Jesus having little place in religion”?

Scot’s Response: As I read that question, Andrew, I feel my own history wash over me – those three ideas are big for me. The fundamental problem I see at work is the way we define “gospel” and the way we define “what we’re really looking to accomplish.” The gospel is defined as God loves me, but I’m a sinner, but Jesus died for me, and if I trust him I can be reconciled to God and live with him forever. With that gospel, many are armed in the battle of leading people to make decisions – and once that decision is made, it’s really all over. Though such people surely want people’s lives to be for God, and to be good, and for them to be transformed, in the end the focus of that gospel is getting people to make decisions.

Jesus doesn’t recognize that gospel or that goal. I have more to say about what the gospel is in a book coming out next fall called The King Jesus Gospel, but for now (and in light of our question for tomorrow), Jesus preached the dawning of the kingdom of God and he summoned people to follow him. That was his gospel, and that was his goal.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

This is the final post in a series written by author Dan Brennan (you can buy his book here) on sacred unions and friendship. 

Here is Part 1

Here is Part 2

Here is Part 3

Here is Part 4

Part 5:

“3. Sacred unions invites us to a spirituality of deep oneness in marriage and friendship.

A deep oneness in Christian spirituality is not limited to a narrow, exclusive couples-only club. Marriage is never exalted in the New Testament as the one and only relationship where a spirituality of oneness is present or flourishing. As I discuss in my book, in many present day Christian communities the belief that the husband and wife are to “leave and cleave” has been reinterpreted to signify a self-sufficient, romance-driven couple who are absorbed in each other. This, I suggest, has more to do with Freud and the sexualization of leaving and cleaving than it does with authentic fidelity and love in marriage.

Jesus prayed for us that we would be one – just as he and the Father are one. That is a deep oneness, a healthy oneness where it’s never too much to have a good connection. We are one Body. Many deep friendships before Freud referred to Acts 4: 32 where believers were of “one in heart and mind” (including the sharing/pooling of financial resources).

I would suggest that God is a calling us to participate in robust love in marriage and friendship. Both are ongoing quests for beauty, goodness, and truth in communion, intimacy, and union.

Deep oneness in marriage and friendships is something we were all made for. In light of this, several friends and I have formed a Facebook page for what we are calling The Sacred Friendship Project. We want to see a deeper conversation about spirituality, sexuality, and friendship and that will also inform you about the upcoming blog to promote conversation. If you would like to participate with us, please like the page.

Do you see a connection between sexuality and spirituality in friendship? It might be more obvious to point out the connection in a sexual union like marriage, but what about friendship?”

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Just because Bobby is a Christian and an unreal, and extremely respected choreographer and dancer for some major pop-icons in today’s music industry, and involved in the arts, he gets accused all of the time by other Christians that he is gay. Here are his thoughts about what it was like for him to participate in his first function (our I’m Sorry Campaign) at a gay event.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

This video is an interview with a lesbian who just came out, at her first Pride Parade.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

This interview is with a British pastor, now living in Tennessee as an Officer for the Salvation Army, who participated in our recent I’m Sorry Campaign 2010 in the A-T-L.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org