Session 4: Tammie

Watson
Watson's recovered gospel is a gospel with teeth. It's no longer boiled down or simplified for an audience that doesn't want to hear what sinful wrecks they really are. It's a gospel with both personal and social elements. It is a gospel that returns Jesus to the center stage, where the entirety of his work and message are in focus. That Christ-centered message calls us to identify the idols in our culture as they are and remove them from their place that they will not longer represent a weak attempt at sharing God's divine status.

Ultimately, this gospel is a more enriched and full gospel than the gospel of personal salvation that has been so prevalent in recent years. It is a gospel that reminds us of God's concern for the poor and the outcast. It is also a gospel that reminds us that God's kingdom is coming and it is the role of the church now to be at work bringing that kingdom to earth just as Christ taught us.

Hall
It's significant that Hall presents moral authenticity first, as that seems to the the quest on which all the others hinge. If we do not live out the gospel in an open, holistic manner, our message often falls on deaf ears in the postmodern generation. Hall asks a profound question on page 208 when he writes, "How would Jesus speak to affluent young parents, caught between yuppiedom and genuine concern for their children's future and asking how to be 'good'?" A follow-up question might well be: Do we have the courage to speak to such seekers as Jesus spoke to the rich, young ruler in offering them the truth, no matter how difficult it may be to comprehend or, moreover, to follow?

Once moral authenticity is established, the other three quests framed by Hall can begin to find a form. The quest for community can be found in a congregation that has put away the masks and adopted a lifestyle characterized by moral authenticity. As we learn to grow in that community, we learn that we can't make it totally on our own and that we have to depend on others in some manner. Personally, the idea of the members of the community fulfilling the Pauline vision of the body with its members (as Hall describes it on 209) is intriguing. The Christian mission in the world can be greatly advanced through the creation of works of art that convey the gospel and can truly be considered works of art. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there's quite a bit of so-called Christian art that can be called kitschy at best or just dreadful, at worst.

In that community is must also be acceptable to have questions to which there are simply no answers this side of heaven, which brings us to Hall's third quest, that of the quest for transcendence and mystery. This has been a great revelation for me. When I first started working as a youth leader, I thought I needed to know all the answers and I thought the students wanted all the answers. At some point along the line, I realized that there are things about God that I simply do not know and began to be comfortable resting in those mysteries. More than that, I discovered that the students are naturally comfortable with the mystery. They are quite OK with an explanation that goes something to the effect of, "The Bible says thus and so and scholars think this or that, but in the end, only God knows." An ability to admit that we do not have all the answers connects back to the idea of moral authenticity because those to whom we are offering the gospel message can see that we, too , are still on the journey and have not arrived at some mythical destination.

The quest for meaning is fundamental to the message of the gospel. Through our mission and our congregations, we are pointing to the one who can offer meaning for our lives. In our congregations, we need to offer space for people to work through this quest for meaning and eventually come to know the One who gives our lives meaning.

West
West makes the case that the church is called, with the gospel, to confront secular pluralism with the truth claim of faith and to secular authorities with their responsibility before God. Like Europe, the United States draws on a heritage from the Enlightenment and share some of the same humanistic traits, but unlike Europe, America has its own set of special tensions and difficulties that arise from its unique history as a melting pot of different cultures. West traces the history of Christian settlement in the Americas in which the society was built in response to a living God and contends that we need to continue to rediscover various rights and freedoms in response to God, who holds all things together and brings reconciliation to all.

West then describes how, despite the prevalent pluralism in our society, there is an underlying ethos of Americans which, though hard to define, has created a tension between experience and divine revelation. In response, West calls for unity in the church which moves beyond human religion and returns the focus to Christ and his work in calling, forgiving and sanctifying.

Finally, West discusses power and the cynicism in America that it can be a vehicle for socially responsible actions. Though the church may have no pat answers on some of the questions West poses, we know that we serve a risen Lord who has brought all of these powers under his control and in him we have the hope of the restoration of all things that can become a basis for our mission in society.

Brownson
The idea that the gospel can be both local and cosmic is encouraging in the way that it appeals particularly to the postmodern generation. This generation seems to want to be part of a bigger story and this way of looking at the gospel accomplishes that. As a youth leader, I often hear the "true for you" argument. Brownson's hermeneutic was particularly helpful in bringing to the fore the way in which the New Testament canon centered on the gospel, while maintaining a local flavor to address the needs in particular locales. The same thing happens generationally (generally speaking), I believe, even in a suburban setting in which the people, for the most part, have a common history. Actually, I think it is more of a skipping generations thing. The students in my youth group often interpret Scriptures differently - perhaps through the postmodern lens - than their grandparents. Yet, both agree on the central issue of the Christian faith; that is, the saving identity, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

To be honest, I never analyzed the way in which I interpret Scripture though, I could recognize some elements of that interpretative grid as I read Brownson. Unfortunately, I think for the volunteer youth leader (and others), our hermeneutic comes not from our own study or from a conscientious effort such as that presented by Brownson, but from a survival instinct in which we need to have lessons ready for a particular session and end up relying on pre-fabricated curricula that do not require a whole lot of interpretation on our part. Thankfully I recognized this failing in my own ministry and began to use these curricula as a framework upon which I build.

Dyrness
I have to say that when I got to the end of this essay, my very first thought was, "Huh?" So after more thought I realized there are many ways to apply his vernacular approach to youth ministry, but that it is in some ways already common in that field. It is hard to find a youth lesson, whether written by professionals or designed by the layperson, that does not ask a student to read a passage of Scripture and look for application to their lives and/or have the student offer an interpretation of what the passage is communicating. This has become especially true as some youth ministries incorporate such disciplines as lectio divinia which, in its essence is a vernacular approach that in the youth ministry may begin as an individual exercise, but concludes as a communal one as thoughts are shared and discussed in the group.

One thing, though, that I need to watch is the inclination to initially dismiss a student's interpretation (to clarify, that doesn't mean knocking them down with a harsh or dismissive word, but to acknowledge it and then proceed to explain what my own research and/or interpretation has uncovered). As Dyrness suggests on the last page of the essay, there may be students who are little theologians who just need the chance to be able to express themselves.

Satari
If there is one overarching distortion that the American cultural context has done to the gospel, it is that becoming a Christian means peace and prosperity without a hint of troubles - a mirror of the American desire for success as our culture defines it. It doesn't take a very detailed study of the Scriptures to find that is a horrible misconception as Jesus tells the disciples in John 16:33, for example, "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

Something about that one distortion stretches into other areas of life. For example, growing up in the church, it always seemed that the people at church had it all together and I wondered, at times, if there was something wrong with me or with my developing faith that I sometimes didn't have it all together. It seemed like there was an answer for every question, but I learned there are some questions to which there are no answers as Jesus told the disciples in Acts 1, it is not for us to know the times and dates set by the Father, to cite just one example of an unanswerable question.

Which brings me to another distortion of the gospel that I encountered as I grew up - that the gospel is intensely personal. I remember watching movies such as A Thief in the Night that scared the living daylights out of me because I thought I had accepted Jesus as my savior, but if I didn't do it right what would happen to me? I remember hearing altar call after altar call at different events. I remember hearing speakers ask what would happen if you were to die tonight. Certainly, there is a personal aspect to the gospel as no one can become a Christian through the efforts of another person, but this intense emphasis on saying a particular prayer or on end-times events and the whole, "Are you ready?" question was unnerving. Thankfully, as I grew in Christ, I found verses like James 1:27 or Isaiah 1:17 or Matthew 25 that revealed a fuller gospel.