Good News, Bad News

Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth."
- Matthew 28:18

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ...
Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."
- Mark 1:1, 14-15

Gerard Manley Hopkins famously wrote, "The earth is charged with the grandeur of God." Indeed, there is an amazing paradox in the world, that to sit back and ponder its delicate intricacies and fascinating phenomena, one begins to see both the simplicity and grand scope on which it is crafted. It is complex, yet it is anything but complicated. It is powerful, but it is also beautiful. To steal a line from C.S. Lewis, it is not definitely not safe, but it is good.

One would hope the message that is meant to revolutionize the world would be the very same way, both wonderfully simple and splendidly fulfilling.

Our English translations of Scripture use the words "gospel" or "good news" for the original Greek term euangelion. This word was almost always reserved for political reference to Caesar as the supreme, inspired power. Those who sang the praises of Rome often referred to "the euangelion of Caesar, chosen one of God." The writer of Mark subversively supplies a marvelous reconsideration of just what constitutes the "good news." In his and the early Christians' opinions, the good news was of "Jesus Christ, the son of God." It was an outlandish, dangerous belief, that in fact it was not Caesar who was divine but a lowly carpenter from Nazareth who, as far as most people were concerned if they ever heard about him, was nothing more than a two-bit agitator who died a criminal's death. But, to early Christians, this good news was the greatest of truths. It was everything. It was life. It was reality in its simplest, most certain form.

Unfortunately, the good news of Jesus Christ is slowly being abandoned for a more manageable message - our message. If I were to attempt to include all the recent decisions and restrictions incorporated into the Church - and that just in America - in regards to both the message proclaimed as well as its proclaimers, I suspect this blog entry would swell to a size through which no one would be interested in plodding. However, as an example, I mention one of the most recent - and baffling - decisions. The Southern Baptist Convention, which has undergone one stumbling after another in regards to the who, what, and how of the Church and the gospel of Christ, has recently taken another step in replacing the good news with its own bad news. The board of trustees for the International Mission Board, the SBC's foreign missions sending agency, have restricted its approved missionaries beyond the requirement of signing the "new" Baptist Faith and Message document. Now, no one can serve as an IMB missionary if they were not baptized (or re-baptized) in a Southern Baptist Church; this is in keeping with their belief that true baptism can come only from a denomination that holds to "believer's baptism." What is more, also newly restricted are missionaries who claim to have a "private prayer language," which is another way of stating that they speak in tongues while they are in solitary, personal prayer. Though "tongues" has been a divisive issue for years, newly rejected missionaries have no intention of incorporating this private gift in their public proclamation of the gospel. However, the very fact that a person believes the gift of tongues is just that, a gift (and not a tool of the devil), still doesn't qualify them to be fit for missional service in the kingdom of God, according to the Southern Baptist Convention.

I mean not to pick solely on the SBC; there are a thousand more examples of "church leaders" asserting false teachings and requirements across denominational lines, both to local congregations and out on the vast, vast mission field. Not only have we fallen short of the glory of God, we have fallen short of the very meaning and intention of his gospel. His simple and wonderful gospel.

It is a gospel over which he has all authority, in keeping with the Scripture that begins what we refer to as "the Great Commission." We have instead begun to arrogantly brandish our authority over this message. "Will a person rob God?" (Mal. 3:8). We do it intricately with our own complicated theologies. We do it on a grand scale when we stack up rule after rule about who can preach and who can't, who can serve and who can't. We contort the gospel into an agenda-bowing, human construction. It is complicated, oppressive, and safe; it is no longer the wondrous, good news of Christ.

Where is the wonder? Where is the mystery? Where is the beauty? Where is the freedom of the message that once solely defined the Church? It is the only thing that will give us lasting hope. It is the only thing that will give us life.