This cheeky little rant completes the import of articles from my old blog…glad that’s over!

UPDATE: Today Scot McNight posted an article over at Out of Ur based on Alan Mann’s book, Atonement For a Sinless Society, which deals with the issue of iGens not feeling guilty(!). According to Mann, we don’t feel guilty because we’re “pre-moral,” meaning we don’t have a strong sense of morality, which strikes me as an incredibly shallow conclusion. I’ll definitely be picking up that book and reviewing it here.

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Michael Spencer over at iMonk wrote a very nice – and very transparent – little piece recently on forgiving oneself. I thought it was insightful and rather helpful for folks who struggle with forgiveness. Michael is, in my opinion, probably the best Christian writer on the internet.

However, I have a confession to make: I’ve never really had a problem with forgiveness. I forgive others pretty easily, and I forgive myself very easily. I know I’m a louse, and everyone else is too (yes, that includes you). Honestly, that makes it pretty easy to forgive.

Hence, I don’t really have a problem with guilt either. I do bad things. So what? Everyone does. Some more than others, sure. But most people are surprisingly decent folk. Now, many would say that this is evidence I don’t take sin seriously enough, but I would argue exactly the contrary: I take sin so seriously that I assume we’re all utterly broken. In fact, I have a much harder time reconciling the existence of goodness in the world, than evil. I find goodness, beauty, and joy uttelerly shocking and scandalous.

Therefore, for the most part, I give everyone – and myself – a break. Relax people, we’re all screwed up. Bad. There’s no point in hanging our heads every time we blow it, and there’s no point in emotionally bludgeoning someone else for their sins either. Let’s all take responsibility for our crimes, agree on what is just (which is difficult enough), and move on.

The problem is that my relatively fundamentalist upbringing had virtually nothing to offer a sociopath like me by way of the gospel. Jesus forgives me? Great. The blood covers all my sins? Thanks. I don’t feel particularly guilty, but I’ll take it.

Now what?

Here’s the rub: It’s not that hard to hide from a gospel of forgiveness. You merely need to be either monumentally arrogant or pathetically humble – and the world is full of those kinds of people (Guess where I fit? I’ll give you a hint: I’m NOT humble).

Consequently, the gospel of forgiveness only appeals to some. Not everyone struggles with guilt for what they’ve done. Some people are genuinely afflicted in life, and not by their consciences (being afflicted by your conscience is a wealthy luxury). Some people live hopeless, pointless lives and it has nothing to do with a lack of piety. These folks have much more urgent needs than forgiveness (unless, of course, we’re talking about the profound ability to forgive one’s oppressor. But somehow that part of the gospel is left out in Evangelical reductions as well).

I guess what I’m saying is, the gospel is bigger than the cross.

The gospel encompasses more than merely atonement. For example, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us,” is, in itself, a brilliant facet of the gospel. Among other things it means God became a man and sprained his ankles and got splinters in his fingers. It means he enjoyed a bit of wine and the buzz it brought. It means he suffered and loved and did so with such art and grace that we can now hope to fill our own days with big bright meaning. Yes, that’s part of the gospel. Living well is good news. If not, then even Christianity becomes just another miserable existentialist lament, in which case Sartre was right: suicide is the only reasonable option.

(Of course, in the end not even Sartre believed that).

And the gospel must include the super-incarnation as well. As big and bright as was his life, and as radical and pivotal as was his death, it’s really Jesus’ WWE-like smack-down of death via the resurrection that is the epitome of human hope. Therein we find leverage for present freedom and hope for a holistic future. Therein we find healing, and gifting, and power for perseverance. Therein we find our true selves – or as Bono put it, “The face I had before the world was made.” – already waiting for us, Spirit-filled, a foretaste of the coming Kingdom.

This massive (one could say “cosmic”) gospel finds everyone, accuses everyone, forgives everyone, wounds everyone, heals everyone, liberates everyone, fulfills everyone, and feeds everyone. It would be easier to escape the reach of the sun than to hide from this gospel.

While the cross is certainly the locus of the gospel, it is not the definition of the good news. That distinction belongs to Jesus himself. Only he, in all his pre-incarnational, incarnational, and super-incarnational glory can fill those massive shoes. Only he is the “King of Kings,” the proclamation of whom we call “preaching” whenever we say to one another, “Jesus is King” or as I prefer: “There’s a new sheriff in town.” That’s good news, and while it includes the atonement (thank God), it’s far bigger than your penal substitution.