Recently in Kingdom of God Category

Today's post wraps up our brief series on Harvey Cox's new book The Future of Faith. The last several chapters of the book, and in fact various passages throughout the book,  present some of Cox's thoughts on the future of faith - and more specifically his hopes for the future of the Christian faith. Today I would like to focus our discussion on the future.

Cox notes - as have many others - that the future of the church is moving out of the western world, into Latin America, Africa, and the East.  While churches stand empty in Europe, the faith is flourishing and growing elsewhere. Notably charismatic forms of the faith are growing fastest.

The bottom line seems to be that faith is relevant for life in many parts of the world and that the Christian faith in particular meets a very real need.  Faith simply is not relevant in much of the secular west. But in the global South ... liberation theology and the power of people in small house church groups play an enormous role.  Faith flourishes when it is not micromanaged from the top, but grows from the bottom through the power of the Spirit.

Lets look at a bit of what Cox has to say:

First, for centuries Christians have claimed that the Holy Spirit is just as divine as the other members of the Trinity. But in reality, the Spirit has most often been ignored or else feared as too unpredictable. It "blows where it will," as the Gospel of John (3:8) says, and is therefore too mercurial to contain. But some of the liveliest Christian movements in the world today are precisely the ones that celebrate this volatile expression of the divine. ... By far the fastest growth in Christianity, especially among the deprived and destitute, is occurring among people like the Pentecostals, who stress a direct experience of the Spirit. It is almost as though the Spirit, muted and muffled for centuries, is breaking its silence and staging a delayed "return of the repressed." (p. 9-10)

Are we entering an Age of the Spirit? And if so, is this a good thing?

Tuesday I began a series of posts looking at Harvey Cox's new book The Future of Faith. Today I would like to look at Chapter 3 - Ships Already Launched. Cox begins this chapter by dismissing the idea that all religions are the same. We all live with mystery, but how we cope varies.

I frequently meet people who, when they discover that I teach religion, assure me that "underneath, all religions are really the same." I used to respond that, during a lifetime of teaching religion it appeared to me that they are not. But since that usually ended the conversation on a disagreeable note, I have recently just let their opinions pass. It is true that we are all responding to the same mystery, the one that confronts us all not just as mortal beings, but as beings aware of our mortality. Still we sense it and cope with the mystery in quite disparate ways. (p. 38)

Cox then begins to describe, as he says, "the ship I found myself on" - the narrative of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And this leads me to the questions for today. 

Are all religions the same?

But a simple answer of no isn't enough.  Most of us consider ourselves Christian (certainly I do) - some will claim that this is this simply the luck of the draw and a matter of birth.  But the Christian is not willing to rest here - the whole NT especially the book of Acts is about God's mission and the proclamation and spread of the good news, inviting others to join The Way. 

Why is the gospel of Jesus Christ good news? What is there that is real, intrinsically worth proclaiming, to which we desire to invite others?

Why is Christianity not simply another way (one among many) of dealing with the mysteries of life, purpose, and mortality?