First, there is the level of scriptural definition. While I can answer the question “What is the Gospel?” it is the Biblical material that should form my definition. Before I give some simple Gospel articulations, what are the Biblical sources of Gospel definition?

Does the Bible give a definition of the Gospel? Or is the Gospel a theme that connects alll of scripture, yielding definitional material and language, but also context, meaning and significance for many other things?

Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Then in Paul’s Letters

I Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

In Galatians…

Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

The introduction to the entire book of Romans is…

Romans 1:15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Paul sees his entire life wrapped up in the Gospel.

2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

Many passages seem to be talking about the Gospel, but do not specifically say they are doing so. For example:

Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There are other sources, especially in John, that we should include.

If we look at the categories of foundational content and necessary consequence, the Gospel is foundational content. It may be stated in different because it is a thread making its way through the entire tapestry of the Biblical story, but the Gospel- the Good News- is what the scriptures exist to tell us. There are many voices telling the Gospel at different places in the Biblical story. It may seem strange to say that the Gospel was preached to Abraham without mentioning Jesus, that Jesus preached the Gospel as he came proclaiming the Kingdom and Paul heard the Gospel in the tradition of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But this is the case. The Gospel is the foundational content of the message the Bible is announcing all the way through.

As the Bible tells the Gospel, it tells it to each one of us. We are the hearers and responders. We are the nations that are blessed. We are those called to repent and believe. We are the ones asked to believe the testimony of the Apostles. We are the ones who will be willing to suffer and/or experience the power of the Gospel once we have heard and believed it.

Going back to the Gospel-less, often Christ-less content of much evangelicalism, there is the possibility that the Gospel is assumed and we have now passed from foundational content to application.

I do not believe this is the case, because the resulting application and articulation does not build on the Gospel, but on a foundation that often qualifies for Paul’s Galatians 1 warning of “another Gospel, which is no Gospel at all.” Does application always rest on some articulation of the Gospel, or is the Gospel assumed?

New Testament scholars often point out that the basic rhythm of Paul’s letters is explanation of the Gospel- or some emphasis within the Gospel- followed by specific application of the Gospel. If this is the basic movement of the great apostle as he communicated with the early churches, is it outlandish to see this as a kind of healthy example of how Gospel articulation and application should generally co-exist in a healthy Christian experience?

From these scriptures, I believe our Gospel articulation should include:

The Gospel as announcement of what God has done
The Gospel of God
The Gospel as a message about Jesus
The Gospel as the message of Jesus/The Kingdom
The Gospel as God’s redemption of his broken world (covenant story)
The Gospel as the foundation on which our responses- worship, missions, obedience, etc. – exist.

Next, I will build some specific articulations of the Gospel on these various levels.

When I was in my Master’s program at seminary, I remember a full-on debate between one of our theology professors and a visiting big-dog regarding what scripture meant when it says “He emptied himself.” No one solved the question, but it left me with the clear impression that both sides had a strong case.

A bit of theological reading- even on the internets- will fully validate that observation. God became a man and in his human nature, Jesus was like us in every way, but without sin. But after that….it’s a free for all in regard to a whole basket of questions.

What kind of questions?

1. How did Jesus’ brain develop? Did the development of his brain impact his understanding of himself and his world?

2. Jesus lived in the social thought-world of the ancient near east. Did he transcend that thought world or did his incarnation place him completely in the boundaries of that thought world?

3. Did Jesus miss any questions on the test? Did he have to study?

4. Did Jesus use tools to measure in his carpentry work? Or did he just know what to do?

5. Did Jesus, in his incarnation, know things about biology, astronomy and cosmology that were completely ahead of his time? For instance, did Jesus know that the sun did not orbit the earth?

6. Did Jesus understand diseases and conditions from within the understanding of a first century man or did he know the actual medical/biological nature of diseases and conditions that were commonly blamed on demons or God’s punishment?

7. Did Jesus know about viruses and contagious disease? Did he know the nature of mental illnesses like schizophrenia? Did he understand brain tumors, etc? If so, did he explain these things or did he respond to them within a first century understanding?

8. Were Jesus questions real questions? Or were they all rhetorical?

9. If Jesus did not have exhaustive divine knowledge as a human being, does this impact our view of him as God incarnate?

10. If the Father reveals to Jesus some things that other men did not know, does this mean that Jesus had, available at any time, exhaustive knowledge of the future, science, geography, etc?

“My passion isn’t to build up my church. My passion is for God’s Kingdom.”

Ever heard someone say that? I have. It sounds large-hearted, but it’s wrong. It can even be destructive.

Suppose I said, “My passion isn’t to build up my marriage. My passion is for Marriage. I want the institution of Marriage to be revered again. I’ll work for that. I’ll pray for that. I’ll sacrifice for that. But don’t expect me to hunker down in the humble daily realities of building a great marriage with my wife Jani. I’m aiming at something grander.”

If I said that, would you think, “Wow, Ray is so committed”? Or would you wonder if I had lost my mind?

If you care about the Kingdom, be the kind of person who can be counted on in your own church. Join your church, pray for your church, tithe to your church, participate in your church every Sunday with wholehearted passion.

We build great churches the same way we build great marriages — real commitment that makes a positive difference every day.

Someone is saying “You’re going to disagree with probably the most respected, spiritually passionate guy in the Christian blogosphere? You really are out in left field knocking down the fence.”

I am a big Ray Ortlund fan. I’m not on his level as a Christian or a minister, much less as a blogger. I’m not really here to disagree, but I want to respond to what is an important issue for me and many others in our pursuit of Jesus Shaped Spirituality.

1) A passion for a marriage is not at war with a passion for marriage. The two are related. A passion for the welfare of my family or the success of my vocation are derived from some larger, defining passion.

2) If my marriage should fail, would my faith in marriage vanish? If my children go astray, does my belief in the importance of parenting end? No. In both cases, I will find hope to move on, to encourage others, to garner wisdom and even to try again from love that is greater than even my love for my marriage or children.

3) If you care about the Kingdom, faithfully care for your church.I agree completely. But if your church ceases to preach the Gospel or compromises its purpose and mission for relevance and worldly success, what will be the larger framework that will allow you to know something is wrong? It will be a passion for Christ and his Kingdom, applied to a specific situation.

4) What concerns me is a tendency to sound like we are saying “the Kingdom (as far as you are concerned) = your local church and what it’s doing.” I do not believe this is the teaching of scripture, and I don’t believe sound local churches even leave this as an option. It is, to use Ortlund’s phrase, a destructive error.

5) I would go further. I don’t believe a Biblically sound church restricts service to the Kingdom to service/involvement in that particular local church. In my book, I’ll be calling this “church shaped spirituality,” and I’ll have quite a lot to say about it. Isn’t a church that is making disciples sending those disciples into the world? Isn’t the church the disciple-making, initiatory fellowship, but not the primary place where discipleship takes place?

6) Tithing to a local church, for example, is a practice that I can’t see being scripturally required in any new covenant sense. I was taught my entire life that God commanded me to tithe to my local church. Awareness of the larger needs of the Kingdom, of other ministries, of individuals and even of other causes supported by my church was always laundered through the “tithe to the local church” first rhetoric.

Shocker: I don’t trust many local churches to spend that much money in a kingdom-savvy way. Insurance. Utilities. Salaries. Facilities. With a percentage to “missions.” I can no longer believe that is how I, as a Christian, am to be a steward of my financial resources. My church should help me manage and spend that money by showing me many different ways I can make it count for the Kingdom and teaching me to be a Kingdom investor in all of life. They should teach me to see the world with Kingdom eyes and my resources through the priorities of Jesus, which include the local church but certainly isn’t restricted to it.

If an American church has 10,000 members, and they would all tithe, what would most of those churches do? Build bigger buildings and hire more staff to do more programs. Let’s support the church, but let’s not buy whiskey for proven alcoholics.

7) The Kingdom economy is one where the local church is a demonstration of the Kingdom, and the church prepares and equips Christians to live Kingdom-useful lives. That life can’t be restricted to a local church. The marriage analogy depends on an exclusive vow as the moral center of marriage. Only one relationship. That exclusive vow is with Christ, not with a local church.

Don’t accuse me of “either/or,” because I am not saying that in any way. Christians have responsibilities and commitments to their local churches, but that relationship is relative to 1) Christ, 2) the Kingdom of Christ and his purposes. The local church has a place and a role in the Kingdom, but that is relative to the ultimate claims of Jesus Christ and the call of all disciples to seek first the Kingdom.

9) The claim that “the church is the way disciples seek first the Kingdom” is a claim made by churches and church leaders. I think it has to be questioned, not because there aren’t great churches and pastors like Immanuel and Ortlund, but because there are worldly and compromised “churches” and “shepherds” as described in Revelation 2-3, Ezekiel, etc.

10) I greatly appreciate and affirm Ortlund’s words. There is a lot of wisdom there. I think he is expressing some things which many of us need to talk about in the context of our own rather different experience of church.

Agree?

Anyone remember a religious leader talking about the “heresy” of individual salvation lately? You might be surprised how difficult it can be to continue to affirm that Jesus is saving sinners as individuals, not dispensing salvation to a group through a church.

Agree that when an individual “chooses” Jesus and not the church it’s an “imaginary” Jesus? Agree that Christ’s way of being present in the world is the church? There’s plenty for this collective-resisting Protestant to talk about, but I’m mostly interested in the papal swing at the well-known fat pitch “Jesus, Yes; the Church, No.”

“Jesus, Yes; the Church, No” has been around for a long time. It makes a good sign. Sounds good as a cheer.

If you are a promoter of the church, you’re supposed to do like Benedict the 16th in the quote (sorry there those of you feeling envious) and say it’s just plain wrong.

But you don’t pay me to be an echo chamber for the pope, so I’m going to say “Maybe.”

It depends on the questions that precede the answer.

“Jesus, Yes; the Church, No” is a perfectly good answer to a lot of things, and a wrong answer to several others.

Who saves you? Jesus, Yes. The Church, No. B16 and I would probably have a second and third cup of coffee on that one, but I’m not budging. The church should proclaim Christ, but never get itself confused with Christ.

How does the Holy Spirit come to us? “Jesus? Yes. The Church? No.” At least not on tap.

What’s the message of the Gospel? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The Gospel is Jesus centered, and the church should be, too.

What is the whole Bible about? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The church is there, but it’s not the central message of the Bible.

To whom do I owe complete submission, loyalty and allegiance? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.”

What am I proclaiming in evangelism? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The church has its place in evangelism, but not as the bread of life given for the world.

What is the church actually all about? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” The church equips and nurtures disciples in their journey with Jesus. The church should promote Jesus to those who need to know and follow him. It shouldn’t confuse church activities with discipleship. (Buy my book.)

What is our complete hope in life and in death? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” Jesus is the hope of all Christians and the central hope of the church.

Who are we following? Whom are we serving in serving the poor or the oppressed? Whom are we imitating in suffering or generosity or compassion? “Jesus, Yes. The Church, No.” We may be imitating those in the church who follow and imitate him, but it is Jesus whose footsteps we follow.

There are more questions; questions about the church itself and questions about what it means to say “Yes” and “No.”

It’s not a simple matter, but it is a matter on which we should settle and be stubborn. In an environment where Christianity is more and more defined by leaders to make themselves and their institutions essential and powerful, the Jesus shaped believer must maintain the importance of “Jesus- Yes, the Church, No” in the right ways and for the right questions.

There is a “Jesus, Yes; the Church, Yes too!” that can and should be spoken at the right ways and times, but I believe that “Yes” comes when we know how to distinguish it from the wrong kinds of yes’s or from saying yes to whatever leaders signal us to nod to.

We’re wrestling with the connection between Jesus and the church these days. I am going to contend that the church fulfills an important role in the missional movement that comes from Jesus through the Spirit into the world, but the church doesn’t ever take a place where a “church shaped” Christianity becomes the norm.

I’ve always been encouraged that there is so much discussion of the Gospel in the Christian blogosphere, but I’ve been disappointed where most of that discussion has focused. I’m sure there’s a great need to clarify the differences between Piper and Wright on the nature of justification, but I doubt that the church on the corner has many people walking in the doors who particularly care. (Oh, I know that the theologians among us can tell us why they should care, but the theological class has never suffered from a lack of confidence in the significance of their particular areas of interest, yours truly included.)

There are, however, areas of largely untouched Gospel proclamation and application that are walking into churches and sitting across from you at Panera Bread; areas and issues usually avoided and left unexplored. I rarely- never?- hear them addressed, which is what this blog is for, right?

I’m sure very few readers have failed to have I Corinthians 6:9-11 brought to their attention multiple times, mostly because it contains specific references to sexual sins and that those who “practice” and “indulge in” them will not inherit the Kingdom of God (one of Paul’s rare mentions of the Kingdom). If we could put aside for a moment the debate regarding exactly what sort of sexual sin Paul is describing or how we need to shout the sinfulness of sin louder than the world, there’s something else rather extraordinary about this passage, particularly given the portrait of the Corinthian church that emerges in the New Testament.

To the point, the Corinthian church, for all its lack of mature leadership, division, indulgence in the sins common in Greek culture and raucous abuse of the Lord’s Supper, must have, at least at some point, been a pretty good place to repent of serious sin and become an accepted part of the Christian community. As the NLT puts it, “Some of you were once like that,” “that” being the sins listed in that passage. “But now….” those same persons were in the Corinthian community hearing this letter.

In other words, repentance happens somewhere, if it happens, other than just in your head and heart. The Corinthian church appears to, at one time, have been one of those places.

This may shed some light on the situation in I Corinthians chapter 5, where Paul says the Corinthians are “proud of” their acceptance of a man living in a Jerry Springer-esque relationship with his step-mother. Acceptance of the sinner may have been the Corinthian’s strong suit if chapter 6 is any evidence, and their lack of discernment and leadership may have let them to sometimes tolerate too easily- even gladly- what they should have sometimes excluded as incompatible with belonging to Christ. In fact, a number of passages in these letters leave the impression that the Corinthians’ acceptance of real sinners and their patience in dealing with real sin may have gone off track without unified, mature leadership.

What I want you to see, however, is that their acceptance of sinful, repenting, in-the-process-of-changing new believers was a legitimate and importance application of the Gospel. We don’t just arrive at the destination; we travel the road and the road may be less than a straight line. The Christian community into which the Corinthians were all baptized as converts was, at any one moment, a community of persons moving from one kind of person to another; a community of persons acquiring in real time the inheritance and realities given them in their union with Christ in baptism and faith.

Our only other choice is to assume that the person who was “once” on the list in chapter 6 was excluded from the community until they became the new “you” of the same verses. There are Christians and communities that strive to be this very thing: communities where all transformation is instantaneous and the stated rules render the process of repentance and personal transformation unspeakable…unless it is finished. This, by the way, is the genius of Paul’s “sin lists,” which always counterbalance the “big” sins with what we would judge as more mundane sins, by human comparison. Of course you must exclude a persistent sexual sinner, but “greedy” people? We can work on that as we go along. No need to make a big deal about that sort of thing.

I’m not suggesting that Paul or any New Testament writer was advocating that anyone in leadership would be in the process of committing scandalous sin. The pastoral letters are clear on such matters. I am suggesting, with good evidence I think, that the Corinthian fellowship contained persons who entered into the Christian journey as they repented from real sins, and that such repentance was ongoing and, I’m certain, imperfect. That the church is to be a “hospital for sinners” and not a ward of healthy people telling stories of their former illnesses is a challenging calling.

Now I have more than a Bible study in mind this morning, and I want to get to the point. I think there are sins we virtually don’t talk about at all simply because we don’t want people in the process of repenting of those sins around us or our families, and so we fail to see that the church as community is, in many ways, much more like the moralistic, judgmental secular world than like the movement that grows from Jesus and his world-altering Gospel.

Consider the sin of domestic abuse, both emotional and physical. I believe it’s one of the great unmentioned sins in the church, because it is one of the great plagues of the culture. Christians don’t have a lot of verses on this one because the Bible was written in cultures that seldom defined abuse as we do today. Abuse of women and children- and occasionally men- is rampant, common and even accepted in many cultures. I am fairly certain I could walk- not drive- to the homes of several families I know that are dealing with this right now, including prominent families in churches.

Have you ever talked to a counselor- secular or Christian- about how they feel about abusive men? I have two books on emotional abuse on my bedroom shelves right now. Both say the emotional abuser will almost certainly never change and the victim/woman must divorce and leave such a man no matter what he says.

That is the message of the culture to the family that is struggling with emotional/verbal or physical abuse: no change possible. Get out. End it and start over. To do otherwise is the enable the abuser to continue the cycle of abuse.

Now I understand this, and I have advised many women to get out and have called social services on behalf of young people. I am not that guy who says “submit and take it,” so don’t write me with stories of how churches and pastors said stay and wait for him to change. I am basically on your side and I respect your pain and loss. I just have another problem.

I deeply disagree with the hopelessness of the typical scenario. I believe Christ and the Gospel can change the abuser. I believe it, I’ve seen it, and- hang on- I want every church to have some kind of niche in their community- aside from a professional counselors office- where such repentance can go on. I want support for the abused, and I want some community for the genuinely repenting abuser. If we say no abuser ever tries to repent, then we deny the Gospel, and that’s a big deal.

Maybe a Samson Society. Maybe a Celebrate Recovery relationship. Maybe a Promise Keeper’s small group. Maybe a healing prayer service. Maybe a prayer partner. Maybe a mentor or accountability group. Someplace where it can happen in the real world, with other men, and not just in a counselor’s office where it’s unlikely he’ll hear the Gospel.

If there isn’t such a place for that man who seeks to repent of his shabby and rotten treatment of his wife and family, then what business do we have preaching the Gospel to that man? What business do we have reading him I Corinthians 6:9-11?

Oh, I know. Your mind is already going where mine went long ago: the who catalog of sins that our culture has placed in the “pariah” file. Pornography addicts. Sexual abusers. Violent criminals. Sociopaths. Child molesters.

No fellowship of mere humans can create the community where everyone can repent openly. It’s just not possible. Some sins and their consequences are too controversial and dangerous, even in the process of sincere repentance. Most churches are too imperfect to love every sinner as they should be loved. No church can turn an eye to realities of risk and recurrence.

God bless those in prison ministry and those who can go to the men and women no church can allow in, but are there churches seeking to call out and equip those persons for that ministry? Even if it that ministry can never result in joining the church’s formal, 3-D fellowship? (By the way, once again, one can see certain advantages to the Catholic way of doing church. It may fall short, in some of our assessments, in the quality of “typical” community, but it also may be much more accommodating to the person who, truly, can only come to confession, receive the sacraments and then must leave, or to the person who can’t enter a fellowship at all.)

I wonder how many who hear preachers inveigh against viewing internet porn are also sitting in a fellowship where there is a place one can confess, experience acceptance and become accountable for such a struggle with sin? How many are sitting in a place where Paul could write I Corinthians 6:9 with a modern list of shocking sins, but no one can say “I was one of those, but thanks to the Gospel I heard and experienced here, I am that no more?”

This is a real challenge, because the world is full of bad things and as often as we are accused of being rigid and Puritanical, we are also accused of being sloppy and naive with forgiveness. (Listen when someone on death row claims to have been forgiven by Jesus.) As Jesus shaped, Gospel loving people, the scandal and shock of forgiving real sinners is one sign we are getting it right. If the Corinthians went over the line and into the ditch, I’m just glad they were on the right side of the road. For too many of us who claim to be Jesus’ followers, there is very little mercy for anything resembling the prodigal unless he comes home looking very good and sporting a nifty testimony. We don’t want to be in the business of cleaning that kid up.

In most of the churches I’ve served, someone has been convicted of a crime and gone to jail. Some of those persons were sitting in the church’s pews the weeks before. Paul Zahl says you would be very surprised to discover how many people you know have spent a night in jail.

You’d probably be more surprised to learn that the woman next to you at the gym is there because her husband verbally abuses her about her weight. Or what your best friend’s husband is doing on that work computer. Or who is on the sex offender’s registry because as a 22 year old public school coach they had consensual sex with a 17 year old student. Or who is addicted to prescription medications. Or who punched their 15 year old son in the jaw. Or who is paying the mortgage having sex with strangers off of Craig’s list. Or who is a three time convicted shoplifter. Or who was arrested for a DUI last month. Or who smokes pot every day.

Yes, most of us don’t want to think about it, because these are messy, life dominating sins, scattering trails of wreckage behind them that no one wants to become involved with. But we preach the Gospel to them when we preach it to anyone.

We have a Word to hear, an aisle to walk, water to be washed in and a table to come to, but do we have a people gathered around that Gospel who will strive to make a community of repentance possible?

NOTE: For those who are interested in this topic, the life’s work and especially the recent writing of Dr. Larry Crabb is invaluable.

I’ve discovered Paul F. M. Zahl, and I’m beside myself with enthusiasim for his writing on grace and the church. The only problem is that there’s not much of it, and that is truly a loss. Zahl is an Episcopal minister who has served as dean of a theological school as well as pastor. He’s a marvel of humor, grace, hope and balance. A delight to read and listen to. Here’s Zahl speaking recently about his knock-out book Grace In Practice.

I found this talk by Zahl given at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. It is a talk given in the light of the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop, and it is a talk given by a traditionalist seeking to plead with a Robinson-approving majority to find a way to accommodate traditionalists. It’s quite interesting given what has now unfolded with the formation of GAFCON, ACNA and the radicalization of TEC at their recent gathering.

Be sure and add to this talk the excellent interview Ryan Cordle just posted with AMiA missionary bishop Doc Loomis. Zahl and other traditionalists who stayed with the ECUSA are the subject of several of his comments.

The majority of this talk is a reasoned traditionalist analysis of the issue of homosexuality. Zahl, who is the most gracious of Christians, makes it plain where many of us are on this issue: the reasoning used by the other side passes the bounds of integrity and conscience. No matter how much we must repent of our homophobia and exclusion- and I am all for that- we cannot give up our convictions about the Gospel. Zahl makes that very plain.

At any rate, that seems dishonest to me. So I shall begin this brief keynote address summing up the actual reasons why traditional Episcopalians are opposed to the consecration of Gene Robinson and are also opposed to the blessing in the church of same-sex unions. I won’t harp on this, but feel the reasons need to be acknowledged, publicly, and theologically. It is not fair to call people on the traditional side “homophobic”. Of course homophobia is possible, but it is also a terrible slur in the contemporary context. It is like the word “anti-semitic”. It halts all discourse. Full stop. And it destroys people and careers. Homophobia and anti-semitism are real things. But as words, they are used overmuch today to tar and dismiss voices that may in fact be sincere and liberal.

So what is the big deal? Why do people like me stand against the Gene Robinson consecration and the blessing of same-sex unions? Why do we feel these two things are destructive of life in the Christian church? I note in passing that our struggle against them so far has been unsuccessful, failed, and demoralizing for the zeal and good conscience of our ministries.

Why is the issue so important?

First, we believe the gay position as we hear it undermines the anthropology of the Gospel. It undermines the teaching concerning the inherent sinfulness of the creature before the Creator. It wants to exempt a particular category of persons, gay men and women, from Original Sin on the basis that they are “created” a certain way, therefore how can it be wrong? For reasons beyond our human understanding we are all created sinners: distorted, inverted, libidinal and narcissistic. Our baggage is psycho-genetic, not the sum of our deeds. The gay argument confuses creation with redemption – as in the old 1970’s poster “God don’t make no junk”. That was a half truth then, and it is a half truth now. The core, universal, and seemingly impenetrable claim of the gay lobby is this: If I came into the world this way, then how can it be wrong? That claim is in opposition to the classic Christian doctrine, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, of the human being as being intrinsically and inherently fallen in all cases. The claim is Arminian explicity and Pelagian implicitly.

If the anthropology is flawed, then inevitably the soteriology is flawed. If “God don’ t make no junk”, then what need is there for a Savior? Why did Christ have to die on the Cross, if the need of the human race were not rooted in our paralysis and inability to help ourselves? The result of an overly high anthropology is an overly low soteriology.

The result of an overly low soteriology is a weak Christology. If Christ is not a Savior in the full and plain sense of the word, then He did not have to be God. The whole encounter of Jesus with the Pharisees in Mark, Chapter Two, when he made a connection between his divine authority and the forgiveness of sins, ceases to mean anything. High anthropology means low soteriology means inadequate Christology.

Finally, the Trinitarian implications of the weak Christology implicit in the gay lobby’ s argument – become now the Episcopal Church’s argument – are devastating. The Son who is no Saviour becomes automatically subordinate to the Father. We are quickly into Arianism and what we today call unitarianism. Now most theological liberals I know in ECUSA insist that they are Trinitarian Christians. And I believe them. But I wonder whether they have realized the implications for the whole of theology of the overly high anthropology of the arguments we have been hearing from the gay lobby and their friends. Please, think through the implications of a weakened profile of Original Sin.

The second “theological” argument traditionalists want to use is the hermeneutical one. I myself think this is second in importance to the theological “domino effect” I have just tried to spell out. The hermeneutical objection to the Robinson consecration is very important, but it is not decisive in quite the same way the argument from anthropology is. Nevertheless, we believe the plain and unexceptioned meaning of the Bible is against the practice of homosexuality in all cases. We cannot get around this. And I am grateful when folk on the other side acknowledge and do not try to weasel out of the “fact on the ground” of the Biblical voice against their idea. Yes, I realize there are wholly inclusive implications to Jesus’ and Paul’ s Gospel, but they stop at the Rubicon of homosexual practice.

The third “theological” argument – and I put the word “theological” in quotes to make the point that these arguments, unlike my first one, are more ecclesiological than theological in the pure sense – relates to tradition. We believe, and especially the many Anglo-Catholics among us, that such a break with catholic and universal Christian tradition that the Robinson consecration constituted is a mighty and awesome thing. To do any thing so completely in discontinuity with what everyone has said everywhere and in every time is simply so ambitious. It feels Promethean to me.

And finally, related to the argument from tradition, there is the ecumenical argument. It is alarming to have split ourselves off from the Roman Catholic Church and almost all the Orthodox Patriarchates, not to mention the large numerical majority of our Anglican co-religionists overseas, especially in the Global South.

Conceptually, neither the ecumenical argument nor the argument from tradition is binding for most theologians, and certainly not for most Protestant ones. That is why I emphasized the first piece of this – the move from low anthropology to final unitarianism. But the ecumenical argument does involve people’s lives, and respect for (millions of) others’. It surely has got to be weighed in and not just portrayed as a sort of primitive reaction to American unilateralism. I think of Janet Jackson’ s Tuesday apology this week to 99 million Super Bowl viewers: “if I have offended anyone…” Both her action and her apology smack of opportunism, and make me sick. Is our church guilty of Janet-Jackson thinking?

Now I began by saying that we need to look at the arguments concerning the issue, at least the losing ones – the ones from “my” side – so we don’t just skip over them in our rush to ecclesiological or structural arguments. I would like to conclude this part of our debate concerning “Anglican comprehensiveness” with a plea, from the position of weakness, to you, and by extension to the Episcopal Church as a whole, and to its bishops in particular.

My plea has a formal side and it has a material side.

The formal side, and I intentionally use philosophical language here in order to be as clear as possible, is a plea for Alternative Episcopal Oversight. Traditional people in the Episcopal Church, in order to feel able to stand and be secure, require a concrete gesture of generosity on behalf of the bishops. This would be to let us sign up with ECUSA bishops, and some overseas Anglican bishops, with whom we feel safe. Most of us, because of the titanic nature of the issues involved in the Gene Robinson consecration, no longer feel we can serve with zeal and in good conscience within the structures of ECUSA. We need the freedom to sign up with bishops and structures – and I do not mean the AMiA, although many of us feel we are being pushed out in that direction – we need the freedom or space to sign up with ECUSA and other overseas Anglican bishops with whose commitments we feel safe. We no longer feel safe in ECUSA.

I should add that my own bishop, Henry Parsley, voted against Robinson’s consecration and has been respectful of the traditional position.

What the ECUSA bishops need to allow us to do is have Alternative Episcopal Oversight on our terms, not on their terms. They need to cede control, for a season and a space, to us, the losers. The concession has got to come from the victors, the ECUSA bishops who have won this most impressive victory at Minneapolis, and not from the losers: us, in other words. I use the language of power here because our Christian faith teaches us that the stronger has always got to give up power to the weaker. That is Grace. God did it. Philippians, Chapter Two enshrines this principle theologically. “…Though he was in the form of God, (he) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant…” (vss. 6-7).

The stronger, I repeat, the stronger, the victor, has to give up control and power to the weaker, the loser, in order for reconciliation, in the Christian sense of the word, to take place. So the formal side of my plea is for ECUSA to allow Alternative Episcopal Oversight without control or condition. My plea is for the bishops to lay aside their fears and trust us to God. I predict that if the bishops were to see their way to conceding this to us, the defensiveness and anger of people on my side would go down by half if not by three-quarters. In fact, if I understand people right, the day we are allowed to “call our own shots” in the area of AEO will be the day we come back to our original loyalty. I predict that. I predict it because it happens that way in love. Which brings me to the material side of my plea.

We are talking about Grace, or love, here. In relationships with people you love, you often do what they want to do simply because they want to do it. If my wife has an interest that I regard as dumb – let’ s just imagine! – I still need to make it, at least somehow, my interest. Not because of the interest itself – not at all – but because of my love for her. The ECUSA bishops need to give us what we so obviously, urgently, and desperately need, out of love. Not because of anything else. It has been astonishing to me, after almost 30 years ordained service in the Episcopal Church, that almost none of my old friends who are now Episcopal bishops or leaders on the ascendant side have reached out, personally. Ian Douglas is a significant exception.

The material principle behind the formal concept of Alternative Episcopal Oversight is, simply put, love.

There are so many illustrations in life of the principle of love from the stronger to the weaker. Lincoln’ s choice of “Dixie” as the song to be played by the White House band on the night that word arrived of Lee’ s surrender at Appomattox; the amazing overture of the Catholic President of the Republic of Ireland, John Bruton, to the Protestant Orangemen at Drumcree in the historic stand-off at Portadown in 1999; the simple miracles of reconciliation that happen every day in marriages and families and friendships throughout the world of our common life. Do you remember that line in John Ford’s 1939 legendary masterpiece, Stagecoach, when the whisky drummer beseeches the bickering passengers on the coach, just before the Indian attack as it turns out, to “have a little Christian charity”? The point is extremely important.

With the formal side of my plea granted, rooted and rooted only in the material principle of Christian love from the stronger to the weaker, the whole situation we are in would turn around. With its not being granted, I think I might safely predict that almost every traditionalist Episcopal minister and priest in the United States will no longer feel able to serve in ECUSA. There is a dire reality we are looking at. It is also a promising new future out there if the church can heed this plea.

Thank you very much.

Here is a reply to Zahl’s talk from the other side of the aisle. Here is an interview with Zahl from about the same time.

If you have Zahl resources you can link, please do so.

-Andrew Osenga, Hold the Light, from Caedmon’s Call, Overdressed.

It occurred to me yesterday that’s been 25 years since I was part of a church or Christian community where I could stand up and say with honesty and the knowledge of acceptance, “This is what I believe, this is where I struggle, this is who I am….really.”

Twenty-five years of finding the little ways to not answer certain questions. Twenty-five years of avoiding subjects during visits or meals. Twenty-five years of finding ways to listen, but not speak what you are really thinking.

Every so often, one of us will open the door a little bit and say “this is who I really am and where I’m struggling right now.” Before long, a response will arrive that reminds me of what passes for Christian fellowship these days: the dictation of piety from those designated to guard the door of the Older Brother’s Alternative Dinner Event (not to be confused with the Father’s party for the prodigal.)

I wonder how many people take that little risk of saying who they really are and get the same response?

I’m considered a fool by quite a few people because I’ve invested myself in the best way I know to declare a rebellion against this conspiracy of silence and deception: I’ve written my honest thoughts and struggles for all of you to read. Not as much the last few years as it first, because the cost was brutal and the enforcers meant business. I have deleted over a hundred and twenty past posts at this blog, none doing anything worse than chronicling a very average set of human struggles, because they could not exist and I exist in some quarters.

Now I’m working on a book that is going to be the only thing I know how to write: my own journey and what I’ve learned along the way, told in my own voice that I’ve honed in this space It will be my attempt to reach out to the others who have lived out the same experience, who have found they couldn’t wear the mask of piety and certainty any more; those who are looking for home in a landscape of closely guarded oases.

After twenty-five years, I have much more confidence in the awkward, unimpressive fellowships that questioning, searching pilgrims will create among themselves than I do in most of what is offered as “community.” I begin to understand that to talk to one another about real things, important things, unsettled things, you must take a great risk of becoming the enemy of those who use certainty like a club.

If there is going to be a “safe” place for many of us to be Christians with questions, issues, differences, consciences- then we are going to have to create the communities with whatever tools we have, and we will do so while being labeled and diagnosed.

Some of us must call attention to the reality of what is happening, and be prepared to endure the result. Others are just looking for a safe place to say they are not like the cookie-cutter spirituality that’s force-fed to much of the body of Christ.

Be certain, my friends, that it is dangerous out there. There is real power, money and influence at stake. If you define yourself as an individual and do not come to some religious conscience buyer to willingly sell your soul, mind and thoughts, then there is no telling what will be said about you or what the price may be.

I’m convinced- and will say so in the book- that many people leave the church as the only way to preserve their faith with any personal sanity and integrity.

You can send them all the epistles you want of what a bad decision they’ve made and how the church needs to be loved like your mother, but they aren’t going to buy it. The invitation to submit to being told who and what you are and what must be your answer to questions and issues far beyond the center of the Christian Gospel is being heard, and it’s being refused.

I thought today of all the young people I have shepherded through the church, doing my best to socialize them into a church-based experience of God. Now their faces pass before me. Some have found a church like the one I sold them: consumer Christianity and the suburban Jesus. But far, far more have simply walked away, never to return and rarely to even consider it. They are not the enemies of the faith. They simply cannot be part of our version of it any more.

We pray for them. We want them to come back and be like us. We lament the changes in their lives, but the truth of the matter lies with us and with what we refuse to see about ourselves as the custodians of “true Christianity.”

Could it be they had to get away from all of THIS in order to have some version of integrity? Is our definition of faith the sacrifice of integrity and individuality? For some, apparently that is the course, but I simply cannot make peace with that notion.

Many are not with us because they could no longer be themselves and be with us, even as they still carried their faith in Jesus and his Father with them as they left. We hear that claim and what do we say? Who do we blame? What is out standard response?

As Andrew Osenga says, we must look at one another face to face, and hear one another out, sometimes for years. We must be quiet in the face of the other person, and stop talking, talking, talking, telling them who they must be. We must stop dispensing instructions for the demise of individuality and the drowning of questions and differences.

We must find a way to hold the light for one another. To create that community we cannot find. To be Christ for one another.

1. You’re obviously influenced by the rhetorical style of someone like Driscoll, in that you are communicating intensely, but with humor and pop-culture to counter-balance. Yet, you’ve managed to put the emphasis on the Biblical content, not on the style or the preacher. What would say to all those young preachers who want to imitate guys like Chandler and Driscoll?

Well, there are worse guys you could imitate. Some practical advice would be to mix it up. Don’t just listen to one or two guys. Listen to several, or many if you have the time. Take a breather from podcasting. You WILL pick up not just sermon points but actual vocal inflections and figures of speech and tics from these guys if you listen to them too much. I think young guys like me especially have a wiring to absorb and regurgitate, to ape. (It’s borderline autistic how we go through lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Beavis & Butthead or whatever.) And we like rock stars. And we, like all people, are idolaters. And this can all happen really subtly.

Podcasting is a blessing and a curse. The technology is a blessing and a curse. I wouldn’t have experienced the gospel renaissance in my own life if it weren’t for Driscoll’s and John Piper’s message audio. I don’t say that lightly. I was in a church where Jesus sometimes made cameos in the sermons and I had no idea anybody could preach an entire message where Jesus was the point until I heard Mark Driscoll. (And I grew up in the church.) But it’s a curse too, because it has seriously spoiled us for appreciating our own pastors and the way God has designed us to deliver his word from the contexts of ourselves. I think we need to remind each other that every podcasted guy is the pastor of his church, not ours. Your church needs you to preach and pastor, not be the best version of Chandler you can approximate.

But again, if you’re gonna copy somebody, Chandler’s the dude.

A good rule of thumb is if you spend more time hearing someone else tell you what the Bible says than you do actually reading the Bible yourself, you’re out of whack.

2. This isn’t a Ben Witherington III Introduction to Jesus, but it rests on the scholarship of guys like Ladd and Wright. As a Gospel communicator, what do you find exciting about New Testament scholarship and how it can help us?

My perspective is unique (I think), because I don’t approach the use of NT scholarship as most writers of these sorts of books do, which is for the purpose of apologetics. You probably noticed there’s not much of that in the book (proving the virgin birth and the resurrection and the like), although there is some. And some folks assume this means the book is mainly for Christians, not non-Christians, for that reason. They are probably right, but not for that reason.

It’s fairly simple for me, because I don’t think it helps anybody to read the Gospels and not know what they mean. And scholarship helps us understand what they mean. This probably seems like an obvious or minor point. But Tom Wright helped me see what Jesus meant in the Olivet Discourse. Ladd helped me see what the kingdom is and isn’t. And they do this by teaching us about the culture and the history of that day, about the people and the places, about the language and the use of language. It helps us answer the question, “How would Jesus’ audience then have understood this?”

It isn’t revolutionary. How many Sunday school teachers explain the camel and the eye of the needle thing with some anecdote about a city gate a camel has to stoop through? That anecdote is wrong, by the way — that gate didn’t show up until the middle ages — but the teacher uses it to explain Jesus’ teaching. And that’s what good NT scholarship does. It helps us understand. You can’t believe Jesus or learn from Jesus if you don’t understand him. (And just assuming we understand him has caused a lot of the mess we’re in.)

3. I can hear someone out there saying, “This is a good series of messages, but you talk like every sermon has to be about Jesus. That’s simply excessive. We need to talk about parenting and finances, too.” How do you express what you mean by putting a constant focus on Jesus in preaching?

The best reference point itself is the Bible itself. If we learn from the best — Paul and the other apostles — they put the constant focus on Jesus. Ephesians is a great example, with the stuff on parenting and children and other practical lifestyle matters, with Christ towering over the whole thing and the gospel running throughout.

If we don’t make it “excessively” about Jesus, it just becomes law. Hebrews 12:2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, which I take as permission to be fixated on him. Everything else is peripheral.

4. One thing you and I share is a desire to call evangelicals back to the Gospel. There’s evidence that we’re making some progress, but the situation is still dire in many quarters. What sorts of things exemplify for you the crisis over the Gospel in evangelicalism?

The data. The number of megachurches is increasing but the number of professing Christians is decreasing. Something’s not working, clearly.

That it took a methodological trainwreck and thousands of dollars spent for the good folks at Willow Creek to determine that Bible study is the best catalyst for spiritual growth is bizarre.

Joel Osteen, the head of the largest church in North America, saying on national television that Mormons are Christians too.

I’ll tell you what drove it home for me personally. Two years ago after preaching the Element Easter message in the evening a guy came up to me and said, “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to hear about the resurrection on Easter.” I laughed, but he wasn’t kidding. I listened to the podcast of the church he attended that morning, and he wasn’t exaggerating. On Easter Sunday, there was a brief nod to the resurrection at the front of the sermon and then the message was about stepping through new doors and opportunities God presents to you in your life. So we’ve now replaced the eucatastrophe of the universe with some tips on personal lifestyle success.

You can’t even satirize this stuff any more.

5. You’ve described one of your personal missions as “reforming the discipleship culture” of the church. Can we produce disciples just by preaching and good books? If not, what else is needed that we still need to take seriously?

Well, I think preaching can create a disciple because I take Romans 10 seriously. But you can’t disciple anybody with preaching alone. Disciples follow Jesus. I look at what Jesus did to disciple, and I see he basically taught, went, and taught as he went. So I imagine we’ve got to do the same.

But we’re idiots, so we like one or the other. Guys in my tribe emphasize the teaching, not the going. In other tribes they’re huge on going but not on teaching.

I like to call this a two-fisted gospel. If you aren’t articulating the gospel of the kingdom regularly and also seeking to live the kingdom out, you aren’t discipling anyone in the way of Jesus.

The danger for most folks of my sort is that we really become admirers of the gospel, not treasurers of it. And admiring it is not really centering on it. When it’s got you forgiving your cheating spouse or serving people in the ghetto or even mowing your neighbor’s yard, it’s changed you.

Jared isn’t a well-known author or megachurch pastor. His blog, Gospeldrivenchurch.com, is an indicator that he has gifts to write, preach and teach, but blogging or preaching isn’t writing a book. (Take it from me. I know what I’m talking about on that one.) Jared doesn’t head up a ministry that will buy 10,000 copies of his book sight unseen or have reserved spots on all the conference schedules next year. I have no idea if he’s going to be successful as an author or will simply be another solid pastor who happened to write a book.

What I know is that Jared has written a book about Jesus that, for many of the readers of this bog and for vast numbers of evangelicals, should be THE book about Jesus they read in the next few months, because it may be the best popular level book written this year to re-introduce the Christ of scripture to the people who say they know him.

There are reasons I say that. First, there’s a lot of worthless manipulation and abuse of Jesus in dozens of popular books that are all over the bookshelves. Books with a confused view of Jesus, a culture war obsession with a non-existent Jesus and a devotional reworking of Jesus into something subjective and meaningless are thick on Christian reading lists. I’ve defended William Young’s adventurous parable of his rediscovery of the goodness of God, but if you are going to read a book on Jesus and the Gospel, that’s not your book. If you’ve wasted money on The Secret Message of Jesus or similar versions of Jesus as a symbol of political and ecclesiastical “relevance,” you now have a chance to repent and recharge your starving mind and heart.

If you think you know what you need to know about Jesus, you’re wrong. If you’re an ordinary Christian who believes you have to read N.T. Wright’s big Jesus book or all four volumes of John Meier to understand Jesus, you’re wrong. If you want your affection for Jesus ramped up to 11, you’re completely right to read this book.

What millions of evangelicals need is a solid, Biblical, interesting, well-written, compelling, intense and thoroughly balanced revisioning of the Christian faith with Jesus at the center. I thoroughly recommend Jared Wilson’s Your Jesus is Too Safe as the popular level, highly readable re-introduction to Jesus you’ve been looking for, or should have been looking for, all along.

What Jared has produced is a mini-Biblical theology, shaped around the major assertions about Jesus, and using an outstanding mastery of contemporary prose/preaching to take us thematically into the Bible in a quest to discover and appreciate every aspect of Jesus. There is much more to learn in this book than the cover and title would suggest. This isn’t a scholarly book, but it reflects deep, intensive, challenging sermons and teaching. This is real meat, but served up with all the right kinds of seasoning to make you remember this meal long after you’ve forgotten others.

A perfect book for a study of Jesus in any church or small group. A really amazing intro to Jesus that draws from scholarly sources like Wright and Ladd, but makes them accessible and fresh to anyone with an interest in Jesus. Not a wasted page, I assure you. Great preaching. Compelling retelling of the Biblical stories. Forceful application that applies to the sad state of evangelicalism today.

A few subpoints:

1) This is a book that will be enjoyable primarily by those in the younger half of the evangelical spectrum- 40’s and down. There’s a lot of Driscoll-esque rhetorical style about Jared’s writing, minus the Driscoll language and subject matter controversies. So it’s safe for all denominations, even Southern Baptists. (I did read the word “fartsy” in one chapter. I have forwarded this offensive term to the proper blogosphere authorities, who will tell Jared when he needs to apologize or resign the ministry.)

2) There are a box full of pop culture references. As I said earlier, for the over 40’s crowd, that may create a bit of static.

3) Those looking closely will find that Jared does have some corners to his theology that everyone won’t share, in particular, abandoning the dominant dispensationalism of evangelicals and an eschatology that seems to be a form of preterism. Nothing here to be a concern for anyone, unless you’re an Episcopal bishop.

4) If you are looking for an introduction to the quest for the historical Jesus or a fully rounded theological Christology, that’s not what you have here. This is strong evangelical theology, abbreviated, straight on, evangelistic and experiential, with an orthodox view of Jesus served up for the appetites of those who would enjoy Driscoll’s Vintage Jesus (Jared’s is a better book by far), Stafford’s Surprised by Jesus or Galli’s Jesus Mean and Wild.

5) Jared’s final chapter contains quotes from both Piper and Wright, two guys who don’t exactly mesh when it comes to theology. I think Wilson is perhaps the best example I could point to of what is happening among the “young, restless and reformed.” They are capable of moving beyond their tribe to focus in on what matters most: Jesus, the Gospel and Gospel application in the church and the Christian life. I pray that Jared becomes a leader among these young theologians. His pen, mind and heart are working together to make Jesus look great, something I know Wright and Piper can both appreciate.

6) The cover and titles of the book are well-designed for marketing, but there’s really a lot more meat on the menu than just dealing with the pale, thin Christ of modern evangelicalism. This book is overwhelmingly about Jesus as revealed in scripture, not about how evangelicals have made Jesus into a dashboard doll.

7) If you have a young preacher who is trying to preach like Driscoll, give him this book. This is the style he’s looking for, married to the content that matters. But it’s better preaching. Much less ego and much more focus on Christ.

My book will be along later to straighten out Jared’s errors. So hang in there.

The incarnation may be the greatest stumbling block that Christianity places in the road of faith, but that stumbling block is the cornerstone of everything Christians believe about Jesus.

What does the incarnation mean for all of us? The incarnation means that God has personally crossed the unimaginable gap between himself and every human being, becoming one of us, and making it possible for every person to know God by way of the path of being human. In Jesus, God comes to us as one of us, speaks to us in human language, relates to us and draws us into relationship with himself without requiring us to be anything other than what we are: creatures of flesh and blood, human beings to whom God is a mystery and the curtain beyond our limitations is impenetrable in our experience. In Jesus, God comes to us, in life, through death, beyond the curtain and in simple words and signs.

The incarnation is the complete refutation of every human system and institution that claims to control, possess and distribute God. Whatever any church or religious leader may claim in regard to their particular access to God or control over my experience of God, the incarnation is the last word: God loves the world. God has come into the world in the form of those of us who bear God’s fingerprints and live in God’s world. God has come to all of us in Jesus. The incarnation is not owned, controlled or distributed by a church. It belongs to every human being. In Jesus, God comes to every one of us with no one else and nothing else in between. The incarnation is not being sold or downloaded. It is a gracious gift to every person everywhere, religious or not.

To make the obvious point, I don’t think think those who affirm the real presence in the Eucharist are trying to control the incarnation. But it is a danger. In my tradition, the implications of the incarnation are seldom considered, and preachers act as if they are “connecting” people to God via sermons, services, music, etc. Our denomination actually suggested that churches use this motto one year: “First Baptist Church: Connecting People to God.”

I’m deeply distressed by that mentality in general, no matter what the specifics happen to be. I hope that the incarnation gives to all of us a sacramental view of reality, no matter what our view of the specific sacraments of the church happen to be. Jesus comes to every person and for every person in the incarnation. This is a truth that is not mediated by the church. It is proclaimed and offered, but not ever controlled.