The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
I had heard some rave reviews of this book, so thought I'd give it a chance. However, since I was already familiar with some of the basic ideas in it, my expectations were not overly high. The problem McKnight proposes to tackle is truly an important one: how to see those in churches become disciples. While the discussion is worthy, I don't believe that his answer really holds water.In the introduction, the author makes this statement: "Evangelicals have the same struggle of moving the "decided" into becoming the "discipled", because they've created a smug salvation culture, where the obsession is making the right decision, so we can cross the threshold from the unsaved to the saved, the "decided". A gospel culture though encompasses it all and leads the members into the "discipled" because it equates the former with the latter." McKnight spends lots of time bashing a "soterian" culture that emphasizes a status-change (aka, being born again) as the problem behind the lack of discipleship in the church. It took me a second and third glance to pick up on what the former quote actually implies: the decided ARE the discipled, which means only the discipled can be considered the decided (aka, Christians). Now, at a later point in the book he says that "Initial faith and discipleship are two dimensions of the same response." This later statement at least allows for the understanding that initial faith in Christ begins the process of discipleship rather than equating some attained level of discipleship with being a Christian. To put it more succinctly: birth leads to maturity, but maturity is not a pre-requisite for birth. But while McKnight does seem to give a nod to the idea of being "born again", it is deemphasized to a point where it seems to lose most of it's importance. McKnight seeks to define "Gospel" in his own way as some kind of magical key to overcoming the discipleship crisis. He often repeats that preaching the Gospel is "preaching Jesus as the completion of Israel's story." He makes a lot out of the contiguous story between Israel and Jesus to the point where he says, "Gospeling not driven by the atonement story, but by story of Israel." He then has to do a good deal of stretching to make Paul's sermons in Acts 14 and 17 fit his narrative. These examples of Paul preaching the Gospel without any reference to Israel ought to make it clear that, while Jesus IS the completion of Israel's story, this truth is not necessarily at the "heart" of the Gospel, nor is it necessary to understand the history of Israel to understand the essence of "the Gospel". I was reminded a number of times as I read of the words of Tim Keller that, "not everything is the Gospel and the Gospel is not everything." If McKnight had simply sought to bring out more of the richness in Jesus' story against the background of Israel and , it would have been helpful enough. However, as "belief in the Gospel" is what the Bible lays out as the condition for salvation, I believe that loading the term with more than it implies is not only inaccurate but potentially dangerous. It follows that, unless one understands the connections with Israel that McKnight lays out, one has not yet believed "the Gospel". He does reference 1 Cor. 15:3-4 a good deal "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures..." However, he attempts to drag the "story of Israel" into this simple, apostolic definition via the rest of the chapter (which also doesn't necessarily reference Israel.) Besides this, he also tries to separate "the Gospel" and "the plan of salvation", as if they are two separate things. While certainly the Gospel has layers and applications that are not necessary to understand to be born again, to make them two separate things is untrue to the biblical text: "the Gospel...is the power of God unto salvation for all those who believe." (Rom. 1:16)The author apparently blames the Protestant Reformation for the shift to a Gospel definition that emphasizes guilt and justification and faith and grace. He instead claims that the first 1,500 years of church history were shaped by a "Gospel culture", and cites the Nicean creed as embodying this. However, at one point he does come clean and says, "I'm not contending that the Gospel culture of the first centuries created an inordinate amount of disciples…" This seems exceedingly odd, as the whole premise of the book is that a "Gospel culture" (as McKnight defines it) is the key to solving our discipleship crisis. He seems to deemphasize and even knock a focus on atonement and justification throughout. While he does not deal with his views on justification directly in this book, McKnight really looks to NT Wright as a mentor of sorts and espouses His dangerous view of justification which it based in a synergistic way on our own works. Knowing this makes many of his disparaging comments about justification unsurprising.While he often downplays this aspect of substitutionary atonement, he proposes what is essentially a recapitulation theory of atonement. The problem is that, while substitutionary atonement is certainly not the whole picture, neither is recapitulation. Instead, it would've been nice to see McKnight underscore the importance of both. This is only one of the areas in which the book seems more reactionary than balanced and well thought out.Despite these cautions, there are certainly a few good challenges in the book, such as a renewed appreciation for the creeds and church history, as well as not focusing on penal substitutionary atonement to the exclusion of other valid theories of atonement. Nevertheless, the attempt to redefine the term "Gospel" as including more than it does makes McKnight's theories potentially dangerous to the unexperienced believer. So, while the problem is valid, the solution is unsatisfactory. Practical notes:- I listened to the audible audiobook version and had to pause and rewind a LOT. This was the first and last theology book I will listen to as opposed to reading text. Deep thoughts require time to engage, which the audio format does not allow.- The book is very repetitive. The author could've fit the points he was making into half the space. Excellent book. Very challenging to the traditional methods of evangelism. In this title McKnight takes the reader back to the real good news, unpacks what the true gospel is, and then moves the reader forward to what a true gospel culture should look like. I really liked his delivery and his thorough study into the Story of Israel and how the Story of Jesus resolved it and that is the gospel. The gospel we have been evangelizing with for years is more what Dallas Willard calls "sin management" and as McKnight unravels that thought to expose it the reader can't help but see that indeed we have been promoting a way of sin management but not of transformation in Christ. It should not be about "fire insurance" but about seeing and believing that Jesus is King, he is Messiah, he is Lord. McKnight doesn't just leave the reader with "now what" but goes on to lay out how to build a gospel culture rather than a salvation culture, the book points out the differences between the two. The gospel culture is based on the apostles teaching which came straight from Jesus himself and the salvation culture is based on misunderstanding the true words and mission of Christ. For 160 pages this book is PACKED with wisdom and truth. I borrowed the book from a friend and took pages and pages of notes - which slowed down my reading of it, which is probably a very good thing as it has given me time to really process and consider what McKnight has put forth. Excellent book, I highly recommend it.
What do You think about The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (2011)?
Very good in what he had to say, but a little dull in writing style.
—agaylayoung
Some interesting thoughts(this is not a compliment) still reading
—BeckyBoo12
A very readable and helpful book on The Gospel.
—whitc1
