Adventures in Missing the Point : How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel

by Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo

• ISBN13: 9780310253846
• ISBN10: 0310253845
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Harpercollins Christian Pub

Summary

If you're brave enough to take an honest look at the issues facing the culture-controlled church-and the issues in your own life-read on. Do you ever look at how the Christian faith is being lived out in the new millennium and wonder if we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing? That we still haven't quite "gotten it"? That we've missed the point regarding many important issues? It's understandable if we've relied on what we've been told to believe or what's widely accepted by the Christian community. But if we truly turned a constructive, critical eye toward our beliefs and vigorously questioned them and their origins, where would we find ourselves? Best-selling authors Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo invite you to do just that. Join them on an adventure-one that's about uncovering and naming faulty conclusions, suppositions, and assumptions about the Christian faith. In Adventures in Missing the Point, the authors take turns addressing how we've missed the point on crucial topics such as: Salvation, The Bible, Being Postmodern, Worship, Homosexuality, Truth, and many more...

Table of Contents

Missing the Point about Missing the Point	10	(8)
GOD
Missing the Point: Salvation	18	(12)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Theology	30	(12)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: Kingdom of God	42	(12)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: End Times	54	(14)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: the Bible	68	(18)
Brian D. McLaren
WORLD
Missing the Point: Evangelism	86	(16)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Social Action	102	(14)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: Culture	116	(12)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Women in Ministry	128	(12)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: Leadership	140	(12)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Seminary	152	(14)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: Environmentalism	166	(10)
Tony Campolo
Missing the Point: Homosexuality	176	(18)
Tony Campolo
SOUL
Missing the Point: Sin	194	(8)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Worship	202	(16)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Doubt	218	(14)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Truth	232	(16)
Brian D. McLaren
Missing the Point: Being Postmodern	248
Brian D. McLaren

Excerpts

Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the GospelCopyright © 2003 by Brian D. McLaren and Tony CampoloYouth Specialties Products, 300 S. Pierce St., El Cajon, CA 92020, are published byZondervan, 5300 Patterson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataMcLaren, Brian D., 1956-Adventures in missing the point : how the culture-controlled churchneutered the Gospel / by Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo.p. cm.ISBN-10: 0-310-25384-5ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25384-61. Theology, Doctrinal--Popular works. I. Campolo, Anthony. II.Title.BT77 .M388 2003270.8'3--dc212002156593Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: NewInternational Version (North American Edition). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 byInternational Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or byany means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informationstorage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.Edited by Tim McLaughlinDesign by BurnkitPrinted in the United States of America05 06 07 / DCI / 10 9 8 7 6MISSING THE POINT about MISSING THE POINTSometimes the first thing we forget is what we’re really trying todo. At least that’s what my friend Jim Henderson says, and hehas a story to prove it:I’m in Home Depot. A series of consumercanyons tower menacingly overhead. All I need isa thingamajig. Where is it and who cares? Myeyes quickly scan the horizon of stuff lookingfor a little just-in-time customer service.I want to scream: Take your eyes off thoseboxes! Get down off that stupid ladder! Quit visitingwith your coworkers! Don’t pick up thatphone! Pay attention to me!But it’s pointless, and I finally get it: I’m aninterruption. An irritation. They’d prefer Iwasn’t in their building.They’ve forgotten why they went into business.It wasn’t to count boxes. Or visit eachother. Or ignore the customer. They went intobusiness to pay attention to the customer.Employees like these have missed the point.Which is how a lot of us feel about the way we’re living outChristian faith in the early 21st century. Somehow, we’remissing the point. We pastors and preachers listen to our ownsermons, see the frantic pace of programs and meetings we’vecreated, and shivers run up our spines: are we somehowmissing the point?Are our churches and broadcasts and books andorganizations merely creating religious consumers of religiousproducts and programs? Are we creating a self-isolating, self-serving, self-perpetuating, self-centered subculture instead ofa world-penetrating (like salt and light), world-serving(focused on “the least and the lost,” those Jesus came to seekand save), world-transforming (like yeast in bread), Godcentered(sharing God's love for the whole world)counterculture? If so, even if we proudly carry the nameevangelical (which means “having to do with the gospel”), we'renot behaving as friends to the gospel, but rather as itsbetrayers. However unintentionally, we can neuter the verygospel we seek to live and proclaim. This book is our attempt,flawed and faltering to be sure, to get us thinking about thefrightening possibility of unintentional betrayal of the gospelby those entrusted with it.And more, this book isn’t about pointing fingers at “them”for their mistakes. It’s about us. Protestants and Catholics,liberals and conservatives, hand-clappers and nonclappers,Pentecostals and Presbyterians (and PentecostalPresbyterians)—all of us.So we’d like to invite all of us to consider ways that we’remissing the point—to share a journey of (re)discovering whatwe’re supposed to be about.You won’t find a blueprint in these chapters—no five easysteps, no new model to roll out. We’re just two bald guyslearning to love the Lord and the church and the world, andwe’re trying to figure out the point of being Christians. In theprocess we’re becoming more and more aware of how often wemiss the point ourselves. And on occasion in these pages,you'll see how each of us thinks the other might be missing thepoint as well! (And hopefully, you'll see us demonstrate agood-natured way of disagreeing, too.)Every once in a while, muddling through life, we see thingsin a new, clearer light, and we’re surprised by the epiphany.Consider the case of Jason, a young college student who,during the time he was attending Brian’s church, was diagnosedwith schizophrenia. Soon after the diagnosis he rented a roomin Brian’s big house, like a few other single guys (withoutmental disorders) did.Fast forward a few years. All the guys in Brian’s house havemoved out and got places of their own. One day Brian learnsfrom a mutual friend that Jason is “normal” again. The two ofthem get together, and Brian immediately recognized thatsomething was different: for starters, Jason called him Brianinstead of Mr. McLaren, which for some reason he had calledhim since his illness had kicked in.“Can you explain what I was like when I lived with you?”Jason asked Brian. “I feel like I just woke up from a dream andmy whole past is like a fog. I’m trying to piece it together.”During the few hours they were together, Brian felt like hewas watching Awakenings, seeing a miracle before his eyes.But as in the movie, the miracle was short-lived, and Jason’sschizophrenia gradually returned. It turned out that a newdoctor had changed medications, and during the transition—when the effects of the old drug were waning and those of thenew were increasing—Jason’s brain chemistry returned to thatfragile state we call “normal.” Sadly, the doctor has never beenable to recapture that fragile balance.Like Jason during that brief period of clarity, we may be ina rare moment of opportunity as a culture. The waning ofmodernity and the rise of postmodernity may give us a few daysor weeks of unusual clarity. We begin to realize what a fog wehave been in, how we may have been missing the point. In suchlucid moments we might find ourselves in the calm eye of ahurricane—an interlude of clear skies and gentle winds, ofclear thinking and improved vision, where we can reassess ourlives, re-imagine our future direction. And with any luck,perhaps the pair of cultural influences—one waning and theother waxing—can somehow neutralize each other andsomehow make our cultural awakening longer-lived.But shame on you if you use this book to critique others, topoint the finger and say, “See how they’re missing the point!” Ifyou do that, you’re missing the point. This adventure is notabout finding the splinter in someone else’s eye, not aboutjudging others for their poor vision.Or if you get defensive while reading this book, thinking,Hey, I’m not missing the point. You authors are missing the point. I seeeverything perfectly clearly—if you think this, then you’re missingmore than the point: you’re missing an opportunity to learn,to reflect, to grow. This adventure isn’t about defendingourselves.What this adventure is about is facing our own blindnesses,our own insanities, our own foggy thinking and cloudedjudgment. It’s about admitting that we haven’t seen thingsclearly, and about wanting to think more clearly than we do.

---

Excerpted from Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel by Brian D. McLaren, Tony Campolo
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.