I'm Back

Wow, I haven't blogged in more than two years. Well i'm procrastinating so here goes. What has happened since my last post? Well I have trained as a travel agent, worked as a travel agent and then resigned from being a travel agent after one year. I have met a beautiful women, dated a beautiful woman and broken up with a beautiful woman (all the same woman).

Now I'm almost finished a year at Laidlaw College (formerly Bible College New Zealand) in Ministry Internship. So i was studying and working at my church, Papanui Baptist as assistant youth pastor.

The year of study/work has been great very challenging it is great how they blow all of your theology in 3 hours and then you spend the rest of your life trying to rebuild a different theology. The theologians that I have loved this year are N.T. Wright, Tite Tienou, Charles Olsen, Brian Mclaren, Shane Clairbourne, Mark Strom, Jim Wallis, Rob Bell and Tony Compolo. So where has my year of study left my theology? I have realized why the traditional evangelical view of salvation never really got me excited - it is flawed.

By traditional evangelical view I mean the basic formula that goes like this:

Garden of Eden = Perfect relationship with God

Fall = Separation from God

Jesus = Restoration of relationship with God and eternal dwelling with God in "heaven."

This is basically right but also does not include some vital elements.

The fall was the destruction not only of our relationship with God, but also our relationship with each other and our relationship with the environment. Sin affected all of these - if we redefine the problem in this way we also redefine the required solution - Christ's life, death and resurrection and return is the restoration of all things and all relationships not only our relationship with God.

Part of the problem with the traditional Evangelical view is that it assumes that the point of salvation is the escape from this world into eternity in some other spiritual world. This view is wound up in neo-Platinist dualism - ie the world is made up of spiritual (good) and physical (bad) and ultimately our destiny is to escape the physical and find the spiritual. I have found this is also flawed. This does not seem to fit with the language in the Scriptures that talks of Heaven coming to Earth (Rev 21). My belief is that Christ's return will consummate the Kingdom of God on earth. Our ultimate, eternal destiny is not to float around a spiritual realm with God but to dwell on a transformed "new" (or "renewed) Earth where Heaven and Earth are one and the same. All the relationships have been restored the way they where intended from the start.

I don't know if anyone is still following this blog but anyway here it is.