How does this “apprenticeship to Jesus” fit in with the common understandings of the Christian life?

In several of his books and articles, Dr. Willard describes how the original Good News that Jesus taught, and embodied, and passed on to his disciples was compromised to become something far different than Jesus intended. Of course, this involves 2000 years of Church History, and is very complicated in its details, but I will try to summarize and give you an overview. This is not just theoretical – it will help us locate how we think about the Gospel, and what we expect from being Christians. If we have the wrong basic ideas, then our whole Christian experience is going to be off.

            In the development of Christian thought, the focus over the years in the Western Church came to focus on ‘sin management.’ Christians recognized that there was a problem of sin, and more and more the focus began to be on how to take care of the sin. Theories of the atonement (how God takes care of our sin) came to take precedence over other aspects of Christian living. How to get forgiven became the central focus, and essentially what developed was “bar code Christianity” – you know, do you have the right bar code so that when you get to heaven you will be accepted. There was all kind of discussion what you had to do to get the right bar code, and a lot of disagreement and fighting. As these arguments went on, more and more the church was focused on forgiveness, and less and less on how to live after forgiveness was established.

            Now don’t get me wrong, forgiveness is important. We are forgiven through the death and sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. But forgiveness is not all that there is. There are a lot of ‘forgiven’ folk walking around who live lives that are no different than their non-Christian neighbor. What happened to the abundant living that Jesus promised to those who followed him? What evolved are two extremes in the modern church. On the one hand are the evangelicals who are focused on getting everyone saved, i.e., forgiven so that they can get into heaven. After your initial conversion experience, evangelicals largely focus on how to stay forgiven. In other words, what I have to do so that I don’t mess up my forgiven status and miss heaven. On the other hand is what is generally known as liberal Christians. There concept of following Jesus is that one must seek the values and goals of Jesus. This usually gets translated into some idea of love or justice. We should go out and get ourselves involved in changing the system – the structural sin in the world – because that is what Jesus would do. In liberal Christianity, the focus of the church is the programs that are engaged in which lead to social involvement leading to Justice and Love. I have no problem with the fact that Christianity says something about justice and love – they are very important Biblical concepts. The problem is that modern culture usually defines what justice and love are all about. So Jesus has been envisioned as an anarchist, a communist, a radical revolutionary, and many other projections from modern culture.

            If you are raised in either one of these two church cultures, there is a lot of focus on what you should do – get saved and forgiven, or go out and work on changing the world. Getting saved and forgiven is important, and working for change in the world is important. But that is not the LIFE. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Jesus came to give us life, abundant life, life to the full. And it is available right now. It starts by knowing God and Jesus – that means to have an interactive relationship with God – which begins and develops now – not later when you die. NOW! It is a way of living your life NOW which finds its motivating power from the Life of God given to us by God’s Spirit.