Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed (on the web. By day he is a college prof) has some great thoughts on Christianity as a country club or Christianity as the place where the gospel story is told.

His new book, The King Jesus Gospel, is a book I will be reading with my staff. It is a challenge to truly understand what JESUS meant when he said, “Follow me.”

We need to understand the story given to us:

What is a gospel culture? The gospel of Jesus and of the apostles cannot be reduced to the plan of salvation or to its effect: a salvation culture. The gospel, instead, is more robust and it is to tell the Story of Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s Story, of God’s design to build an Eden shaped by shalom. Notice how the apostle Paul defined gospel because he told a story and did not simply tell the facts of salvation: in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tells us that the gospel is four events in the life of Jesus (not four spiritual laws) — the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That Story, which only makes sense if we tie it to Israel’s Story, is the gospel that united the earliest Christians.

I am looking forward to this new book.

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited