The one clarification I wanted to make immediately involved having lost my train of thought on mentioning the guy at Dunkin Donuts. The question posed was about Western Christianity’s version of Jesus, and the intent of my response was to point out how Jesus has actually become sort of an add-on, with the good news of his finished work inside the Trojan Horse of the Church’s programming, visuals, goods, services, etc.

What struck me about the guy’s telling me about his church, right after trying to sell me on his internet marketing biz, was his trying to sell me on how “spiritual” the church was. They speak in tongues, they’re multicultural, they’re “just like the church in Acts 2,” etc. (All good things, btw, I think.) But then he said, as the after-thought, “Of course, so people will have a personal relationship with Jesus.”

Jesus became the byproduct. I meant to talk a bit about how the American evangelical church suffers from the “well, of course Jesus” problem. (The White Horse Inn guys discussed this recently on their radio show as well.)

My point is that Jesus should be the main point. The means and the ends. Not the thing you eventually get to.

To answer Jared’s question at the end about what the gospel is that I refer to, I tend to draw from 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4 and 1 Corinthians 5:21.

The gospel is the announcement that Christ has saved the world from sin by living a sinless life to redeem the fall, dying a sacrificial death as our substitute penalty, and resurrecting bodily as the firstfruits of our future resurrection. It is good news b/c in our sin we deserve death, punishment, and separation from God, but by his grace we can, through faith, receive the gift of this work done on our behalf.

That’s the “long” version.