The Kingdom of God is...

From Len:

Brian McLaren, in his recent book, The Secret Message of Jesus (2006), devotes an entire chapter to contextualizing the concepts of the kingdom of God for the current generation. Here are his suggestions.

The dream of God. The Lord’s prayer: “May all your dreams for your creation come true.”

The revolution of God. To get beyond the Che Guevara connotation McLaren suggests that the concept needs a qualifier like: “the peace revolution of God,” “the spiritual revolution of God,” “the love revolution of God,” or the “reconciling revolution of God.” He also mentions favorably Dallas Willard’s term, the “divine conspiracy.”

The mission of God. This is probably my least favorite because of the tendency to view it as non-relational or task oriented. Of course, that is not how God views it. McLaren believes that it is of great value as a metaphor as long as we complement it with relational imagery. Maybe an antidote to the inward, self-referential focus of the attractional church.

The party of God. McLaren’s re-tells Tony Campolo’s story about throwing a birthday part for a 38-year-old prostitute who had never had a birthday party. When the owner of the donut shop asked him what kind of church he went to, Tony answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” The owner said, “If such a church existed, I would go to it”.

The network of God. This plays off of the idea of communication, interconnectedness and living systems in ecology: the metaphor of an ecosystem. God’s truth is in everything and he holds all things together.

The dance of God. There is a rich tradition in the early church fathers of comparing the relationships within the Trinity to a holy dance of creation and love. “The universe was created to be an expression of and extension of the dance of God—so that all creatures share in the dynamic joy of movement, love, vitality, harmony, and celebration” (McLaren:147).