Scot McKnight provides an outstanding and accessible overview of the heart of the Christian faith and practice in his latest book, Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us. In spite of the seemingly endless varieties of Christian expression, the gospel “does not belong to one and only one denomination; it belongs to the whole Church” (ix). With this in mind, McKnight offers “a gospel for all of us.”

What is the gospel? According to McKnight, “The gospel is the work of God to restore humans in union with God and communion with others, in the context of a community for the good of others and the world” (xiii, italics his).

Performing Grace

McKnight’s gospel is redemptive, relational, and missional. It “is both proclaimed and performed” (3). He writes, “The gospel is more like a piece of music to be performed than a list of ideas to endorse” (3). And the performance centers around the demonstration of God’s grace – “the absolute and unrelenting goodness of God toward humans” (127).

McKnight notes that young evangelicals are “challenging the Church to perform what it proclaims, or, to use less elegant language, to put up or shut up” (7). The key question for communities that embrace the gospel is this: Does our church practice what it preaches?  Do we perform “grace”? Whether we like it or not – and the truth is often hard to bear – it is the life of the church that truly manifests (or fundamentally denies) the gospel we embrace.

A local church always performs the gospel it proclaims… A church always performs the gospel it proclaims because its performance is its proclamation. If you look at a church and what it does and how it operates you will see the gospel of that church. The important point to make here is that the deepest indicator of that church’s gospel cannot be limited to the pastor’s sermons, or the Sunday school teachers’ teaching, or the doctrinal statement’s affirmations, or the summer camp offerings, or the aesthetic expressions. The sure indicator of the gospel in a local community is how those Christians live. (11)

Because the church both proclaims and performs the gospel, the goal of church life is “the formation of a community that embodies the gospel” (14). To accomplish this, the church must inhabit the story of grace that unfolds in the sacred Scriptures.

The Story of Grace

McKnight summarizes the gospel story by focusing on the image of God (Greek, Eikon) in humanity. Human beings are Eikons of God, created by God to reflect God’s glory through loving relationship with God and others in the context of God’s good creation. Because of human sin, we are now cracked Eikons. Arms that once embraced God and others now push God and others away. But God has not abandoned us to our sin. Instead, God has graciously responded to our desperate situation by sending Jesus, the perfect Eikon of God, who redeems and restores all that humanity ruined in the Fall. The ultimate end of Jesus’ work is that restored Eikons may be united in love with God and others in a perfect Eden.

McKnight’s gospel presentation recognizes that sin is more than a legal infraction and that salvation is both personal and corporate. Salvation is more than forgiveness of an individual who has transgressed a legal code. Salvation is holistic. It is relational and communal. For this reason, we must not limit our definition of sin to its legal dimensions. Sin is not simply the transgression of a moral law. Sin is personal and relational. It harms people and shatters relationships. For example, “Infidelity is more than an offense of some contractual agreement; infidelity is the disruption or even destruction of a relationship” (49). McKnight approvingly quotes Cornelius Platinga: “Sin is disruption of created harmony and then resistance to divine restoration of that harmony” (51).

If sin destroys union with God and communion with others, then redemption restores union with God and communion with others. In other words, redemption is not simply legal; redemption is personal and relational. It restores us to communion with others. Thus, the redeemed people of God should be a people at peace with God and one another. In other words, a people embraced by grace who graciously embrace others.

Two Hindrances: Individualism and Exclusion

Because community and grace are at the heart of the gospel, two of the greatest hindrances to the gospel are individualism and exclusion.

Individualism. McKnight argues that one of the primary sins that hinders the progress of the gospel is individualism. “Individualism is an intentional march away from Eden, away from God and away from others. When the gospel is packaged as attractive to individuals instead of a community, the problem is only compounded” (66). Unfortunately, this is exactly how the gospel is often presented to Americans. “Individualism makes God and others into commodities we choose to further our own ends” (23).

Exclusion. One of the attitudes that counteracts the gracious embrace of God is exclusion. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount can be viewed as a rejection of any form of human exclusion. “Exclusion can be subtle… Anger, too, is a form of exclusion because by it we say things and do things that prevent communion with others. Jesus finds the produce of exclusion in lust, in divorce, in not telling the truth, in vindictiveness, and in justifying hate for one set of humans by justifying love for another set” (133-134).

“Exclusion needs to be seen for what it really is… Exclusion in its very essence is the choice to embrace ourselves as the only embrace needed” (135). Exclusion causes us to turn inward instead of outward. According to McKnight, the deadly sin of pride finds its true meaning in exclusion. In contrast to exclusion, God calls us to openly and graciously embrace others. A gracious community will find its joy in “loving others for who they are, where they are in their journey, and what they might become. Too often, far too often, churches make people aware at the visceral level of ‘who is in’ and ‘who is out’” (160).

In contrast to individualistic and exclusionary attitudes, the people of God are called to be a missional community – people who exist “for the good of others and the world.” McKnight suggest four characteristics of a missional community: looking, listening, learning, and linking. Christians in missional communities “look out and see people and the world, they listen to the pain of people and the groanings of the world, they learn what they can do, and they link themselves to those local needs for the good of others and the world” (82).

Conclusion

McKnight’s vision of the gospel is beautiful and compelling. He calls the church to recognize that it does not simply proclaim the gospel, it performs it. Therefore, the goal of a faith community should be to embody the gospel by embracing God’s grace and graciously embracing others. The sin of individualism and the attitude of exclusion strike at the heart of God’s gospel work. A “gospel for all of us” will reject these expressions and seek to reach out to the world with the “embracing grace” of God.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2005