During our final session we had a Q&A, and Nathan Burrow, our co-host, asked Randy and I to answer the following question: What is the gospel?
My answer had three parts.
The first part of my answer was a negation: The gospel is not a technology.
There is a huge temptation in churches to turn the gospel into a technology. We are constantly instrumentalizing the gospel, God, and the church, morphing them into tools. We want the gospel to be useful.
The first way we turn the gospel into a technology is to see the gospel as a tool for self-actualization and improvement. The gospel gives us advice, tips, and techniques for living. The gospel improves us, helps us reach our goals. The gospel helps us with our parenting, our relationships, our work, and our emotional well-being.
The second way we turn the gospel into a technology is as a tool for social change. The gospel is a technique for changing the world.
Again, we want the gospel to be useful. Because if the gospel isn't a technology we lose interest. If the gospel isn't useful we conclude "What's the point?"
I would argue that this "technological imagination" is what is killing the church. For the church to "matter" the church has to be useful, the church has to be a technology. Otherwise, if the church doesn't help us self-actualize or change the world for the better, it becomes "pointless" in our eyes. Useless.
But God, the church, and the gospel--these are not tools. They are not means to our ends, techniques we use to achieve our personal or social goals. The gospel is not a technology.
