Scot McKnight has a new book coming out… and he’s anticipating that it might not be well-received by all.
The book is entitled: The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited and it served as the backdrop for his message last night.
His argument: the modern church has been preaching that the Gospel = Salvation, as opposed to the Gospel = the full story of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension and eternal reign.
Over the course of the last 100-150 years the Good News about Jesus has been boiled down to tenets or principles that are meant to illicit a response, or even coarse a confession of faith, rather than testify to the truth of Jesus!
Consider the 4 Spiritual Laws as one example among many:
- God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life. (John 3:16, John 10:10)
- Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life. (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23)
- Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life. (Romans 5:8, I Corinthians 15:3-6, John 14:6)
- We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives. (John 1:12, Ephesians 2:8,9, John 3:1~8, Revelation 3:20)
Everything presented here is truth. Biblical truth!
But does it tell the story of Jesus?
Does it tell the full story of Israel?
Or does it boil everything down to a short list of compelling truths — that paint an accurate, but incomplete portrait — that has been used and abused to bring about “converts” to Christianity?
McKnight proceeded to talk about the full Gospel — the King Jesus Gospel — in contrast to the Salvation Gospel by walking through this passage from Acts 10:
23 The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.
Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.
Yes, Peter talks about salvation.
But that’s not all Peter talked about.
The Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the beginning of Acts do not only point the atoning work of Christ on the Cross — salvation made possible through the death of Jesus — but the full life that preceded that death, as well as the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven and Jesus taking his place at the right hand of the Father for all eternity.
And it strikes me that one of the big reasons we see so many young people walk away from their faith during their transitional college years might have something to do with the fact that they “made the decision” to follow Jesus, or accept his gift of salvation, or asked for forgiveness of their sins… and believed that was it.
They had made the decision to “be saved” and that was that.
There was no distinction made between being saved (a single moment) and following Jesus (an ongoing journey).
There was no distinction made between a “saving relationship” with Jesus (I enter in to it so that I might go to heaven) and a growing, dynamic relationship with Jesus (that shapes my everyday life).
They believed (quite possibly because of the kind of Gospel they were presented) that the only decision that needed to be made was a “one-and-done” kind of decision that secured them a place in heaven — and not hell — for all eternity, instead of a daily (hourly, minute-ly) decision to die to themselves and follow the radical way of Jesus.
I don’t think most of our students have ever heard the “full” Gospel story.
I don’t think most of our students have ever seen the radical way of Jesus lived out by other Christians.
And while some our students might stumble upon the radical way of Jesus during their college years (we know this because we’ve encountered these students), many more will sadly walk away from their faith — because that “one-and-done” decision no longer seems to hold any relevance or meaning for their college life.
I’m still processing a lot of this, but wanted to get some of it out of my head and posted here for others of you to chew on and offer your feedback.
I think McKnight is on to something significant here… and I think it has the potential to radically impact what we preach, why we preach it, how we preach it, what our students hear, how are students live and the percentage of students that choose to live fully in to their faith instead of walking away from it.
Still processing, but in the meantime, what do you think?
And to read other posts inspired by Scot McKnight’s visit to campus you can click on:
- Are Your Students Universalists?
- Social Justice and the Church as 3rd Way
- Moralistic Therapeutic Deism OR Following Jesus
11 thoughts on “Do College Students Walk Away From Their Faith Because of The Gospel They’ve Been Preached?”
As one who works with undergraduates on the university campus I know Scot is on to something. I don’t know that it’s the sole reason that many emerging adults are leaving the church, but much of contemporary Christianity’s singular focus on evangelism and away from life changing, kingdom building discipleship (of which evangelism and missions is an important part) only tells part of the story. Today’s emerging adults discover in college and beyond that a solely evangelistic focused faith does not answer many of the life-questions they are asked and are asking as members of the academy. It also does not easily address many of the problems of injustice that are readily apparent around the world. They “discover” that their faith does not fit their developing identities including career-self, relational-self, social-self, parenting-self, etc. While we in leadership may have processed these things in our own lives, the singular focus into evangelism and missions has not allowed us to teach or model our own thoughts on theses vital issues.
Even in our ministries (church based, denominational and para-church) we are seeing a desire on collegians part to be involved in dialogical community where life-on-life, experiential faith is practiced, studied and discussed. In fact, students seem to prefer the community group aspect of local ministries in Athens more than corporate worship (which is saying a lot considering this generations love for passionate, relevant worship experiences). If they have to choose one event over another they usually skip worship to attend small group.
I’m looking forward to a more balanced approach to discipleship in the future. Can’t wait to read Scot’s book!
And kudos to you Guy for entering into the conversation….I feel this topic may raise a generational argument within the body of Christ over the next few years. Scot is not the only person raising the issue these days…..
Guy,
Thanks for posting this after listening to @scotmcknight:twitter I had some thoughts after thinking through your post.
(Disclaimer: I use a version of the 4 Spiritual Laws weekly to share my faith on campus, so you could say there’s some bias)
I agree with Scot that the “gospel” we’ve been sharing is a limited view of the gospel. In my work with Latino college students I’m learning that my traditional approach of pointing them to the cross doesn’t resonate as well. As Eric Law says in his book, “The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb”, people without power don’t need to be pointed to the cross. They are already on the cross. Our Hispanic students instead need to be empowered, to be directed to the resurrection and the hope that only Christ can bring to our circumstances. (Then once they are empowered they need to be taken to the Cross so they die to themselves and help empower others. We never stay on only one side of the Cross.)
For me, the more I have worked with Latino college students the more I have seen a fuller picture of the gospel (i.e. for shame-based cultures vs. guilt-based cultures). This has expanded my vision and deepened my appreciation for what God has done for me.
I do have problems, however, with saying that the reason students walk away from their faith is that they haven’t been presented with the “full” gospel. Truth be told, none of us have been presented with the “full” gospel. We only understand parts. If my future walk with Christ was dependent on what I had been told about Jesus in my early Christian life, then I would be doomed.
Blaming people walking away from God on a particular presentation also ignores the many instances in the Bible where people walked away from their faith. Judas had been with Jesus for 3 years. Did he not get the full gospel from Jesus? At some points disciples stopped following Jesus in droves (John 6:66). As He hung on the cross, Jesus’ closest disciples had fled, betrayed, or denied him. Paul also lost disciples (Demas). Did he not share the “full” gospel?
Should we try to share more of a full picture of all that the gospel entails? Absolutely. I just have problems when we try to blame people’s future walks with God back to the picture of the gospel they received. Acts 10 is a wonderful passage that helps illustrate Scot’s point. There are many other sections in Acts that would not illustrate it very well at all. Does that mean we shouldn’t share of what Scot is talking about? No. It just means not to make it the *only* way we talk about salvation.
Maybe that’s really our true problem. Not that we’ve had only one way to talk about the gospel, but that we continue to believe there is one *full* way. The beauty of the gospel is that it is bigger than any one way we choose to describe it. I hope that motivates it to share it more often in more ways with more people.
For the last few years I have been encouraging people to read the actual sermons recorded in the book of Acts, to read them slowly and meditate on them sentence by sentence. I observed that we focus on the crucifixion of Christ, but they focused in their actual preaching on the resurrection of Christ and what that meant in prophetic terms about the identity of Christ and our response to that revelation.
I’ve always understood the meaning of ‘be saved’ as “be ‘being saved'”, my dad taught me that!
I think Scot is absolutely on to something here. I am not finding that many people are very compelled by the ways we have been presenting the personal atonement as the entire gospel. Since he says it far better than me I will post the Dallas Willard quote that gets at this idea.
“What must be emphasized in all of this is the difference between trusting Christ, the real person Jesus, with all that that naturally involves, versus trusting some arrangement for sin-remission set up through him—trusting only his role as guilt remover. To trust the real person Jesus is to have confidence in him in every dimension of our real life, to believe that he is right about and adequate to everything…… They have been led to believe that God, for some unfathomable reason, just thinks it appropriate to transfer credit from Christ’s merit account to ours, and to wipe out our sin debt, upon inspecting our mind and finding that we believe a particular theory of the atonement to be true—even if we trust everything but God in all other matters that concern us. It is left unexplained how it is possible that one can rely on Christ for the next life without doing so for this one, trust him for one’s eternal destiny without trusting him for “the things that relate to Christian life.” Is this really possible? Surely it is not! Not within one life.Dallas Willard – Divine Conspiracy
This book sounds very interesting. I went to a book store in my city and bought it. Hope to read it soon. Thank you for telling us about it. God bless.
What Scot lays out goes back to the nineteenth century with the rise of evangelists like Charles Finney. Before Finney, spiritual awakening and revival were understood to touch every area of thought and life. Most of this, but not all (John Wesley), had reformed roots. With Finney things began to change to an emphasis on individual decisions that could be isolated from everyday life and concerns. While Finney, D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday and Billy Graham voiced social concerns (Evangelicals were the drive wheels behind almost all the social change in America in the nineteenth century. See “The Light of the Nations” by J. Edwin Orr), an importance on making a decision began to eclipse the conversion to a new relationship with Jesus Christ and the new life flowing out of it.
And continues until this day leaving many young adults with a “salvation” easy both to file away or to walk away from since there is little to grip or sustain them in something so shallow. My own student days during the Jesus Movement of the sixties and seventies provided a base for which I’m grateful to this day. But many don’t have that and the gravitational pull of “decision” culture is strong.
Kudos to McKnight.
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