• Dancing Salvation

    March 7, 2006

    Salvation is a big issue.  Bigger, I think, than we often realize.  So big, in fact, that I would go so far as to say that it is the major preoccupation of the vast majority, if not all, human beings.  Pretty bold, I know.  Here’s what I mean.

    Everyone has their own idea of what salvation entails.  For some, salvation is complete human autonomy – being freed from the distracting notion that there exists anything transcendent or divine.  For others, salvation involves uniting oneself with the Divine Nature which permeates all of creation.  For still others salvation is found in being forever released from a seemingly endless cycle of existence.  Salvation has also been thought of as escape from this bodily existence and achieving a state of cosmic union with the Divine.  Ask a person what they think the purpose of life is and you will thereby learn their particular bent on the nature of salvation.

    I wonder, for those of us who call ourselves Christians, to what extent our idea of salvation really lines up with what the biblical witness has to say about salvation?  Here’s why I ask this question.  In the last 10 years or so (as long as I have called myself a Christian) it has been ingrained in me (directly and indirectly) that being a Christian and being saved are one and the same.  It seems as if many have the idea that as long as one calls themselves a Christian they are probably (if not certainly) saved because at some point they made a profession of faith, probably underwent some sort of baptism, and “accepted Jesus into their heart.”   The discussion may continue as to how well this person is living out a fruitful Christian witness, but we seldom seem to think that this further discussion has anything to do with whether or not the person is saved.

    There’s a number of problems with this conception of salvation.  I don’t want to launch into a full blown treitse of the subject, but I do want to share a few thoughts and I want to do so in a particular way.  Rather than selecting certain texts here and there and trying to build a doctrine of salvation (which is proof-texting at worst and systematic theology at best), I want to look at the issue from a more narrative and holistic point of view.

    Salvation, as far as the Bible is concerned, is always a concrete action in which one is rescued or delivered from that which threatens and/or oppresses people and life.  Adam and Eve experienced God’s salvation when He provided for them after their disobedience.  Noah and his family knew God’s salvation in and through the ark.  Escape from Egypt was salvation for the Jews.  Salvation was what Israel experienced when God led them victoriously into the Promised Land.  Salvation was what Isreal longed for as they pined away in Babylonian exile.  Daniel was saved in the lion’s den and it was God’s salvation that Israel was to make known to the ends of the earth.  It was this kind of salvation, God’s act of rescuing and redeeming, that Jesus seems to have been about in his teaching and ministry.  He saved people from diseases, demons, and exclusion from life in the community.  Finally, the writers of the NT point to Jesus as the figure through whom we too can experience the salvation of God.

    We tend to think of salvation as something we posess (one either is or isn’t saved).  It looks like this…

                                       

    I am suggesting that it would be better, and more biblically faithful, to see salvation as something we participate in.  It might look like this…

                                          

    Do you see the diference?  In the first metaphor salvation is a matter of being in and out, a matter which, even if it were a reality is never actually knowable.  In the second metaphor salvation is a matter of how fully you participate, follow, and enjoy the dance.

    As such, it has nothing to do with being a Christian because, though one may call themselves a Christian, this is no way implies that they are in any way participating in the way God has saved/is saving the world.

    On the other hand, salvation, at least in my opinion, has everything to do with Christ because it is in Jesus that we can most fully know and experience what it means to participate in the way God has saved/is saving the world.  Jesus is the master dancer if you will.  It is ultimately his lead which we ought to follow.

    So where does this leave us?  I close with a few observtions and by playing with our new metaphor.

    1) The question of whether or not a person is or is not saved is both irrelevant and non-sensical (dancing is not something you have, it’s something you do, whether poorly or masterfully)
    2) If we care about others at all, we will take seriously our call to embody the salvation of God
    (we must dance so well that others will be compelled to join)
    3) Salvation is something that can and should be expereinced here and now
    (though the last song is yet to be played, the dance has indeed begun)
    4) We can no longer settle for propositional forms of evangelism
    (ones ability to articulate what makes for good dancing is never dancing)
    5) Salvation, though always experienced personally, is always communal and never individual
    (everyone learns to dance with God by watching others do it)

    I’ll let you trip out in your own minds over what sorts of implications this might have for the church in Western culture!

    Related Posts

    1. The Place of Salvation in the Missional (Church) Conversation
    2. Do You Have To Go To Church Every Sunday To Be A Christian?
    3. Missiological Research: Missio Dei, Salvation & Discipleship in Post-Christendom

    Posted in: bible, church, community, Jesus, missional, theology

Recent Comments

  • Kevin Lewis said...

    1

    Good thoughts JR. This touches quite a bit on what we talked about in class last Wednesday. I relfected quite a bit on it, so you might want to check it out.

    03/7/06 5:23 PM | Comment Link

  • Gina Tamburro said...

    2

    I enjoyed this blog JR. I recently had coffee with a professor who- while I was stressing out about my “duties” as a Christian- explained to me that the true meaning of the word salvation is OPEN and to imagine my spiritual walk with God in that way. To see myself standing with Jesus looking out on the entire world and Him saying, “This is all that I have to give to you-everything-and so much more”. To be totally open to his amazing grace and love. That is how I like to look at salvation it helps me see it as the gift that it really is. Anyway- just wanted to share that with you. Hope all is well, and if I accidentally wrote this as a reply to the previous comment made by a classmate of yours- I’m sorry I just couldn’t really figure out how to leave my own thing. Anyway- BYE :o )

    03/8/06 5:40 AM | Comment Link

  • Regis Philbin said...

    3

    I don’t know Junior. I agree with some parts and disagree with others. I think that our problem is that we equate salvation with only one aspect of it. We are saved from so much when we align ourselves with Christ. We are saved from eternal suffering, present hopelessness, bondage of sin, lack of purpose, etc. The list goes on and on. The aspect of salvation from hell is a one-time deal, which is why we say “saved” as if it is past and overwith. We are often forgetting that many other facets of our salvation are current and ongoing, and we can participate in them as if dancing. We can dance because we are free to do so, but there is still that aspect of salvation that is over and done with, the aspect regarding our eternal position.

    03/8/06 4:15 PM | Comment Link

  • Robert Y said...

    4

    Wonderful! This line of thought leaves so much more room for living a life watching for and participating in the things God is doing in the world and the people around you. There’s no pecking order involved, no line dividing the haves and have nots. I love it!

    I’ve added you to my RSS aggregator and am looking forward to reading more. =)

    03/8/06 4:22 PM | Comment Link

  • Laura said...

    5

    I like this.

    03/9/06 7:49 AM | Comment Link

  • Brian McLaren said...

    6

    JR,

    These thoughts are surprisingly similar to my book, “More Ready than you Realize.” Maybe you would like to think about citing me??

    03/11/06 9:52 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    7

    “Brian McLaren,”

    Thanks for your comment. I am gonna go ahead and assume you are not actually Brian McLaren for the moment, because that would just be way too cool! I have read a lot of Brian’s work and been greatly helped and encouraged by it. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to read “More Ready than You Realize” yet. So, while I am greatly encouraged that some of my own thoughts may line up with his, I can safely say that I wasn’t attempting to pass his ideas off as mine.

    In the off chance that this acutually is Brian McLaren, thanks for all your hard work and willingness to go against the grain for the sake of the gospel in all its fullness. Especially thanks for “Generous Orthodoxy!” I loved it. I’d love to grab coffee if you’re in town.

    03/11/06 10:22 PM | Comment Link

  • David said...

    8

    JR,

    Good stuff. I agree with you, but I can see alot of people where I came from being really concerned about “works rightousness”, and “earning” salvation. How would you respond to that?

    03/12/06 10:51 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    9

    I think that would have been my concern a while back as well. And, I can see where people who might think/say that are coming from.

    I think those who have been pouring into the New Perspective on Paul have a lot to offer to that discussion. One of their central contributions has been helping people to understand that by and large Jews of Jesus’ day were not dilluted into believing that they could earn their salvation. Rather, they so strongly emphasized living a certain way precisely because they saw themselves as the chosen people of God. They weren’t earning salvation, they were living it out – however imperfectly.

    Enter Jesus.

    Jesus come along not with a “stop trying to earn your salvation” sort of ministry and message, but with a “here’s a more God-honoring and inclusive way of doing it” sort of ministry and message. Jesus even goes so far as to tell people, “Do what the Pharisees tell you to do!” (Mt. 23) He goes on to expose their hypocricy, but not their teaching.

    The question still ultimately remains one of telos. If salvation is not primarily crossing some sort of imaginary line where you are damned on one side and saved on the other, but is more dynamic and personal than that, then the whole question of whether you can earn your salvation is competely irrelevant. All we are left with is the question of whether or not we treasure and enjoy God and His way of being. Those who believe that salvation can be earned and attempt to do so make a mockery of grace, but the real travesty is that they, like the older brother from Luke 15, miss the party and, like the rich young ruler from Luke 18, go away sad.

    Actually, now that I think about it, it think I could make a good case for the first model being closer to works righteousness and attempting to earn ones salvation than the second. After all, in the first model it is still us who acts in making the decision of whether or not to accept God’s offer of salvation. In the second model, we are merely joining something that is alread happening. I wish I had time to make that case, but its exam week and I don’t!

    03/12/06 11:48 PM | Comment Link

  • David said...

    10

    Yah, it is exam week. I’m not familiar with the “new perspective” on Paul. I’ll have to get a “cliffs notes” version of that. I think your perspective is a helpful corrective to the worst aspects of classical, conservative, protestant/fundamentalism.

    But at the end of the day I can’t get away from the phillipian jailer asking “what must I do to be saved”. Now granted there’s a “do” in there, so your probably right about the first perspective being a bit works oriented, (proffs get paid for what they THINK after all, and presemuabally that’s work) but that whole, “confess with your mouth, believe in your heart” thing, what do we do with that?

    Currently, I still subscribe to a “four spiritual laws” (4SL) systematic theology of salvation, but then whant to expand on it to the point of being unrecognisable. AND I would vary rarely if at all, come out and use the 4SL for evangelism.

    Presently I have put the first diagram (bridge) and the seconed one (dancing) in a blender, the thing poured out, which I can’t define, that is what I believe.

    All that said, I might yet shift closer to your perspective.

    03/13/06 12:07 AM | Comment Link

  • David said...

    11

    A word to the pseudo B.M. I don’t think the real one would be too concerned about being cited, or would take the time to say so if he was. From what I’ve read he just isen’t that type of guy.

    03/13/06 12:13 AM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    12

    David, you’re killing me with stuff for great conversation! Oh well, I have writers block right now anyway.

    I just wanted to comment on the 2 Bible passages you mentioned. Here’s what I do with them.

    Acts 16: The Philippian Jailer – First of all, it’s just ridiculious to assume here, as most people have (myself included), that this guy is worried about the eternal state of his soul. Here’s a guy who was just about to run himself through with a sword because he knows he is as good as dead anyway. Paul shouts for him to stop and the guy is compelled to as what he has to do to be saved. It just makes sense to assume that he is first and foremost worried about not getting his head chopped off. Apparently he had overheard Paul and Silas talking, more probably, he had talked with Paul and Silas himself with regard to the gospel. In a moment of climactic anxiety and desperate hope, he wants to know what these guys have to say. Their response, “believe,” trust, obey, follow Jesus and you will be “saved,” rescued from harm. Ironically, people who interpret that verse as the mans attempt to save his soul in the even of his death have a hard time reconciling the later part of that verse where Paul and Silas sem to be saying that all those associated with the man’s household would be saved as well.

    Romans 10:9 – I really like this one, it’s a whole lot simpler. Those living under the Romans pledged their allegiance to the emperor by confessing with their mouths, “Caesar is Lord,” and by believing in their hearts that he would be “raised from the dead” as divine. Paul’s message here is simple, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not. It is in Jesus, not Caesar that God is/was at work, and it is Jesus, not Caesar, to whom all allegiance is due.

    This still remains a complex issue and I don’t mean to over simplify; I am just really excited about how much more attractive salvation is when it is understood in a broader, unmodernized context.

    03/13/06 12:41 AM | Comment Link

  • David said...

    13

    JR,

    That was good, helps me know where you and the like are coming from. I don’t entirely buy it, in part because I don’t think that all of modernity was bad. (granted, I know you don’t either) But I’m not convinced I’m right either. that said, I’m sticking with my blender analogy.

    I’m concerned that just as the previous perspective read too much of modernity into the text, contemporary thinkers are starting to read too much of postmodernity into the text. That said, doing so is definately not herasy as some would argue. On it’s best day, what you are saying is at the least very missional. On it’s worst day it can become bad exegises, a fact true of the previous paradighm as well. And since none of us have an innerant perspective on the matter…

    03/14/06 4:25 AM | Comment Link

  • David said...

    14

    This might clear some things up. When you use the word salvation, are you using it more like “justification” or more like “gospel”. I’ve been thinking justification this whole time, but the conversations here at Fuller about “what is the gospel” I don’t have any problem with those.

    03/14/06 4:33 AM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    15

    I don’t think I mean either.

    I think of gospel as the announcement that, in Jesus, God has both returned to His people and taken their sin away. The Kingdom of God was announced and inaugurated and everyone is invited to live in the reality of God’s true and total reign.

    Justification, I think of as being set free on account of putting our faith (trusting and following) in this gospel (Rom. 5:1)

    Salvation, though obviously related, is not, in my mind, equated with either of these. Rather, salvation is that which we expereince and participate in because of being justified through our faith (following and trusting) in God and the good news of His Kingdom and reign. Salvation is treasuring God above all else, it is experiencing, in increasing measure, the fruits of the Spirit, it is personally and corporately embodying the love and forgiveness of God for the sake of the world. Salvation will culminate in the resurrection of our bodies to live and dwell in the New Jerusalem where God is all in all.

    03/15/06 8:13 PM | Comment Link

  • David said...

    16

    I think I get what your saying now, and I like it, the dancing analogy is perfect. I do think you are talking about the same things a lot of the proffs mean when they talk about the “gospel”, but maybee not, I don’t know, ask them.

    Keep up the good work.

    03/16/06 5:29 AM | Comment Link

  • Joshua said...

    17

    Hello brother in Christ,

    My name is Josh I am Gina Tamburro’s friend, she pointed me to your blog site about a month ago and I read this dancing salvation. After reading “A New Kind of Christian” by Brian McClaren I was wondering if you got any of your ideas from that book? If not, I might suggest reading it, as it makes a direct reference to approaching our relationship to Christ as we would dancing with a partner. In the same way He talked about reading scripture in a similar way… I believe his quote was something like “Let us stop reading scripture, but let Scripture read us.” He talked about Lectio Divina, which is a Benidictine (spelling oops) monk way of studying Scripture. The method is unique in the way that it instructs its participants to let the Scripture wash over themselves… very powerful. It’s hard for me to explain it in words, but I encourage you to maybe look at the book. Once again it is “A New Kind of Christian” by Brian McClaren and while I might not fully agree with all of His points that book strikes some serious points of discussion in my own heart and life.
    Love God love people,
    Joshua W.

    03/28/06 6:46 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    18

    Joshua,

    Good to “meet” you. Any friend of Gina’s is a friend of mine. I have read that book by McLaren, but his metaphor didn’t come to mind when I wrote the post. Glad you liked the book though. I am also familiar with Lectio Divina. I agree, that way of reading Scripture can indeed be powerful, but I’m not sure I would ever favor it over a more communal approach to reading the Scriptures and discerning in a community of the Holy Spirit what God’s message to His people is. I think one major drawback of monastic spirituality is its overemphasis on the individual and his or her individual experience. Not that this is bad in and of itself, but God’s ultimate desire, it seems to me, is not a multitude of individuals who expereince God in their own way, but communities who embody the reign of God for the sake of the world. Anyway, hope to hear from you again.

    03/28/06 7:22 PM | Comment Link

  • Joshua said...

    19

    Couldn’t have said it better myself! Community is a theme that God has been bringing back into my life over the past 8 months at least. I guess the spark of this communal thinking was when I traveled for my school’s admissions team over the summer. I was presented with 8-10 different camps all of which “employeed” volunteers who approached ministry (even life) in all different ways. The picture that was painted for me during the summer was how all of those people, all unique in pratices and views of ministry all worked toward the same goal of spreading the name and love of Jesus Christ. It was beautiful to see the body work together time and time again as it was given the opportunity to effect the lives of countless teens.
    Through this continuing focus of community conversations within my heart have taken place about the selflessness of love and the fact that our love for others comes from our view of God, which spawns a view/love for ourselves.
    I don’t know now I’m just rambling on… I have a paper to write
    Love God love people,
    Joshua W.
    Proverbs 3:5,6

    03/30/06 5:52 AM | Comment Link

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