The bidge is broken ...

More years ago than I care to admit just now, when I was training for ordination, I wrote a dissertation which critiqued the traditional evangelical proclamation package. I find it amusing and affirming (and annoying: why didn't I write something more publishable?) that various other authors and leaders have been picking up the same sort of ideas and critiques in the last few years. First John Finney produced a study that did in big what I had done as a preliminary study into how people came to faith; and came to a similar conclusion; that our 'crisis' model based on guilt alleviation is note really what people appropriate nor does it represent the main reasons people become active Christians in the life of churches. Now I discover David Fitch is critiquing the bridge illustration for a set of reasons that echo my own concerns going back years: mainly that it doesn't have a dimension of initiation into the missio Dei and so has no real connection to discipleship. Here's a sample of the kind of things he's saying.

"What's wrong with the Bridge's 'transaction' approach? It has the effect of initiating the unbeliever into a salvation 'for me' in the worst sense of those words. For in a consumerist society, the words 'for me' can longer mean what they meant when Paul spoke them or Luther spoke them. Consumerist society has trained all of us to think, feel and breathe all things as products to be consumed 'for me.' Jesus, Son of God, very God, has been reduced to an object to be used for some benefit. At this point this simply is no longer a salvation recognizable by Paul, Luther or the Christian church."
Yep. Amen.

Reclaiming the Mission :: The Weblog of David Fitch: