Next Thursday, June 2 from 7-8pm at GVSU’s Eberhard Center in GRap, my church and I will be leading a forum series—JESUS WINS: A Story of Hope —in response to several recent controversial and confusing conversations about heaven, hell, and the fate of ever person who’d ever lived. I hope you join us! RSVP on our Facebook page. This post gives some background to our efforts.

In the Hebrew Scriptures there’s this story about a book, a lost book that was recovered after it was missing for nearly two generations. This was no ordinary book. It was a very important book, actually. It was foundational to the spiritual practices and life of the nation of Israel…and it lay missing somewhere inside some dark cupboard, like an old photo album stuffed in grandma’s attic.

During the time that that this important book was missing, several kings ascended to the throne who introduced idolatry and pagan worship practices into the spiritual life of Israel.

Manasseh was one such king who built altars to Baal and made artifacts in honor of the goddess Asherah in the temple of the Lord itself. He also worshiped the stars and moon, practiced witchcraft, and even sacrificed his own children in the Valley of Ben Hinnon. His successor, son Amon—like father like son—continued these practices for another few years until he was betrayed by his own advisors.

You see the story of the lost book is much more profound than a story about a misplaced temple artifact. No, there is something bigger going on here: Israel lost the plot to their story as much as they lost a book in their temple.

It wasn’t until an eight year old boy, King Josiah things changed. Josiah sought the God of his ancestor David, Israel’s one true God Yahweh with all his heart. Early in his reign he purged the lands of all idols and altars dedicated to the pagan gods and goddesses that the previous kings had worshiped. He even went so far as to burn the bones of the priests who conducted worship and sacrificial ceremonies on their own altars. Talk about poetic justice!

During the reign of Josiah, Israel found her plot, her story. Literally.

One day during the eighteenth year of Josiah’ reign something unexpected happened: The Book of Chronicles says that the priest Hilkiah found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.

That would be like a pastor who just happened to stumble upon the Book of Romans in the janitors closet in his country church during a major upgrade after it had been lost for 80 years. How does something like that happen?

How could something so central to who and what Israel was as the people of God become lost? Become nothing more than a distant memory, forgotten for generations?

We’re not talking about a set of keys or that annoying missing sock pair, here. We’re talking about the Book of the Law. Lost. And in the temple of the Lord!

I wonder if Israel ever even thought something like this could happen, that they could loose a major pillar of their faith. Do you think any of their national or spiritual leaders thought they’d lose their Scripture? Lose their plot? Yet that’s exactly what happened: they lost, misplaced, forgot, forsook the Book of the Law.

Just what was this large important lost book, the Book of the Law, anyway? Most believe that it was either a complete or large portion of the Book of Deuteronomy. This very important book was the foundation to Israel’s identity. It contained all of the covenantal requirements for Yahweh’s relationship with them and everything foundational to their national and spiritual practices. Specifically, the Shema.

The Shema was to Israel what the Pledge of Allegiance is to America: the central creed defining their identity. You may have heard of it before, it goes like this: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

The Shema was the cornerstone to their faith, yet it was completely forgotten and forsaken. For two generations. It’s no wonder the people lost their plot! It was only recovered after the Book of the Law was recovered. Before it was recovered they were lost in a sea of other gods, practices, and beliefs. There was spiritual confusion because they forgot the plot to their story.

I’ve retold this ancient Hebrew story because I believe, just like Israel, the Church is losing the plot to her story, and I think it’s time to recover it. Where one generation in Israel found the lost Book of the Law, I believe a whole new generation needs to re-discover the central story to the historic Christian faith: God’s Story of Rescue.

Do you remember playing the telephone game growing up? In elementary school, one of my teachers would play this game with us. We’d start with some goofy phrase that would try and make its way from start to finish intact. It rarely worked, which made it fun! The first person would get the phrase and have to whisper it to the person behind her. Then that person would whisper it to his neighbor and so on. The phrase, “John has five-finger hands” would become, “John loves my burger band.” Though John was still the main character, the story about him drastically changed!

I think the same has happened within the Church. Yes Jesus is still the main character of the story, but that story about him is being spun to the point where it no longer reflects the Holy Scriptures or the historic Christian faith. Somewhere along the way we’ve lost the plot to God’s Story of Rescue.

Current expressions of the Christian faith have forsaken our ancient Story; the tether to our deep historic past is fraying. Over the past several years many leaders in the Church have been more interested in giving people a new kind of Christianity—a Christianity worth believing where, in the end, love ultimately wins. Instead of preserving the Story for the sake of the world, many in the Church have become bored, disillusioned or even confrontational toward its narrative. In it’s place, they’ve spun tales more palatable to our culture, more easily digestible for our modern sensibilities. In place of the good news of rescue and re-creation in Jesus Christ alone is something very different.

I actually understand very well this pull toward re-imagining the Christian faith. In my mid-twenties I followed the same path of disillusionment with the Church many of my peers have walked: I’ve wondered—still wonder—how a good God could allow so much evil to have its way with so many people; I’ve wondered what on earth Jesus and his life means for me, right now; I’ve wondered how big and wide and vast is the love of God, and what that means for everyone from the beginning of time to the end of time; and in my darkest days I’ve wondered if all of this is a sham, a mirage put on by men and women behind the curtain of Christianity.

So I’ve been there. I get it. But along my own journey and along the road that some have sketched, I’ve grown to realize the need to actually hold on to the historic Christian faith. I’ve grown to realize there are things that are real about that faith that we can name and point to and claim.

Now I agree there are multiple branches of the Christian faith—the main three being Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism. In America alone there are thousands of denominations. Underneath the tent of the Christian faith there are lots of people with different practices, yet that tent is supported by certain poles.

That’s the difference between tents and tarps: tarps are tied down with rope, while tents are supported by poles. Remove a supporting pole and the tent begins to droop. Remove lots of supporting poles and the thing collapses all together. When it comes to the Christian faith, isn’t there a tent under which Baptists and Presbyterians and Orthodox and Roman Catholics can unite? Can’t we name the tent and describe the poles that support it?

Some people in the Church are very interested in testing which poles are necessary and are fine with performing a renovation of the tent. Offering a new kind of Christianity, a new kind of tent, is quite popular nowadays. But what happens when we do this, what’s happening in the Church thanks to these pole-testing and renovating efforts?

Consider the deity of Jesus, for example. What would happen to the tent of Christianity if that pole was removed? Or the New Testament belief in a literal, bodily, witnessed resurrection? How about the one about hell or original sin? Take out the pole of baptism, and OK the tent doesn’t fall. Take out the pole of Jesus’ deity and we’ve got a major collapse on our hands!

This insistence that removing some poles will dismantle the Christian tent recognizes that there are some beliefs that distinguish a Christian from, say, a Buddhist or Muslim. While I am all for discussing which poles are necessary, is there a point at which removing poles changes the conversation to such an extent that it is no longer even Christian?

Isn’t that what happened to Israel? The Book of the Law—and the rest of Torah—was the foundation around which their faith in Yahweh was built, the poles that supported their tent. Yet they forgot about the massive pillars of which that book spoke, resulting in spiritual chaos. There was one story, one plot that drove forward their own story as God’s people. The same is true for the Church.

It’s time the Church rediscover the necessary supporting poles and recover the plot to her story, God’s Story of Rescue. Ideas matter, especially real ideas. Belief in those real ideas matters even more. There are beliefs we are called to hold to be considered part of the family of God in Christ, and we need to recapture an honest, clear understanding of those beliefs by recovering God’s Story.

Through both the Text and Tradition the Church has historically understood this Story in four major “acts”: creation, rebellion, rescue, re-creation. That’s God’s story. It’s ours, too. And because Jesus wins, so can every person on the planet.

And this is what JESUS WINS: A Story of Hope is about—recapturing the plot to God’s Story of Rescue. If you are in the Grand Rapids area, I invite you to join in on this 8-week journey through this Story. We begin in 1 week at GVSU’s downtown GR campus at the Eberhard Center from 7pm to 8pm. Expect some teaching and some interactive dialogue.

Our goal is to push back and be honest. Push back against the idea that every part of the Christian faith is up for grabs by honestly looking at what Scripture and the Church have said about who we are, why we’re so busted, and how we can be put back together again. That’s what this is about. We hope you can join us!

For full information on location and times, visit www.jesuswinsevent.com or Facebook.com/jesuswins.