Description
This book presents a model of Christianity that contains the insights of a Jesus-centered theology of biblical interpretation, integral philosophy, and over fifty years of pastoral experience in leading evolutionary change in the local church. The perspectives of integral theory and practice, articulated by Ken Wilber, lend a hand uncover the integral approach that Jesus advocated and demonstrated in the metaphors of his time and that traditional Christianity has in large part been unable to see.
Smith contains elements of traditional, up to date, and postmodern theological viewpoints, including progressive, New Thought, and emerging/emergent ones. Then again, he goes beyond all of them and moves to a Christianity that may be devoted to following both the historical Jesus and the Risen Christ whose Spirit beckons to us from the future. Smith says, “The oldest thing you’ll say about God is that God is all the time doing something new. Jesus pushed his own religion to newness by including the most efficient of its past, and transcending the worst of its present. He calls us to do the same, no matter what our religion is today.”