The meeting of two things

The first, being annoyance; the second, dangerous error.

From an interview with an unnamed pastor:

How would you present this gospel on Twitter?

I would say that history is headed somewhere. The thousands of little ways in which you are tempted to believe that hope might actually be a legitimate response to the insanity of the world actually can be trusted. And the Christian story is that a tomb is empty, and a movement has actually begun that has been present in a sense all along in creation. And all those times when your cynicism was at odds with an impulse within you that said that this little thing might be about something bigger—those tiny little slivers may in fact be connected to something really, really big.

The annoyance is the Twitter thing. I just wrote and then erased a paragraph explaining why it was annoying. I don't need to prove that it is annoying.

Also, annoyance at the quote in general. It is fake-deep, like the conversations I used to have late at night at my arts boarding school.

I would say it is meaningless, but unfortunately that is not true. Sometimes this unnamed pastor does say random meaningless things that are fake-deep, but this fake-deep comment does expose some things about the direction he is headed.

Which gets to the dangerous error section. His supposed presentation of the gospel contains a mild and veiled reference to the resurrection of Christ, and that's about it.

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What is the gospel sir?

--That history is headed somewhere.

Oh, great that is really good news. Where is headed?

--Some vague renewal of creation, or something.

Hmmm...that is vague. What do you mean?

--Well you know those tiny slivers of hope you have?

No. What are you talking about?

--I'm not sure. But those are the right response to the insanity around us.

What insanity? What are you talking about?

--You know, the Christian story. The empty tomb and whatnot.

I'm sorry, I am not familiar with the Christian story.

--Oh. Well, there was this guy, alive a long time ago, and he lived a really great life that we should all imitate, it is right here in this book. He showed us the best way of living. He showed us that there was a new way of living that is really a great way, and doesn't involve any myths of redemptive violence.

What is a myth of redemptive violence?

--It is that some violence can make peace. You know, Orwellian crap that you read in high school English. Ministry of violence stuff. It's really jacked up and our society totally buys into it, which is why Halo 3 is so popular, and why we decided that we should invade Iraq just to get rid of Sadamm. It is a myth because everyone believes that violence would solve a problem when obvi it doesn't!

I'm sorry, I wanted to know the gospel. Doesn't the gospel involve violence?

--Yeah, because Jesus was totally put to death because he challenged power and challenged people's perceptions of authority, and also he told these upsetting stories and lived in a way that the authorities could not handle, and so they put him to death, and then he rose from the dead (that's the empty tomb part) just to show that the cycle of violence was broken.

So he was put to death because he challenged power? Like Gandhi?

--Yeah, like Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr.

Ah. Cool story dude.

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And that is an example of evangelism.

Pray for my generation.