Thursday Theological Thinking

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading The Ragamuffin Gospel and have been writing and re-writing a post about it (mostly mentally) ever since. I was very excited to read it and had had it on my list for a little while, having had it recommended by several people. When a copy fell into our hands as a gift to Tim from a friend, I finally had no more easy excuses to not read it and so, with the thought that it could be my first non-fiction book of the year (which it was) sat down and began to read.

I have to admit, I went from excited to skeptical within a few short lines. You see, Manning starts off by essentially condemning anyone who embraces the idea that the world as a whole would benefit from a little more personal responsibility. I said to myself, "Ok, well, let's see what he has to say before we just toss the book as so much garbage." After all, this had been recommended by many and was, in fact, the inspiration for Rich Mullins' band name - so it couldn't be all wrong, could it?

As I read, there were many moments where I nodded in agreement as Manning reminded us that Salvation doesn't come from anything we do - it is purely a gift of grace from God. So true. So very, very true. I nodded again as he mentioned how the recognition of that grace should have us falling on our faces with thanksgiving before God's throne and how we so easily forget to do this. And after each, I waited. I waited for him to talk about how the understanding of that grace - the recognition of the amazing and unthinkable gift that was so freely bestowed on us in love by the Father - should have us not only prostrate with thanks before Him, but also striving to become the child that He would have us be. That there should be a transforming work in our lives that propels us from the destitute and ragged state of our sin to the fruit-bearing trees described by Christ.

And I waited and waited. And finished the book. All the while, Manning exhorting me to "embrace my inner Ragamuffin" and recognize that there was nothing I could do to earn salvation and that I should in turn rest in the knowledge that while yes, I'm a sinner, I am redeemed. Multiple times he said something along the lines of 'The more sin abounded, the more grace was given.' And I cringed. Both inwardly and outwardly and my lips fromed the end of Paul's statement - "May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:1-2) We're not to embrace our inner ragamuffin - we're to be dead to sin and renewed and transformed through God's freely given grace. And our new, transformed selves are to "prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was." (James 1:22 - 24) Can being a "doer" of the Word save us? No, absolutely not. But if we have accepted the gift of grace that brings salvation, then we should have no choice but to bear fruit. Which is at odds with the embracing of our inner ragamuffin.

So it was, just before the last chapter (which is an addition to the edition I have) I was thinking to myself, "Well, it's not so bad as far as it goes. Though it chooses one point - that salvation is through grace alone - and hammers it over and over (with very little else to say), it's not a bad book if you read it with an understanding that grace is the beginning of a transformed life and not the end." But then I hit the last chapter. The afterword. Wherein Manning, perhaps overcome by his own inner ragamuffin, essentially says that anyone who dares criticize his gospel of love and ragamuffinness is a heretic and should be ashamed of themselves for daring to question that his book is at odds with Scripture, when even Christ Himself preached transformation and a new, non-ragamuffin life as the result of salvation through grace. And it's not a kind "I understand people disagree but I hope you'll look at what's here and pull the goodness that's there" - it's a full out slap upside the head tongue lashing, full of bitterness and anger with nary a scrap of grace, let alone transformation.

Overall, it was hard to stomach and disappointing. Disappointing that Michael W. Smith and Rich Mullins (author of a song that reminds us that Faith, without works, is like a screen door on a submarine -- so clearly, he got it) lavished such amazing praise for the book in the two forwards. Disappointing that Manning doesn't even allow for the fact that where he begins is just that - the beginning. Nor does he appear to allow that a rich and full spiritual life means "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13b-14) Not wallowing in the ragamuffin past, but proclaiming with joy that through God's grace we have been transformed from our broken selves into children of the King and should even now be out about our Father's business.

1/2 Muffin out of 5 - because the seed is there for good things with careful thought and searching of the whole of God's Word.