Great Books for Cultivating Kingdom Theology

A major factor in my joining the Association of Vineyard Churches in 1997 was the focus on Kingdom theology, especially the concept that kingdom of God as both now and not yet, and that the tension between now and not yet explained better than anything else why sometimes our prayers and our efforts were victorious, and why at other times we seemed so powerless and defeated. 

As a new Christian it was pointed out to me that Jesus’ primary message was the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven) and that his message of the kingdom had been buried under a myriad of church teachings.What never made sense to me is that they claimed the reason the Kingdom of God message had been virtually lost was our fixation on the writings of Paul. I struggled with this idea because I could not believe that Paul’s message would neglect the words of Jesus nor supersede them. I believed then, and still believe now, that the message of salvation, and the message of the Kingdom were inseparable. Secondly, I was told that the message of the gospel was more than just salvation, that it included salvation but the subject was broader than the salvation of men. Still how much bigger, was never expounded on, and later I discovered that the people who led me to Christ held a view that the church was the kingdom and the kingdom of God was the church exclusively, which I did not agree with after study. 

Another piece of kingdom theology that I picked up in those early days was that the cross was triumph, not a consolation. I am grateful for good teaching on this point because even though no one ever told me the cross was a consolation prize it was ever implied in the teachings I heard on the radio and read about in church pop-culture eschatology. Books like the Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series left many with the impression that the cross and the church were nothing but the band-aid on a botched mission that failed to convince Israel that Jesus was the messiah. As I stated, that was never said or written explicitly, but it seemed heavily implied. Leaving many with a very hopeless philosophy and theology of it all has to get really bad so Jesus can come back. 

Those early convictions about the gospel of the kingdom being more than salvation, the now and not yet of the kingdom, and the cross as triumphant (over darkness, sin, and rebellion) rather than as a consolation prize has created in me an urgency to get the message of the kingdom out to the church.  To my delight, two recent books have done a marvelous job of addressing this vacuum. While they do not cover everything they are a great starting point from two very capable scholars, N.T. Wright and Scot McKnight.

The first book, by N.T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels (HarperOne: New York, 2012.) was the most thorough. Wright looks at the kingdom of God from the perspective of four speakers (or voices) that influence our understanding of the gospel, and notes the current volume of each voice in the modern church. Wright argues that some of those voices have been turned up too loud, to the point of distortion, while others have been turned down or even silenced, giving us a “gospel” that is at best out of balance with the gospel of the New Testament. Wright concludes that this unbalanced treatment of subject requires attention if we are to restore the gospel to the church.  

On the other hand, McKnight’s book, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2012.) likewise is trying to bring things into balance, but the primary focus of the book is on a church culture with regard to evangelism. McKnights concern is that modern evangelicalism has turned salvation into “decision making” rather than as a result of discipleship, and has reduced the gospel to propositions necessary to make the decision, thus treating the rest of the gospel as virtually dispensable.  The message of the book is the need for the church to reinstate the full gospel of the Kingdom. 

I like both books very much. McKnights book is the shorter and simpler read of the two. However, don’t let that dissuade you from reading Wright’s work. It is deeply thoughtful, does a great job of addressing dissenting voices and is well worth the extra effort.

I am reminded that several years ago Bert Waggoner, then the National Director of the Association of Vineyard Churches, expressed concern that several Vineyard pastors did not have a thorough Kingdom theology. I share his concern. I have listened first hand to a number of pastors express a cobbled together theology of pentecostal-dispensational- calvinism to which they added the now and not yet of the kingdom. These two books would be a good step in the right direction for working out the contradictions that riddle a cobbled together theology. I highly recommend them both.