Book Review: You Need a Better Gospel: Reclaiming the Good News of Participation with Christ

The title is intriguing. What exactly is the “better gospel” that Snodgrass says we need: and what is the gospel that is replaces? The problem that Snodgrass sees is that the gospel is not lived and not understood by many Christians. The gospel has become “anemic”, Christians live lives little different from those of non-Christians, and often practice racism, and unjust actions. “The church has failed to address issues like racism, poverty, arrogance, sexual misconduct–and sin. We hardly even mention sin.” (4). As a consequence, many young people leave the church, and non-Christians find the church irrelevant, and disparage Christian faith.

The gospel has been reduced to a message about “saying the right words so you can go to heaven” (9). It often has to do with being happy, and a “health and wealth gospel”, and “the word ‘evangelical’, a word that focuses on a commitment to the gospel” has been distorted, “not least in support of political agendas” (10). Writing in and to a US context, Snodgrass wonders “why did many evangelicals–so-called at least–rush to support someone who with words and actions violated nearly everything they stand for and, in the process, desecrate the name of Jesus?” (10)

The gospel is “about God’s participation with us and our participation with God” (6). Participation in and with Christ, being united with Christ in solidarity, attachment and sharing Christ’s life is at the heart of the gospel. Faith is about relationship with Christ, and it involves our whole selves: and all our thinking, speaking and acting.

In a couple of chapters (Two and Three) Snodgrass first shows that the idea of faith and salvation as participation is not a new idea. It has been focused on and written about by Christians over the centuries, from the church fathers through the Reformers and others (like John Wesley and John Owen) through to Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance. At the same time, there has also been a loss of focus within the church at large. Since the mid-1970s the theme of participation has been a flourishing and growing field amongst biblical scholars, and to a great extent Snodgrass’s book is a good summary and collation of this scholarship.

Snodgrass looks at what participation language is, how it should not be set against the language of justification and righteousness, how far the language of being “in Christ” should be taken literally, and the origins of this language, and whether participation is really possible. It is possible, and participation in Christ overcomes passivity in Christian living, and gives new meaning to the claim “Jesus is Lord”.

In a series of chapters (Four to Nine) which form the bulk of the book, Snodgrass looks at the biblical texts and how they evince the theme of participation. Chapter Four begins with the Old Testament, and shows how participation is woven into the fabric of the description of God in relation with God’s people. The covenant is about God and the people (of Israel) living together, of God being for the people, of the people “clinging to” God in attachment, and of faith being a (metaphorical) “walking around with God” (71).

Chapters Five to Nine deal with New Testament material beginning with the Synoptic Gospels, moving to John’s Gospel and 1 John, then Acts and, finally, two chapters on Paul’s understanding of participation. The chapter on the Synoptic Gospels has the intriguing title, “The Gospels in the Synoptic Gospels”, because these contain both Jesus’s gospel and the gospel of the evangelists. The bulk of the chapter deals with Jesus’s gospel which has four essential ingredients: (1) compassion which brings out God’s desire through Jesus to relate to us in sensitivity and love; (2) celebration, a joyful appropriation and sharing called for in taking hold of the good news; (3) the concern of Jesus (himself obedient “Israel”) to bring about the fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel; and (4) the kingdom of God, the basis of the other three, where God comes as king. “The kingdom is about God’s participation with his people through the ministry of Jesus” (80). The incarnation emphasises God’s participation with humanity. God is for us. Discipleship calls us into attachment to Christ and renouncing the ego-driven self.

In John’s Gospel, a gospel of union with Christ, where stress is put on remaining/abiding in Christ, being born of the Spirit, and being brought into the close relationship the Father and Son have with each other, participation is a “deep participation”. Believing is a dynamic concept, a movement into close association with Jesus, commitment and attachment to, and participation with, him (95). First John continues this emphasis with its language of sharing (koinōnia) which means a life marked by the characteristics of God: walking in the light, doing the truth, shunning sin.

In Acts, participation is particularly seen in the narrative of an interplay between God’s initiative and human response. In addition to this, is the theme of the transformation of life into godly living, and the appropriation of salvation when God gives repentance, grants grace to believe, and endows people with the Holy Spirit (114).

The two chapters on Paul focus largely on four texts: 2 Corinthians 5:14–6:4; Ephesians 2:4–10; Romans 6:1–14, and 1 Corinthians 6:12–20. Here we find the participation is a much deeper and richer concept than either substitution or representation. God participates in our life so that we participate in the death of Christ, and so share God’s life. God’s participation with us through Christ creates a solidarity with us (123). In Ephesians, the emphasis is on corporate, or body images, expressing a solidarity between Christ and fellow believers, providing a throughgoing participation in both directions.

Baptism entails a decentering of self and a recentering on Christ, so that we rise to a new life in, and with Christ. It is no longer our life we live but Christ’s, which means participation with God (Romans). Participation with Christ (1 Corinthians) is deeply physical and affects what we do in and with our bodies.

Chapter Ten looks at some “Striking Assertions about Participation” in other texts: there is the concept of ingesting God or Christ, seen in a number of psalms (e.g. Ps 34:8, 36:8,9; 42:1,2) and supremely in John 6:27–63 where Jesus speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Hebrews brings out the idea of Christ taking our flesh and participating with us in human life so that we participate with him in the life of God. First Peter speaks of God’s people taking their character from God, and sharing in Christ’s sufferings. Second Peter 1:3,4 has “the most explicit description of participation in Scripture” (159) as it speaks about taking on the divine nature. The implication is that we are to mirror the moral characteristics of God (161).

Finally, in a “So What?” chapter (Eleven) Snodgrass asserts that we need a gospel of participation, which will be truly life enhancing. We are to take hold of Christ, and to be “housed” in Christ. He provides four requirements of participation: (1) to invest time and attention to spending time with Christ (serious thinking, prayer and Bible study); (2) dying to self–“acting, investing, doing, and living in keeping with Jesus’s life, death and resurrection” (170); (3) committing to action and (4) finding a new way of languaging one’s evangelism. An “Appendix” provides a brief enumeration of what the gospels of Jesus and Paul have in common.

As rich and as though-provoking as Snodgrass’s exploration of participation is, I feel there is a need for a sequel. His final ringing cry is “Live participation!” (172). This needs spelling out in more detail, and a greater examination of how the “better gospel” should replace the anemic one currently on offer. The unpacking of this gospel of participation is excellent, the application somewhat thinner.

Derek Tovey is book review editor for Stimulus.