For the next three monthly meetings of the theology reading group we will be discussing Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul's Theology and Spirituality
by Michael J. Gorman
In the first chapter, Gorman introduces the book by making the case for 13 propositions. Here I list the ones that I found particularly interesting and helpful.
The Cross
3. The cross is not only the definitive revelation of Christ and of God (i.e., it is both Christophany and theophany) but also the definitive revelation of what humans and the church are to be.Cruciformity
4. The cross is not only the source but also the shape of our salvation, and cross-shaped living (cruciformity) means that all Christian virtues and practices are cruciform: faith/faithfulness, love, power, hope, justice, and so forth.
6. Cruciformity/Theoformity is a matter not of imitation but of transformative participation: being in the Messiah/Spirit and having the Messiah/Spirit within (mutual indwelling).
Dying and rising with Christ
10. Paradoxically, cruciform (cross-shaped) existence is also resurrectional (resurrection-suffused) cruciform ministry because the death of the messiah means life for all who share in that death.
Mission
11. The church is called not merely to believe the gospel but also to become the gospel and thereby to advance the gospel, the church is a living exegesis of the gospel.
12. Becoming the gospel means embodying the missional practices of love, peacemaking, reconciliation, restorative justice, forgiveness, non-violence, and so on that correspond to what God has done in the Messiah.
13. To be in the Messiah is to be in community, to be in mission, and to be in trouble (persecuted) - simultaneously.
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