Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church

by James Edward Beitler

theologian Jennifer McBride develops an argument along similar lines in her important book, The Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness. McBride notes that, all too often, Protestant churches in the United States practice a “theology of glory” in place of a “theology of the cross,” resulting in a warped view of “a dominating God” and a distorted understanding of the church’s place in the world.89 Such views about God have significant consequences for Christian witness. McBride writes, “A privileged and affluent community trying to reflect this [dominating] God will be formed by that domineering image, becoming—perhaps without even noticing—a self-assured and/or defensive people.”90 When that happens, the form that our presentation of the gospel takes can undermine the content of the message, hindering our ability to serve as ambassadors of the One who chose the form of the cross as his primary bearing in relation to the world.