Book :
English : Pg. 35 － 59 / 中文 ： Pg. 85-122
(Audio Part 2 : 32.25 Min to Part 3: 26.35 Min)
第二单元的内容是比较直接。 作者在选写这一课时，真的要有很大的勇气和信心，因为它的确会得罪所有基督教界的人（不管是保守派，还是自由派的）。无论如何，他的论证很诚恳和根据事实。 这一课提醒我们去思考，为什么我们今天在教会里的教导和证道的信息，对于信徒一般的生活缺少了具体和真实的果效。
这里谈论的是针对美国基督徒的处境和挑战。虽然如此，在今天全球化和互联网的世界里，马来西亚的基督徒是很难能幸免、出淤泥而不染的。细读这一课时，最好的方法是从自己对信仰内容的认知开始做反省。 这是我认为这单元对于我最大的帮助和警惕。
1. 现今基督徒的欠缺和品格的失败。
根据Gallup survey 和Barna Group 的调查结果，发现自称重生得救的基督徒的行为和犯错的数据，是与非基督徒没有分别（Pg. 39, Para 5) 。 有趣的是一些基督教界的领袖却否定这个发现，有如 Ps John Piper 说这些都不是重生得救的基督徒，这数据只能证明教会里有许多还没有重生得救的挂名基督徒 ( 他在《Finally Alive》提到) 。 无论哪一个说法是对的，都令人苦恼，今天的基督教出了什么问题，为什么没能改变人的心和品行。
But now let us try out a subversive thought. Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it.（Pg 40, Para 4）。
“A leading American pastor laments, “Why is today’s church so weak? Why are we able to claim many conversions and enroll many church members but have less and less impact on our culture? Why are Christians indistinguishable from the world?” Should we not at least consider the possibility that this poor result is not in spite of what we teach and how we teach, but precisely because of it? Might that not lead to our discerning why the power of Jesus and his gospel has been cut off from ordinary human existence, leaving it adrift from the flow of his eternal kind of life? （Pg 40，Para 6-7)
问题的根源很可能是在我们所传递的“信息”里。
i. 被简化成了，Bar-Code Faith 条形码 信仰
“justification,” the forgiveness of sins, involves no change at all in the heart or personality of the one forgiven. It is, he insisted, something entirely external to you, located wholly in God himself. His intent was to emphasize the familiar Protestant point that salvation is by God’s grace only and is totally independent of what we may do. But what he in fact said was that being a Christian has nothing to do with the kind of person you are. The implications of this teaching are stunning. （Pg 36, Para 6 - Pg 37, Para 1)
The real question, I think, is whether God would establish a bar code type of arrangement at all. It is we who are in danger: in danger of missing the fullness of life offered to us. (Pg. 38, Para 3)
ii. 救赎论的一些背景 ： 从马丁路德，约翰加尔文到卫斯理约翰的神学里，全备的救赎论(Soteriology) 是可以归纳成以下的过程：重生 (Regeneration), 称义 (Justificaiton), 成圣 (Sanctification) 和荣耀 (Glorification). (更多这方面的内容，可以看，作者在Wheaton College 的演讲）。今天我们比较少听到这方面的教导。
基督的救赎是关乎我们全人，基督徒的生命和生活，不只是单单对罪性（不管是个人，还是社会的）的反应。 作者辩论说今日的基督教界，不管是保守派，还是自由派，都把福音变成是对罪性的管理 Gospels of Sin Management.
2. Gospels of Sin Management 福音变成了对罪性的管理 : -
History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being and its effects. Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally. That is where we find ourselves today.
Once we understand the disconnection between the current message and ordinary life, the failures just noted at least make a certain sense. They should be expected. When we examine the broad spectrum of Christian proclamation and practice, “we see that the only thing made essential on the right wing of theology is forgiveness of the individual’s sins. On the left it is removal of social or structural evils. “ The current gospel then becomes a “gospel of sin management.” Transformation of life and character is no part of the redemptive message. Moment-to-moment human reality in its depths is not the arena of faith and eternal living. (Pg 41, Para 2-3)
i. 保守派 Gospel on the right （Pg 42 - 50）－ 对个人的罪性的处理
ii. 自由派 Gospel on the left （Pg 50 - 55）－ 对社会结构性的罪恶的处理
iii. 作者认为他们双方的不足和忽略
What right and left have in common is that neither group lays down a coherent framework of knowledge and practical direction adequate to personal transformation toward the abundance and obedience emphasized in the New Testament, with a corresponding redemption of ordinary life. What is taught as the essential message about Jesus has no natural connection to entering a life of discipleship to him. (Pg 41, Para 6 - Pg 42，Para 1)
3. 找回我们生命的大老师： 耶稣
Right at the heart of this alienation lies the absence of Jesus the teacher from our lives. Strangely, we seem prepared to learn how to live from almost anyone but him. (Pg 55, Para 4)
The disappearance of Jesus as teacher explains why today in Christian churches—of whatever leaning—little effort is made to teach people to do what he did and taught. Once again, it is a natural consequence of our basic message. (Pg 57, Para 2)
i. 讲台信息 Centrality of the Pulpit
It is largely caused and sustained by the basic message that we constantly hear from Christian pulpits. We are flooded with what I have called “gospels of sin management,” in one form or another, while Jesus’ invitation to eternal life now—right in the midst of work, business, and profession—remains for the most part ignored and unspoken. （Pg 57, Para 5) (爱心提醒：千万不要开始批判你教会的讲员，先从自己的观念改变开始。)
Does what we have discussed in this chapter not make it clear that serious difficulties currently bar people of good intent from an effectual understanding of Jesus’ gospel for life and discipleship in his kingdom? We must now try to identify and remove these difficulties. If we cannot remove them, no gospel we bring can have a natural tendency to lead onward into a life of discipleship to Jesus and to personal fulfilment in the kingdom of the heavens. (Pg 59, Para 6)
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