Gareth Higgins and Brian McLaren describe how Jesus invites us into the Seventh Story: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Jesus] radically interrupted the six stories, saying that instead of getting stuff and keeping others from getting stuff, you can\u2019t actually possess stuff for yourself alone in the first place. Instead of building walls, you are invited to show the same kindness toward your neighbor as you would want them to show to you, to celebrate his joys, to grieve her losses. Even more provocative: instead of defeating enemies, you are asked to love them. We call this\u00a0the reconciliation-liberation story.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most revolutionary part of the Seventh Story \u2026 is this: in each of the six stories, humans are masters of \u201cour\u201d domain, the world is divided into \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem,\u201d and the purpose of life is to be a selfish economic unit, producing bounty to keep for yourself and your group. <\/strong>The six stories are all based on reacting to other people\u2019s desire; they invite separation at best, and violence at worst; and they seek to avoid suffering\u2026. And in a world where we have the power to destroy ourselves, they are evolutionarily inappropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in the Seventh Story, human beings are not \u2026\u00a0masters of \u201cour\u201d domain, but partners in the evolution of goodness.\u00a0<\/em>[1]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n McLaren discusses freedom to create a better story, and how Jesus lived out the Seventh Story:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it would be dangerous if there was some version of the Seventh Story imposed upon everybody to achieve world peace. There is something about the Seventh Story that needs to be powerful without exercising power, and needs to be persuasive without backing people into a corner. Something about it has to involve freedom and discovery and choice\u2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we need isn\u2019t a storyline that wants to erase all the others. What we need is story space that invites people, in whatever story they\u2019re part of, to stop and wonder, \u201cI don\u2019t like where this story is going, and I don\u2019t like how this is going to end. Is it possible there\u2019s a better story to tell? Could we make a change and find a better ending?\u201d That, to me, is what good news is about. For example, Jesus went around saying, \u201cRepent.\u201d I don\u2019t think that necessarily means we should feel guilty and shameful about things we\u2019ve done. I think it means rethink the story of your lives and open yourself to a different and better ending.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus doesn\u2019t give up on his story, but to the very end, he lives this Seventh Story. In the resurrection stories, he doesn\u2019t come back saying, \u201cOkay, enough of that love story. I\u2019m going to come back a second time to get revenge on all those people.<\/strong>\u201d The story of the resurrection is, \u201cLet\u2019s keep this story going.\u201d He tells his followers to go into the whole world and keep this story going. Jesus lives and dies by a story of love, and the protagonist of the story is love. [2]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Seventh Story Gareth Higgins and Brian McLaren describe how Jesus invites us into the Seventh Story: [Jesus] radically interrupted the six stories, saying that instead of getting stuff and keeping others from getting stuff, you can\u2019t actually possess stuff for yourself alone in the first place. Instead of building walls, you are invited to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23382"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23382"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23387,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23382\/revisions\/23387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}