We like to talk about Jesus-centeredness, don’t we? You hear about it at every turn in Christian culture.

Jesus-centered Christianity, a Jesus-centered gospel, Jesus-centered music, Jesus-centered churches, etc.

Now, I’m for Jesus-centeredness, but what I think we often mean when we say “Jesus-centered” is that humankind cannot also be at the center, since that’s a place Jesus jealously guards. That I’m not for. What I don’t think we understand, though, is that to place Jesus at the center of everything is to also place humanity at the center of everything. Jesus is not some disembodied specter, but a flesh and blood human, who also happens to be God. All other approaches to the divine must choose between who occupies center stage, God or humans, but in the Gospel we see that to place God at the center is to place humanity at the center, and to place humanity at the center is to place God at the center.

When you meet the needs of humans, you meet the needs of God. And when you seek to meet the needs of God, you will always find yourself being redirected back to the needs of your fellow humans. God does not desire to be at the center, for when that is the case, we find excuses for trampling on one another in order to get to the divine. And so he has rigged the system in such a way that one is not “getting to the divine” if they are not also caring for their fellow humans.

A Jesus-centered Gospel is a human-centered Gospel, and a human-centered Gospel is a Jesus-centered Gospel.
Jeff Turner