Excerpt from A House for Hope by Rebecca Ann Parker and John A. Buehrens

…Some people imagine salvation as personal escape from divine punishment in hell. Rescued by belief in Christ’s sacrificial death, the saved look forward to eternal life in heaven–separated by death and by God’s gracious rewards from the sin and evil of this world. Such otherworldly salvation does not overly concern itself with evil in this world except to defend against it by separating from evildoers…and when necessary destroying them. 

Others imagine salvation in social and this-worldly terms. It is manifested, as Martin Luther King Jr. pictured it, as the realization of the dream of racial harmony and justice, the alleviation of poverty, and the end of war. The liberation of the oppressed…is accomplished through nonviolence, following the example of Christ…whose ministry, teachings, and healings show that God’s promise of salvation can be realized now. 

An additional vision of salvation goes beyond hope for either heavenly reward or earthly success. It recognizes salvation as the gift of full aliveness, here and now, the restored and enlivened capacity to be in the world with wisdom. Such wisdom is not a personal accomplishment but an achievement of life together in human communities that foster astute attention to life in the present, that celebrate beauty and goodness, and that resist evil. 

In this third vision, hope for salvation is something more than either idealistic commitment to building a better world, or otherworldly escape from punishment. Salvation is fully arriving in this life, turning our faces toward its complex realities and engaging our whole being in creative, compassionate, loving interaction with what is at hand. Salvation is the birth of full aliveness, the incarnation of divinity in the flesh of human life together. Salvation is not something one possesses individually: It is something one participates in communally, including in communion with those who have come before. … We are saved by the communion of saints. They shelter us, and we have the opportunity to be in their number, here and now. ”