The Practicing Congregation - Salvation and Growth

I'm reading a book entitled The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church by Diana Butler Bass. In it, Diana Butler Bass briefly compares two contrasting views of Christian salvation. One argues that salvation comes through the church functioning as community living out the values of God's kingdom; the other argues that salvation is a personal choice to follow the Messiah that is demonstrated by personal purity. She notes however that these are two extremes and that most Christians fall somewhere inbetween on a continuum between these two poles. As such in today's context, she calls this two pole paradigm dead; that today's postmodern context is calling for a new salvation paradigm.

I haven't read far enough yet to know precisely where Bass is headed. But earlier, she wrote that churches do not exist to provide rational choices. They are an alternative logic offering hospitality to the traveler and molding people both in community and as individuals through ancient forms of being in God. In the author's words, the church's alternative logic provides "a way of exploring moral, religious, communal, and personal identity that moves with purpose and intention through the ever-shifting terrain of the postmodern city." She also noted that the most vibrant of today's mainline Protestant congregations are those who are intentionally and innovatively reclaiming their historical chain of memory that ties its past, present, and future together.