Brian D. McLaren , one of the founders of the "Emergent Church" movement, writes in his new book, The Secret Message of Jesus, that the traditional church has missed Jesus' message. He tells cbn.com:

We tend to think that Jesus’ message was primarily a message about how to go to heaven after we die. But as I go back and really try to be true to the Gospels and true to the New Testament, it is really clear that that wasn’t the primary question Jesus was trying to answer. That’s an important question and a very important question in Protestant history because Protestants ended up with a different answer than Catholics to that question. But, for example, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, “May your Kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” He doesn’t teach us to pray, “May we go to Heaven, may we leave the earth.” So, I think this message is about how God’s will can be done on earth. I think in that way we see Jesus as launching a new movement in the history of the planet.

cbn.com interview with McLaren

What do you think? Has the traditional church missed the primary mission of the church?