I just finished volume 3 of Wolfhart Pannenberg's Systematic Theology, and for the third year in a row it will reign as "the best book I read this year." Pannenberg is brilliant. I will be digesting this work for a long time. He ends the three-volume book:On the whole path from the beginning of creation by way of reconciliation to the eschatological future of salvation, the march of the divine economy of salvation is an expression of the incursion of the eternal future of God to the salvation of creatures and thus a manifestation of the divine love. Here is the eternal basis for God's coming forth from the immanence of the divine life as the economic Trinity and of the incorporation of creatures, mediated thereby, into the unity of the trinitarian life. The distinction and unity of the immanent and economic Trinity constitute the heartbeat of the divine love, and with a single such heartbeat this love encompasses the whole world of creatures. (Systematic Theology, 3, 646.)
I am just thinking of how it squares up with James 1:13, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one."Jeremiah 35:1 The LORD spoke to Jeremiah when Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. He said, 2 "Go to the Rechabite community. Invite them to come into one of the side rooms of the LORD's temple and offer them some wine to drink." 3 So I went and got Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah, the grandson of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons and all the rest of the Rechabite community. 4 I took them to the LORD's temple. I took them into the room where the disciples of the prophet Hanan son of Igdaliah stayed. That room was next to the one where the temple officers stayed and above the room where Maaseiah son of Shallum, one of the doorkeepers of the temple, stayed. 5 Then I set cups and pitchers full of wine in front of the members of the Rechabite community and said to them, "Have some wine." 6 But they answered, "We don't drink wine because our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us not to. He told us, 'You and your children must never drink wine. 7 Don't build houses. Don't plant crops. Don't plant a vineyard or own one. Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will live a long time in the land that you wander about on.' 8 We and our wives and our sons and daughters have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. We have never drunk wine. 9 We haven't built any houses to live in. We don't own any vineyards, fields, or crops. 10 We have lived in tents. We have obeyed our ancestor Jonadab and done exactly as he commanded us. 11 But when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded the land we said, 'Let's get up and go to Jerusalem to get away from the Babylonian and Aramean armies.' That is why we are staying here in Jerusalem."
12 Then the LORD spoke to Jeremiah. 13 The LORD God of Israel who rules over all told him, "Go and speak to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. Tell them, 'I, the LORD, ask, "Won't you learn a lesson from this about obeying what I say? 14 Jonadab son of Rechab ordered his descendants not to drink wine. And his orders have been carried out. To this day his descendants have drunk no wine because they have obeyed what their ancestor commanded them. But I have spoken to you over and over again and you have not obeyed me.
The Girl in the Cage, the Lion, and the Lamb
Somewhere in America right now, there is a little girl locked in a dog cage. A man will bind her with duct tape. The man will sexually abuse her while another takes pictures and videos. The men will distribute these materials over a vast network of child pornography file sharing servers. Tens of thousands of other men will look at the pictures and videos, discuss them in chat rooms, use them as masturbatory tools, and demand more. And they will get more, much more.
I know this is true because I’m teaching a course this semester on “Cybersecurity Law.” Most of the course focuses on commercial and public espionage – hacking, data theft, and so on. This week, however, the topic has been online safety – cyberstalking, harassment, obscenity and child pornography. Our guest speaker yesterday was the Brian Sinclair, Chief of the Computer Crime Prosecution Unit in Bergen County, New Jersey. While he mercifully didn’t show us any of the volumes of child porn his unit has seized over the years (it is technically a felony to display such materials even in an educational setting), he described in general terms the sorts of things that commonly appear, including what he noted as “disturbing recent trend” towards the literal caging of victims.
What is justice? When is justice? Where is justice?
I just started reading The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson. Wow! There are so many gems even in the first chapter. This is the one I like the best, on pastors being busy:The one piece of mail certain to go unread into my wastebasket is the letter addressed to the 'busy pastor.' Not that the phrase doesn't describe me at times, but I refuse to give my attention to someone who encourages what is worst in me.
I'm not arguing the accuracy of the adjective; I am, though, contesting the way it is used to flatter and express sympathy.
'The poor man,' we say. 'He's so devoted to his flock; the work is endless, and he sacrifices himself so unstintingly.' But the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.
But if I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don't have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
If Christian love is essentially a participation in God's love for the world, then we have to ask whether we can distinguish at all between love of God and love of neighbor. Does not true love consist of sharing in God's love for the world? And in the depth of turning to the cohuman Thou, do we not also love God? (Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 187.)
We love God by letting him be God to us as Jesus let the Father be God to him, by letting him be our God, our Father, and thus by putting our trust and confidence in him. (Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 193.)
From Systematic Theology, vol 3. I love the last sentence (emphasis mine).Faith lifts us above our entanglement in the vicious circle of sin and death by uniting us to Jesus and giving us a share in his Spirit. Hence believers in Christ, to whom they are united in the ecstatic 'outside the self' of faith, acquire a hope beyond death. In the process, too, a basis is established for overcoming the egotistical structure of human hopes. Christians do not hope just for themselves, which would mean only too often that the hope of one would be at the cost of the hopes of others. In Christ they share in a universal hope for humanity. Individual wants may certainly be taken up and met, but this takes place within the larger context of the saving reality of God's kingdom that transcends individual particularism. By faith Christians are snatched out of bondage to their egotistical striving for happiness and find the fulfillment of their personal life precisely in the fellowship of the body of Christ and in the work for the future of humanity in the kingdom of God.
I am reading Job right now. When I studied Job in school, the first thing that we learned was that Job's friends spit out bad theology. I am starting to wonder if that is the case.I called for a fast there by the Ahava Canal, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and seek from him a safe journey for us, our children, and all our property. 22 I was embarrassed to request soldiers and horsemen from the king to protect us from the enemy along the way, because we had said to the king, "The good hand of our God is on everyone who is seeking him, but his great anger is on everyone who forsakes him." 23 So we fasted and prayed to our God about this, and he answered us.
Sitting in my "drafts" folder is a 2500 word review of Brian McLaren's "gospel question." I get depressed just thinking about it. In fact, reviewing this book has been such a downer that I have decided to quit. I hate quitting projects, but I have to quit this one for the following reasons:
Scot McKnight discusses a chapter out of Brad Wright's book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites . . . and Other Lies You've Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths from the Secular and Christian Media at http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/07/are-christians-really-7.html.
Scot McKnight published a review I wrote of Mere Churchianity by Michael Spencer. Spencer was the Internet Monk. He passed away in April.
I am blogging through A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren. McLaren is noted for his dissatisfaction with evangelicalism, and his new book raises “ten questions that are transforming the faith.” He writes, “It’s time for a new quest, launched by new questions, a quest across denominations and around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith.” He insists that he is not offering answers to these questions, but responses that invite counter-responses. Let the conversation begin! I will offer summaries of each question and response, along with my counter-responses.“To recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in his hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes.” (Quoted in McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 120)Instead, Mark D. prefers a different Jesus:
“In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” (Quoted in McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 120)McLaren insists that, while his Jesus may be “new” to some people, we need to be careful of rejecting a “new” Jesus in favor of the previous generation’s Jesus. Just because a Jesus is familiar, that doesn’t make it the real Jesus. He says that his critic’s Jesus looks more like the Greco-Roman Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible.
“If you don’t want to worship a guy you can beat up, then I might humbly suggest you reconsider Caesar and the Greco-Roman narrative. It sounds like ‘Christ and him crucified’ is not for you. At least not yet.” (126)Ouch.
“The only reason Jesus came was to save people from hell. . . . Jesus had no social agenda. . . . [He didn’t come to eliminate poverty or slavery or] . . . fix something in somebody’s life for the little moment they live on this earth.” (Quoted in McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 127)In contrast to the Jesus who only wants to save people from hell, McLaren describes a Jesus according to his reading of the biblical narrative, one who is primarily concerned with self-actualization and liberation from bondage. His key text (a good one) is Luke 4:17–19. He writes:
“Jesus, contrary to my dear loyal critic’s assertion, did not come merely to ‘save souls from hell.’ No, he came to launch a new Genesis, to lead a new Exodus, and to announce, embody, and inaugurate a new kingdom as the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). Seen in this light, Jesus and his message have everything to do with poverty, slavery, and a ‘social agenda.’” (135)So, what do we do with these three portrayals of Jesus—Mark’s cage-fighter Jesus, John’s fire-insurance Jesus, and McLaren’s Che-Guevara Jesus?
I am blogging through A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren. McLaren is noted for his dissatisfaction with evangelicalism, and his new book raises “ten questions that are transforming the faith.” He writes, “It’s time for a new quest, launched by new questions, a quest across denominations and around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith.” He insists that he is not offering answers to these questions, but responses that invite counter-responses. Let the conversation begin! I will offer summaries of each question and response, along with my counter-responses.I’m not saying that the Bible is free of passages that depict God as competitive, superficially exacting, exclusive, deterministic, and violent. But neither am I saying that those passages are the last word on the character of God. I am not saying that the Bible reveals a process of evolution within God’s actual character, as if God used to be rather adolescent, but has taken a turn for the better and is growing up nicely over the last few centuries. I am saying that human beings can’t do better than their very best at any given moment to communicate about God as they understand God, and that Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment. If we read the Bible as a cultural library rather than as a constitution, and if we don’t impose a Greco-Roman plotline on the biblical narrative, we are free to learn from that evolutionary process—and, we might even add, participate in it. (103)McLaren argues that this is often the way we teach children. For instance, in second grade, you might learn that “you can’t subtract a larger number from a smaller number.” However, in sixth grade, you might start working with negative numbers and learn that “a negative number is the result of subtracting a larger number from a smaller number.” Does this new knowledge mean that what you learned in second grade was wrong? No; it just means that what you learned in second grade was appropriate for second-graders. Sixth-graders can handle more complex truth.
People who are part of what is often called fundamentalism today, whether Christian, Muslims, or Jews, often find it difficult to acknowledge this kind of progression in understanding across the centuries. If anything, they feel obliged to defend and give priority to the early, raw, more primal, less-tested and –developed view of God, minimizing or marginalizing what I am calling the more mature and nuanced understandings. So the God of the fundamentalists is a competitive warrior—always jealous of rivals and determined to drive them into defeat and disgrace. And the God of the fundamentalists is superficially exacting—demanding technical perfection in regard to ceremonial and legal matters while minimizing deeper concerns about social justice—especially where outsiders and outcasts are concerned. Similarly, the fundamentalist god is exclusive, faithfully loving one in-group and rejecting—perhaps even hating—all others. The fundamentalist God is also deterministic—controlling rather than interacting, a mover of events but never moved by them. And finally, though the fundamentalist God may be patient for a while, he (fundamentalist versions of God tend to be very male) is ultimately violent, eventually destined to explode with unquenchable rage, condemnation, punishment, torture, and vengeance if you push him too far. (102)I don’t know anyone who would describe God in those terms. Yet, this is the way McLaren caricatures those who dissent from his opinions.
I admit, I have been hooked on LOST for the past 4 or 5 years. Brooke and I usually wait until the DVDs come out and watch an entire season in a few weeks, but now that we have a computer that runs HULU well, we have been keeping up with the show as it unfolds.
I am blogging through A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren. McLaren is noted for his dissatisfaction with evangelicalism, and his new book raises “ten questions that are transforming the faith.” He writes, “It’s time for a new quest, launched by new questions, a quest across denominations and around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith.” In the second chapter, he insists that he is not offering answers to these questions, but responses that invite counter-responses. Let the conversation begin! I will offer summaries of each question and response, along with my counter-responses.“What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” (Romans 4:1–5 ESV)
“Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’- and he was called a friend of God.” (James 2:21–24 ESV)It’s interesting that Paul and James use the same verse, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,” to prove opposite things. Paul writes, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28), and James writes, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).
I am blogging through A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren. McLaren is noted for his dissatisfaction with evangelicalism, and his new book raises “ten questions that are transforming the faith.” He writes, “It’s time for a new quest, launched by new questions, a quest across denominations and around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith.” In the second chapter, he insists that he is not offering answers to these questions, but responses that invite counter-responses. Let the conversation begin! I will offer summaries of each question and response, along with my counter-responses.“Few of us acknowledge that this master narrative starts with one category of things—good and blessed—and then ends up with two categories of things: good and blessed at the top line and evil and tormented at the bottom. Might we dare ask if this story can be reduced to a manufacturing process—producing a finished product of blessed souls on the top line with a damned unfortunate by-product on the bottom line? Could this be the story of a sorting and shipping process, the purpose of which is to deliver souls into their appropriate eternal bin? Can we dare wonder, given an ending that has more evil and suffering than the beginning, if it would have been better for this story never to have begun?” (34–35)
Second, he argues that this narrative cannot be found in the Bible itself. Instead, it is the product of the church reading Greco-Roman philosophy back into a Hebraic document. When we read the words of Jesus, we read them through a modern lens. We don’t see Jesus as he actually was, but we see Jesus as interpreted by Paul as interpreted by Augustine as interpreted by Aquinas as interpreted by Luther as interpreted by Calvin as interpreted by Jerry Falwell. So much post-Jesus theology has influenced our thinking that we are unable to see Jesus as he actually was.
On the other hand, McLaren suggests we learn to see Jesus through a Hebraic lens. In other words, if we start the story with Adam, and then move to Abraham, then Moses, then David, then the prophets, then John the Baptist, and finally to Jesus, we can see how Jesus fit into the context of his day.
According to McLaren, the predominant view of the Bible’s narrative comes from reading Greco-Roman philosophy back into the text. Plato was the one who introduced the notion of a “perfect” creation and a fall into an imperfect reality, and the Greeks were the ones looking for “salvation” through a return to the perfect order. This, however, was not the mindset of the ancient Hebrews.
According to McLaren, the Hebrews began with a “good” (but not perfect) Creation. Humanity’s “Fall” wasn’t so much of a catastrophic fall from the ideal, but a gradual spiraling into more and more depravity, climaxing at the building of the Tower of Babel—representing humanity’s empire-building and oppressing tendencies. Genesis sets the stage for the most important book in the Bible, Exodus, which demonstrates God’s heart for the oppressed and His liberating work in freeing people from the tyranny of Empire. The second half of Exodus (the giving of the law) demonstrates God’s work in forming people through the overcoming of “the dominating powers of fear, greed, impatience, ingratitude, and so one” (58). The rest of the Old Testament is a repeat of this greatest chapter—God’s longing for a peaceful kingdom to be built on earth contrasted with humanity’s tendency to build oppressive empires.
There is much to applaud in this first section of McLaren’s book. He is right in emphasizing the need to understand Jesus within a Jewish context. A Jesus that cannot be situated within the realm of first century Judaism is most likely not the historical Jesus. There is also much right in his “return from exile” or “liberation” theology. The theme of God’s liberation of the oppressed echoes throughout the Scriptures, and Exodus is a key book in understanding the Bible’s overarching narrative.
However, I think that McLaren has made some critical errors in his reconstruction of the biblical narrative. First, he omits early Christian interpretations of the biblical narrative. Second, he fails to appreciate the influence of Greco-Roman thought on first century Judaism and on Jesus himself. Finally, he fails to show how his interpretation of Genesis and Exodus is actually the ancient interpretation of these books.
While McLaren rightly insists that Jesus be placed in his appropriate Jewish context, he forgets that he also needs to be placed in an appropriate Christian context. Historians studying Jesus are governed by two principles. First, Jesus needs to be fit into a first century Jewish context. Jesus was a Jew just like all of the other Jews of his day. He spoke the same language, had the same education, celebrated the same holidays, and thought of God the same way they did. But, Jesus also needs to be fit into the movement that bears his name. N.T. Wright is fond of saying about this principle, “Where there is smoke, there is probably fire.” In other words, unless it can be proven otherwise, the beliefs and practices of the early followers of Jesus probably go back to Jesus himself. So, McLaren’s glaring omission is: How did Paul understand the narrative of the Old Testament? Since the writings of Paul are the earliest Christian documents that we have, shouldn’t they be the starting point of analyzing Christian thought (or at least a very important piece of the puzzle)?
McLaren’ second error is in neglecting the importance of Greco-Roman thought on first century Judaism and on Jesus himself. After reading this first section of the book, you’d think that Plato had no influence in the world until the sixth century A.D. Not only did Platonism dominate Greco-Roman thought at the time of Jesus, but it also heavily influenced his contemporary Judaism. (The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt.) So, if we are going to take McLaren’s advice and start with Adam, and then move to Abraham, Moses, David, etc., we have to place Plato somewhere between Isaiah and John the Baptist. While Christianity is a Hebraic religion, it is also a western religion.
McLaren’s third error is his failure to demonstrate that his re-reading of Genesis and Exodus is actually the ancient reading of those texts. Even if we grant that it is possible that Jesus read Genesis and Exodus the way that McLaren is suggesting, how do we know if it is likely that he read it that way? McLaren doesn’t give any examples of ancient writers reading the Bible according to his framework.
Do we have examples of ancient writers reading Genesis according to the traditional interpretation? Second Baruch is a Jewish document written at about the same time as the New Testament. The author writes:
“For, although Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment. . . . Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except for himself, but each has become his own Adam.” (54:15, 19, A.F.J. Klijn translation)
The author continues:
“And as you first saw the black waters on the top of the cloud which first came down upon the earth; this is the transgression which Adam, the first man, committed. For when he transgressed, untimely death came into being, mourning was mentioned, affliction was prepared, illness was created, labor accomplished, pride began to come into existence, the realm of death began to ask to be renewed with blood, the conception of children came about, the passion of parents was produced, the loftiness of men was humiliated, and goodness vanished.” (56:5–6, A.F.J. Klijn translation)
While the writer of 2 Baruch insists that no one is condemned for the sin of Adam (but for his own sin), he also indicates that a curse was brought upon the earth through Adam’s sin so that sickness, death, and evil hearts infected all people.
Fourth Ezra is another Jewish work written around the time of the New Testament. The author writes:
“You did not take away from them their evil heart, so that you Law might bring forth fruit in them. For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in people’s heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained.” (3:20–22, B.M Metzger translation)
The writer of 4 Ezra likewise noted that something happened within the heart of humanity when Adam sinned. Before, there were tendencies both toward good and evil, but after Adam the good departed and people were left with an evil root.
Finally (and most importantly), there is the Apostle Paul. Paul was a Pharisee and a contemporary of Jesus, although the two likely never met before Paul’s encounter with Him on the road to Damascus. Paul writes:
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” (Romans 5:12–14 ESV)
Sin and death came into the world through one man, Adam.
Paul also note that all of creation suffers from the consequences of Adam’s sin and is awaiting its redemption. He writes:
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:18–23 ESV)
So, the narrative of Creation-Curse-Redemption was certainly around at the time of Jesus—it was not invented in the sixth century A.D. The same cannot be said for McLaren’s reconstruction.
Why is this important?
First, I want to reiterate that much of what McLaren says in this section is right. God is against oppression. God wants us to work for righteousness and peace in the here-and-now, and not just wait for Him to bring it in the sweet by-and-by. It’s not what McLaren affirms that I disagree with, it’s what he denies, namely that human beings are fallen creatures in need of redemption. And, for the record, he doesn’t mince words. About the two different interpretations of the biblical narrative, he writes:
“The wild, passionate, creative, liberating, hope-inspiring God whose image emerges in these three sacred narratives is not the dread cosmic dictator of the six-line Greco-Roman framework. No, that deity, we must conclude, is an idol, a damnable idol. Yes, that idol is popular, perhaps even predominant, and defended by many a well-meaning but misguided scholar and fire-breathing preacher. But in the end you cannot serve two masters, Theos [the traditional God] and Elohim [McLaren’s reconstruction], the god of the Greco-Roman philosophers and Caesars and the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the violent god of profit proclaimed by the empire and the compassionate God of justice proclaimed by the prophets.” (65)
Working for justice and peace is all well and good, but if the last 100 years has taught us anything it’s that it will never work, because there is something wrong with us. We are fallen, sinful creatures in need of redemption. If we reject that theology, we will fail in whatever sort of “kingdom-building” endeavor for which we set out.
I am blogging through A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren. McLaren is noted for his dissatisfaction with evangelicalism, and his new book raises “ten questions that are transforming the faith.” He writes, “It’s time for a new quest, launched by new questions, a quest across denominations and around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith.” In the second chapter, he insists that he is not offering answers to these questions, but responses that invite counter-responses. Let the conversation begin! I will offer summaries of each question and response, along with my counter-responses.
If you’re unfamiliar with Brian McLaren, he has been a fairly prolific author during the 21st century—one who has stirred up plenty of controversy in evangelical circles. Along with Rob Bell, he is the author I am asked about most often. Personally, I feel that he is criticized more than he is understood. Most people who ask me about him know little about his thought other than that it is bad. That’s not really fair to Brian.
On the other hand, I have heard that McLaren takes his ideas to a new level in his latest book. To this point, he has offered more questions than answers, and the answers he has offered have been frustratingly vague. I am hoping that A New Kind of Christianity clarifies his faith, and I am blogging through the book because I anticipate his ideas spreading throughout evangelicalism.
The book is divided into chapters based on ten questions and answers:
I first came across McLaren’s writings in 2005, while I was living in Dallas. I thoroughly enjoyed A New Kind of Christian (2001) and was prompted to read A Generous Orthodoxy (2004). Since then I’ve read a number of his books, the most significant being The Secret Message of Jesus (2006), Everything Must Change (2007), and Finding Our Way Again (2008).
I find McLaren’s writings to be helpful but dissatisfying. They are helpful in the sense that he asks good questions and he has a knack for pointing out what is wrong with contemporary Christianity. They are dissatisfying in that, despite claiming to be “new,” his answers are largely rehashes of ideas that have been tried and found wanting. He seems to forget that evangelicalism arose to prominence because people found the 20th century liberal movement unfruitful. Sometimes it seems like he is advocating we push that button again, only harder, and expect to get different results this time. Then again, that shouldn’t be surprising—it’s far easier to agree with someone that something is wrong than agree with them how to fix it (see the now moot Nationalized Health Care Debate, The).
I’m thankful for guys like Brian McLaren. We shouldn’t be afraid to analyze current goings-on in evangelicalism or ask hard questions. I haven’t read anything written by him that would qualify as “heresy,” even if I have read things that would qualify as “non-evangelical.” I am interested in seeing where he takes the conversation next.
I finished god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens today. It took me almost six months to work through it, but I responded to every chapter here on the blog. (You can access them on the archives on the left side of the blog—the first entry is September 30, 2009.)“Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to be able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard—or try to turn back—the measurable advances that we have made.”There is some basis to this perception. The scientific community and the religious community offer competing stories of the origins of the cosmos. Personally, I think we need to be careful about making this the battle ground. I don’t think most people can even articulate the theory of evolution, let alone evaluate its tenability. But, they do notice when we offer up junk science as a competing interpretation. That’s not to say that we should abandon the sciences or stop trying to show how scientific inquiry can support our views, but it is to say that we need to be absolutely sure of the soundness of our methods and we need to choose our battles. We can’t make science the enemy. If what we say about the world is true, then we have nothing to fear about honest exploration of it.
