Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll 2

I will never forget the first Christmas that Brooke and I had as a married couple. I was in seminary and we were dirt poor. When our apartment complex announced a balcony-decorating contest with one month’s free rent for the grand prize, we knew we had to win. We were going to be “that couple” that went nuts with the Christmas lights and hopefully start the next year with a few hundred dollars extra in our bank account.

Brooke had a great idea—a 3D multimedia shadowbox of Santa flying over Dallas. We found a cartoon picture of the Dallas skyline and a picture of Santa and the reindeer online and took them to a printer to be put on an overhead. I was leading an Adult Bible Fellowship at First Baptist Dallas at the time, so we snuck into the church on a week day to use some of the teaching aids in my classroom. We projected the pictures we had found on the wall and traced them on to butcher paper. Then we cut them out, mounted Santa on cardboard, and painted them. We blacked out our balcony with butcher paper (with the Dallas skyline painted on it), and then poked white Christmas lights through the paper in strategic places to look like stars. We suspended Santa in the air flying over the city for the 3D effect.

Sure enough, we won.

I mention this story because we had so much fun together. One of the things that has kept us happy together over the years is that Brooke and I are friends. Brooke is a lot of things to me—a wife, a lover, the mother of my children. But before she was any of these things she was my best friend, and she still is.

In chapter 2 of Real Marriage, “Friend with Benefits,” Mark and Grace Driscoll talk about the importance of friendship. When researching the book, they were surprised to find such infrequent mention of friendship in Christian marriage books. But a solid friendship has been a bedrock of their marriage. They write:

[M]arriage is about friendship. All the talk about spending time and doing life together, making memories, being a good listener, growing old and taking care of each other, being honest, having the long view of things, repenting and forgiving can be summed up in one word—friendship. (23)

Not only have the Driscolls found friendship to be key to their marriage, but studies show that quality friendship is a major determiner of a quality sex life. They note one study:

The determining factor in whether wives feel satisfied with the sex, romance, and passion in their marriage is, by 70 percent, the quality of the couple’s friendship. For men, the determining factor is, by 70 percent, the quality of the couple’s friendship. So men and women come from the same planet after all. (John Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work [New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999], 17. Quoted in Driscoll and Driscoll, 24.)

When the Driscolls were struggling in their marriage, one of the things that they had lost was their friendship. Mark’s work struggles and Grace’s emotional scars shut them off from each other and they forgot that they were on the same team. Then one way, God showed them what was wrong and set them on the path to recovery. Grace recounts the story:

In those days when our marriage struggled, and our growing church was sapping Mark’s energy, he used to say that he felt alone and always would because of the nature of ministry. It felt hopeless that we could ever return to that trusting, fun, free friendship. I tried to fight it, but I also partially believed he was right and found myself giving up hope too. It felt as if no matter how much I tried to become a good friend, he was determined to be alone, and yet was upset because of it. I was very confused. It wasn’t until God had me tell Mark I wasn’t his enemy that the light went on for him and he saw I truly wanted to learn how to be his friend and not make him feel isolated. I clearly remember the fight we were having in the bathroom when I pleaded silently with God to give me words to explain and give Mark a heart to believe those words. God told me what to say, and I saw a physical change in Mark in that moment. He started to soften and want to trust me again. As I later walked through my abuse history, he became a friend again. I a good way I was forced to trust him, and he worked hard to respond lovingly. (25)

The Driscolls rightly insist that a strong friendship is key to a healthy marriage, and they list seven attributes of a Christian friendship as it relates to marriage:

Fruitful—Marriage and family exist to help you better glorify God; not to serve as a replacement idol.
Reciprocal—It takes two to be friends.
Intimate—Friendships should be intimate. Men tend to build intimacy through shared activity, while women tend to build intimacy through shared feelings.
Enjoyable—Friends have fun together.
Needed—People were created to be in relationships. You need a friend.
Devoted—Friends are dependable over time.
Sanctifying—Husbands and wives expose each other’s areas for growth.

I think that this is a solid summary of friendship. A friend is someone whom you enjoy and who has proven their dependability over time. A good friend has seen you through the hard times. A good friend sticks with you when you’re at your worst, and rejoices with you when you are at your best. A good friend makes you laugh.

One thing that sticks out to me about the Driscolls’ description of friendship is the last bullet—“Sanctifying.” I agree that a good friendship is sanctifying, but I want to clarify what this looks like. They list two ways of “sanctifying” your spouse (and I am glad that they clarify that you can’t sanctify your spouse, only God can do that)—being there for them when they sin and speaking the truth (in love) to them. These are both great ideas.

Where do we see in Scripture that we are called to “sanctify” our spouse? How are we instructed to do this?

One of the things that I have noticed about speaking the truth is that often a “love for truth” is actually a mask for a “love for being right” or a “love for putting people in their place.” I like to be right. It feels good to be right. It feels good to point out where my spouse is failing and I am winning because it validates me as right.

But being right can be an idol.

We need the courage to speak truth to our spouses, but we need to do serious soul searching before we do. Are we speaking truth out of love, or because we want to be right? Only one of those motivations is godly. The other is idolatry.

In Ephesians 5:25–26, Paul instructs husbands how to love their wives and also explains how Christ sanctifies the church. Christ sanctified the church by giving himself. If we want to help our wives grow in Christ, our best response is to sacrifice for them. It’s plain, simple, and in the Scriptures. If you sacrifice for your wife, you are on the right track.

Nine years after winning the balcony-decorating contest, my wife is still my best friend. She makes me laugh. She takes care of me when I am sick. She listens to me. She lets me beat her at Bananagrams. And she rejoices at my success. She reminds me of the verses Ted Cuningham shared with us last week:

Go eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments always be white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun . . . .” (Ecclesiastes 9:7–9 ESV)

Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll 1

Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging through Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book, Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship, and Life Together. The elders of my church are going through the book together, so my chapter reviews will follow the elder meetings in which they were discussed. I don’t want to pass judgment on Mark and Grace, nor do I want to be a fan boy. They wrote this book to help marriages, hoping that it would be “biblically faithful, emotionally hopeful, practically helpful, sociologically viable and personally vulnerable.” (xi)

When I was in college, I had a professor named Dr. Drullinger who often talked about his marriage in class. He was in his sixties and had been married a long time. The guy loved his wife, and every time he talked about her his face brightened up and his smile beamed. Sometimes he seemed like a middle-schooler talking about his first crush, but in an endearing way. Even as a nineteen-year-old punk, I knew that this was how marriage should be. I remember nothing from the class he taught, but I will never forget how he treated his wife.

In the first chapter of Real Marriage, “New Marriage, Same Spouse,” Mark and Grace talk about each other and the early years of their marriage. Mark came from a rough neighborhood, but successfully avoided drugs and alcohol to become class president and be voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” Grace was the daughter of a pastor, but learned to act like everything was okay on the outside when things were wrong on the inside. They were sexually involved while dating, but stopped as soon as Mark learned that this was “fornication.” When they got married, their married sex life was mediocre and frustrating. Mark became a workaholic before breaking down in his mid-thirties and putting his home in order. Since then, marriage has been great in the Driscoll home, and the book describes what they learned through the whole ordeal.
There isn’t much to evaluate in the first chapter, other than to praise the Driscolls for their honesty. So far, I think they have succeeded in putting a book together that is “personally vulnerable.”

One thing that has stuck out to me, though, is the way Mark talks (writes) about his wife. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they talk about their spouse. Do they honor their spouse? Do they complain about him or her? Do they seem to respect their spouse, or do they put them down? When they tell a story about their marriage, who looks good?

In recounting the couple’s dating years, Mark tells the following story about himself:

Upon graduation from high school, I was given a free senior trip to Mexico. The company representative said I would receive ‘VIP treatment’ that included lots of alcohol and young women to sleep with. A few weeks before the trip, I declined the offer because I loved grace and did not want to ruin my relationship with her. (7)

There is a similar story about Grace. A few years into their marriage, Mark had a dream about what Grace did on her senior trip. He recounts the dream:

One night, as we approached the birth of our first child, Ashley, and the launch of our church, I had a dream in which I saw some things that shook me to my core. I saw in painful detail Grace sinning sexually during a senior trip she took after high school when we had just started dating. It was so clear it was like watching a film—something I cannot really explain but the kind of revelation I sometimes receive. I awoke, threw up, and spent the rest of the night sitting on our couch, praying, hoping it was untrue, and waiting for her to wake up so I could ask her. (11-12)

The vision was true—Grace had in fact sinned sexually during her senior trip.

Do you notice the contrast in these two stories? How does Mark look in his story? How does Grace look?

If you have read the book, what do you think about the way Mark talks about his wife? Does he honor her?

A pastor friend of mine once told me, “I can tell within the first five minutes in my office whether or not a couple seeking counseling is going to ‘make it.’ I can tell by the way they talk to each other. If they respect each other, I know they can work through whatever differences they have. If they don’t respect each other, they have a tough road ahead.” I completely agree.

Chaplain Mike on the Emerging Church

In response to Scot McKnight's recent CT article about the present and future of evangelicalism, Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk is discussing McKnight's three streams--the emerging church, the ancient-future movement, and the neo-reformed. First up for discussion is the emerging church--what it was, what it is, and where it is going. I posted my thoughts on at least two of the threads.

My journey with the emerging church began when I read A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren. It ended when I read Deep Church by Jim Belcher, A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren, and Mere Churchianity by Michael Spencer.

I think Belcher, Spencer, and McKnight are pointing the way forward.

Joe Carter on Gimmicky Preaching

Joe Carter isn't impressed with the skateboarding Hungarian Catholic priest who has become a YouTube sensation. He shows why evangelicals are still the reigning champs of gimmicky preaching.

Scot McKnight Interviews Brian McLaren at Q

This is good. McKnight asks McLaren about his "provocative ambiguity" (great phrase btw), how he reconciles his views in A Generous Orthodoxy with those in A New Kind of Christianity, and about whether he is a universalist.

Q | Conversations on Being a Heretic from Q Ideas on Vimeo.

A New Kind of Christianity--I Quit :(

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:

1. I am not finding the book to be helpful. McLaren's approach to life and faith are so different than my own that I struggle to find points of commonality. Also, his attitude toward people like me (conservative evangelicals, especially conservative evangelical pastors) has me constantly on the defensive.


2. I am not finding reviewing the book to be helpful. I hate being negative. I have tried to put a positive spin on my review of his book, but it's getting tougher. Sometimes negativity and criticism are good, even needed, but I am not really interested in continuing a project that draws out the worst in me. I dread reading the book because I know I will inevitably have to follow it up with a lengthy negative review.


3. I am not finding his book to be as influential as I thought it would be. I think McLaren's days of being a lightning rod are over. He's a gifted writer. He is a great thinker. He's visionary and he's not afraid of asking the hard questions. He's an influential leader in his circle. But I think his hostility to his critics has marginalized him and destroyed his credibility to the middle. He has lost his voice as a "third way" or as the middle; he's an extremist. It pains me to write that, but I think it's the case. His books will be devoured by his camp and burned by the opposition.

Anyway, I will finish the book and maybe write some parting words, but I'm done spending so much time on it.

Scot McKnight on the Evangelical "Image Problem"

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.

The discussion is on how our culture perceives evangelicals. The numbers are shocking--we don't have as bad of a reputation as some claim.

Brian McLaren's Jesus Question

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.

McLaren’s fourth question is the Jesus question: Who is Jesus and Why Is He Important? Having explained his ideas about God, the biblical narrative, and the way the Bible should be read, McLaren sets out to describe Jesus. He does this by debunking views of Jesus held by two of his biggest critics. To protect his anonymity, we’ll call the first one “M. Driscoll.” No, that’s too obvious. We’ll call him “Mark D.” Mark D. accuses McLaren of wanting:

“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.

In contrast to the tattooed, sword-toting Jesus of his critics, McLaren describes a peaceful Jesus with a sword in his mouth, not in his hands (Mark misquotes Revelation 19:15), and with a robe drenched in his own blood, not the blood of his enemies. He writes:

“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.

Having debunked one critic’s Jesus, McLaren moves on to the Jesus of critic number two, whom we will call “Johnny Mac.” Johnny Mac wrote a book critical of McLaren that featured a rattlesnake on the cover. In an interview related to the book, he said:

“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 have to agree with McLaren’s critiques. In saying, “I can’t worship a Jesus that I can beat up,” we are putting ourselves in the shoes of the Roman soldiers mocking Jesus from the foot of the cross. Also, suggesting that Jesus did nothing to challenge the social institutions of his day (as John does in the interview to which McLaren refers) couldn’t be further from the truth. What about his association with prostitutes and sinners? What about his welcoming of Gentiles? What about his “You have heard it said . . . but I tell you” teachings? As John Meier points out, the historical Jesus is the halakic Jesus.

But, does this mean that McLaren’s Jesus is the real one? Not exactly. What do we do with those passages in Revelation that portray Jesus as killing his enemies? McLaren offers a reinterpretation of the blood on Jesus robe, but I can’t help but think that this is an allusion to Isaiah 63:3. And what do we do with Jesus’ teaching on hell? Sure, Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was at hand in his ministry, but he also expected something in the future.

I think McLaren’s error here is his failure to read the Scriptures in the way he suggests in part 3 (the authority question). Absent in these chapters is any attempt to describe Jesus on his own terms. Instead, McLaren starts with the biblical narrative that he outlined in part 2 and shoehorns Jesus into the narrative. As I argued earlier, I don’t think Jesus read the narrative of the Old Testament in the way that McLaren is suggesting. McLaren doesn’t offer any evidence in this section that he did.

McLaren’s Jesus leaves me with some unanswered questions. What is the kingdom of God? Is it fully present now, or are we awaiting its consummation? Is he writing off resurrection of the dead and eternal rewards and punishment? Did Jesus believe in those things? If there is future justice and retribution, is there room for the sword-toting, tattooed Jesus?

Ultimately, I think the “real” Jesus has elements of each of these Jesuses. Mark may be right that Jesus isn’t a limp-wrist hippie, but he did overcome the forces of evil through suffering, not through violence. John may be right that Jesus wanted to deliver humanity from hell, but that doesn’t mean he was unconcerned about present evil and suffering. McLaren may be right that Jesus is a liberator, but he’s a liberator from sin, not just from the powers of this age.

Brian McLaren's God Question

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.

McLaren’s third question is The God Question: Is God violent? Having insisted that we treat the Bible as a library rather than a constitution, he moves on to one of the stickier issues in treating the Bible as a library—What do we do with all of the violence in the Bible (especially in the Old Testament)? In Genesis 6, God sees that the earth is corrupt, and He decides to wipe everyone out in a deluge, save for Noah, his family, and some animals. Not only is this genocide, it’s geocide. What do we do with this story? If this is the way that God behaves, is it how we are to behave?

To show that the flood story is not an example to follow, McLaren lays out a hermeneutic that illustrates how our understanding of God has evolved from a “violent tribal God” to a “Christlike God.” For instance, Genesis 6 tells a story of oppression, flood, and deliverance by an ark. Exodus tells a similar story—only this time it is Israel that is oppressed, and baby Moses who is delivered by an ark (in Hebrew, the raft his mother made for him is called an ark). McLaren suggests that the Moses story may be a commentary on the Noah story—only our perceptions of God have evolved. No longer is God the God who liberates through genocide; He’s a God who liberates through salvation.

Brian is not suggesting that God has changed, only that people grow in their understanding of God. He writes:

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.

So, how do we, 2000 years after Jesus, develop our theology in conversation with the Bible? McLaren insists that Jesus is the ultimate authority for our theology, not the Bible. The Bible is an invaluable conversation partner, but not the ultimate authority. Instead, he suggests we plot the Bible’s teaching over time on any given subject, and look for a trajectory that represents the teaching of Jesus. For instance, take our treatment of “the other.” In the early parts of the Old Testament, other tribes were feared, conquered, and exterminated. When Joshua conquered the Promised Land, they slaughtered the Canaanites, showing them no mercy. Later in the Old Testament, we see this idea of Israel being a light to the Gentiles—that some day the nations would come and worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. In the New Testament, we see Jesus associate with Gentiles on their terms, and in Paul we see the Gentiles fully accepted into the fold. What does this trajectory suggest to us about how Jesus would like us to treat those outside of our “tribe”?

I find very little of Brian’s hermeneutic to be helpful. In fact, I was more discouraged than helped. McLaren misrepresents the way he develops his theology, and he falsely caricatures those who disagree as Neanderthals, abusers, and fear-mongers. To paraphrase Scot McKnight’s response to the book, there is very little generous and orthodox about this section.

At the very end of this section, McLaren illustrates his approach to the Bible and theology with a physical Bible. He opens the Bible to the beginning of the New Testament, and lays it on a table, spine up. The Old Testament side represents the Old Testament, the New Testament side represents the New Testament, and the spine represents Jesus. Most people read the Bible flat, taking bits and pieces from everything and giving them equal weight. Some might give precedence to the Old Testament (and he lifts the Old Testament side of the Bible as he says this), and others might give precedence to the New Testament (he lifts the Bible from the other end at this point). McLaren would prefer to read the Bible through the lens of Jesus (at this point he lifts the Bible by the spine so that both Old and New Testaments are sloping toward the middle).

I think that this is a great illustration—but it is not what McLaren is doing. The trajectory illustration is a better picture of what he is doing--imagine the cover of the New Testament extending a couple of inches to represent the 2000 years since it was written, and McLaren picking the Bible up by this extended side. Thus the Old Testament, Jesus, the New Testament, the church Fathers, the medieval church, the Reformers, and modern philosophers all lead up to him—the ultimate authority on what “Jesus” thinks we should think about God.

Jesus was the climax of God’s revelation to mankind (Hebrews 1:1–3). William Blake wrote that “the final revelation of Christianity is, therefore, not that Jesus is God, but that ‘God is Jesus.’” If we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus. What, then, do we do with the Bible?

First, we have to recognize that the Bible is God’s revelation to mankind, even if it is inferior revelation to that of Jesus (inferior in the sense that not as much can be deduced about God through the Bible as through Jesus).

Second, I think we have to recognize progress in revelation. I don’t know that I agree with McLaren’s illustration about Noah and Moses, but something like that is happening in the Bible. The clearest examples of this are the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the role of messiah. If the Old Testament teaches that God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that God would become human and die for the sins of humanity, and that messiah would be a suffering messiah, why didn’t anyone get this when Jesus walked the earth? Even Jesus’ own family and his closest followers missed the point. It wasn’t until after the resurrection that the church started sorting out this new revelation. I would argue, like McLaren, that God has eternally existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but only revealed Himself as such in the first century CE.

Third, we have to understand Jesus in his own context, not ours. This means we read the Old Testament because it was the Bible that Jesus read. He was immersed in the stories of the Old Testament, and his theology grew out of its pages. This also means that we read the New Testament as the immediate response of the church to what happened with Jesus. Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles wrote the New Testament as a record of what Jesus did and thought, and His significance for the life of the church. The church Fathers continued this tradition, as did many who came afterward.

So, when we try to understand “the Christlike God,” we have to look at Jesus in his context. How did Jesus arise out of first century Judaism? What did Jesus believe about the God of the Old Testament? Helping us to understand that is the New Testament—What teachings did Jesus pass on to his followers? As I mentioned in the previous post, the historical Jesus has to come out of first century Judaism, and He has to explain the rise of the church.

Is this what McLaren is trying to do? I don’t think so. He seems more interested in creating a theology that is more palatable to the new atheists. This may be a noble effort, but as his theology grows more and more acceptable to our contemporary situation, it looks less and less like the theology of Jesus. Jesus said and did some things that weren’t popular. He wasn’t crucified for being a nice guy.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with McLaren teaching “liberal” theology. I am confident enough with what I believe and familiar enough with what I don’t believe that I don’t need to agree with him on every point. Why doesn’t he just identify himself as a “liberal Christian” and get on with his life? Why does he have to demonize those who disagree? He writes:

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.

One of the first books I read by Brian McLaren was A New Kind of Christian (not to be confused with A New Kind of Christianity). In it, McLaren tells the story of a pastor’s journey from a “modernist” concept of God to a more “postmodern” concept. I liked a lot in the book—many of McLaren’s questions resonated with me. But when I read the sequel, The Story We Find Ourselves In, I was turned off by the rhetoric. In the first book, McLaren presented his opinions as ideas to be discussed. The tone of the book was, “These are just some thoughts I am having. Don’t hate me if you disagree.” But in the second book, the tone changed. He introduced some more conservative Christian characters to the novel that were little more than stereotypes. The shoe was clearly on the other foot, and McLaren dished out just as must hate as he claimed to be a victim of in the first book.

I didn’t read the third novel in the trilogy, but I tried to give McLaren the benefit of the doubt. I reasoned that perhaps he had significant negative experiences with conservatives, and I attributed his stereotyping to ignorance.

But, I am starting to think that this is not the case—it’s just the way he writes. He presents himself as the victim, and when he has gained his readers’ sympathy, he goes on the attack. If Brian wants to understand why people keep sending him hate mail, maybe he should stop asking why people are afraid of his ideas and look instead at the rhetoric he uses to describe the “conversation partner.”

Brian McLaren's Authority Question

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.

McLaren’s second question is the authority question: How should the Bible be understood? McLaren argues that the Bible has traditionally been treated as a constitution—a consistent and easily understood set of rules and regulations—but should rather be understood as a library—a collection of community-relevant documents that inform, but do not end, conversation.

In chapter seven, McLaren claims that we are in drastic need of a new way of reading the Bible. First, the current paradigm produces a truth problem—the church consistently finds itself on the wrong side of scientific investigation. Second, the current paradigm produces an ethics problem—the church finds itself unable to answer the pressing ethical questions of the day. Finally, the current paradigm produces a peace problem—preachers use the text to promote violence. The clearest example of the dominant hermeneutic’s shortcomings was the American church’s inane defense of slavery in the South, similar arguments for which are currently used to support other unethical social positions. (Hermeneutics is “the art and science of biblical interpretation,” and someone’s hermeneutic is their system for reading and interpreting the Bible. Some with a literal hermeneutic reads the Bible literally. Someone with an allegorical hermeneutic reads the Bible allegorically. Some with a redemptive-historical hermeneutic reads the Bible looking at how each passage relates to God’s redemptive history. There are as many hermeneutics as there are theologians.)

In chapter eight, contrasts a Bible-as-constitution hermeneutic with a Bible-as-library hermeneutic. In the former, the Bible is a collection of internally consistent, authoritative declaration about all things pertaining to life. For each of life’s questions there is a definitive verse that ends discussion. In the latter, the Bible is a collection of thoughts about God and life from different perspectives, none of which is intended to be absolute. While the Bible has a “unique” and “unparalleled” role in the conversation, it is not the only voice. Instead, it “preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed.” (83)

In chapter nine, McLaren presents the Book of Job as a hermeneutic paradigm. The story opens with a contest between Job and the Satan to see whether Job only worships God because of the good it brings him and his family. Although Job has done nothing wrong, God allows the Satan to plague him to test the basis of his allegiance. Neither Job nor his friends have any idea about the cosmic wager, and Job’s friends are quick to offer inaccurate platitudes about blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience, all of which come from the theology of Deuteronomy. Job rightly rejects his friends’ instructions, and when God finally speaks he takes Job’s side.

McLaren raises some stimulating hermeneutical questions related to Job. First, the character “God” rejects the theology of Job’s friends, but this theology comes from Deuteronomy. What do we do with this tension? Second, do we assume that the character “God” represents the thoughts of the real God? Perhaps “God’s” opinions are merely the opinions of the author, preserved in the biblical text to be debated and engaged with.

At this point, some readers may object to this idea, noting that Job is “inspired” by God. McLaren agrees that Job is “inspired,” but questions what this means. In the Bible-as-constitution paradigm, an inspired text means an accurate, conversation-stopping text. In McLaren’s Bible-as-library paradigm, an “inspired” text is a vital part of a community’s library that needs to be debated and engaged. Thus the story of Job needs to be a part of our conversation, even if we come to different conclusions than the author.

Although McLaren has much good to say in these chapters, he presents a false dichotomy. Rejection of McLaren’s hermeneutic does not mean endorsement of human slavery, or approval of those who use the Bible to endorse other, similar social positions. There are as many approaches to reading the Bible as there are people who read it. While I agree with McLaren in some of his criticisms, I am reluctant to accept his hermeneutical suggestions.

McLaren rightly calls this section “the authority question,” because at the heart of his critique of the dominant hermeneutic are the questions, Does the Bible have special authority? And, if so, Why? Before we can answer these questions, we have to answer the more foundational questions, What is the Bible? and How did we get the Bible? Once we establish what the Bible is, we can discuss its authority.

The Bible is not one book, but a collection of smaller books. (As I discuss the formation of the Bible, I am going to limit my comments to the formation of the New Testament, because that’s where I have a broader knowledge-base. The formation of the Old Testament was similar, but also unique.) There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament—the four Gospels, The Book of Acts, thirteen letters written by the Apostle Paul, seven other letters written by others, one anonymous homily (The Book of Hebrews), and one apocalyptic vision, recorded and sent as a letter to seven churches in Asia Minor (The Book of Revelation).

These books of the New Testament varied in structure, genre, and intent, but they circulated quickly within in the early church. Matthew, Mark, and Luke evidence dependence upon each other, convincing many scholars that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke combined Mark’s Gospel with other Jesus tradition to create their own Gospels. Colossians 4:16 instructs the readers to pass the letter on to the Laodiceans and to read that letter originally written to them. In 2 Peter 3:15, the author expresses familiarity with the writings of Paul. So, early on, the church saw the writings of the New Testament to be relevant to, if not authoritative upon, the teaching and ministry of their local congregations. As time went on, churches in the major metropolitan areas gained access to more and more of these writings, along with other letters and stories written by Christian authors.

The second and third centuries brought new and definitive challenges to the church—the rise of Gnosticism and other new ideas. The Gnostics combined Christian theology with Greek dualism to create their own hybrid system of belief. Much of it sounded Christian, but Gnostic thought demanded that their theologians deny either the full humanity of Jesus or the deity of the God of the Old Testament. They cut and pasted passages that they liked and disliked from the Old Testament and the forming New Testament, and they added books of their own that supported Gnostic theology (i.e. The Gospel of Thomas). The rise of Gnosticism, Arianism, and other new ideas led the church to discuss things like canon (which books are authoritative), orthodoxy (which teachings are faithful to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles), and heresy (which teachings are incompatible with the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles). It is in this context that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were “canonized” in the early fourth century. It is also in this context that the ancient creeds were written and ideas like Gnosticism, Arianism, etc. were condemned as heresy, i.e a departure from the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.

So, what is the New Testament? At one level, the New Testament is a collection of letters, sermons, and stories, written by the first generation of Christians, that best represent the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. Atheist historians even admit to that much. But people of faith see something else going on at another level. While the Holy Spirit is active in the life of all believers, we recognize that something special was going on in the ministries of Jesus and the Apostles. In fact, we would even say that the Spirit was so present in their ministries that the words that they have left behind contain the Word of God.

But, even if the Bible is the Word of God, it is the Word of God packaged in the words of people. When God speaks through the Scriptures, he does so through the personalities of those writing and reading. For instance, consider the following two passages, both commentaries on the Genesis account of Abraham’s justification:

“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).

How do we reconcile this blatant contradiction in Scripture? The only solution is to recognize that Paul and James mean something completely different by the terms “justified” and “works.” Paul is dealing with the question of whether someone has to be Jewish to be Christian, and he concludes, “No. A person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” James is dealing with the question of whether or not someone can have faith if they don’t care for the poor and downtrodden, and he concludes, “No. A person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” While the Bible is a divine book, it is also a human book, full of nuance from the human authors.

Now, McLaren would probably agree with everything I have written to this point. He believes that the Bible is the Word of God. He believes that it was written by human beings by the power of the Spirit. Where we disagree is in the nature of this relationship and the implications for the authority of the Scriptures.

I recognize a human element in the creation of the Bible. Just as Jesus was both God and man, I think the Bible is both the words of men and the Word of God. We need to use every historical, grammatical, and theological tool in our toolbox to best discern the message of the human author of the Bible, because it is only in understanding that message that we can understand the divine message. To propose wooden literalism as the only alternative to his hermeneutic is misleading by McLaren. There is a middle ground that accounts for the language, culture, and genre of the Bible that doesn’t reduce it to one voice among many in the development of theology.

So, what of McLaren’s hermeneutic? McLaren inappropriately elevates the novel over the ancient. G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Democracy means that no voice is excluded on the accidence of his birth. Tradition means that no voice is excluded on the accidence of his death.” Christianity is a communal faith, and when we read the Bible we are communing with those who have gone before. Their voices are important and they deserve to be considered.

Further, while McLaren can point to a few examples of bad theology stemming from a wooden hermeneutic, he doesn't show how his hermeneutic can prevent similar bad theology. When we allow the spirit of the age to control the conversation, we are vulnerable to the prejudices and evils of that age.

When you read the words of Jesus, he doesn’t enter the conversation as a dialog partner, but as our Lord. To treat him as less than Lord is to betray the heart of Christianity. The same can be said about the words of the Apostles—they spoke with authority as men with a unique gifting and calling. We reject their thoughts about God at our own peril.

Like I said, McLaren gets a lot right in this section. We can’t neglect the artistic elements of the Bible—much of it intends to raise questions or stir emotions, and not all of it can be read like a constitution or recipe. But it is unfair to characterize all of the Bible as a mere conversation starter. The message of the Bible represents to teachings of our fathers in the faith and the One that we worship as Lord and God. As Paul wrote about the authority behind one of his “judgments” (sticking his tongue firmly in his cheek), “Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor 7:40, see 7:25)

Brian McLaren's Narrative Question

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.

McLaren calls his first question the narrative question: What is the overarching storyline of the Bible? He notes that traditionally, the narrative of the Bible has been interpreted as Creation-Fall-Redemption/Damnation. In other words, God created the world perfect, human beings “Fell” from grace through sinning, Jesus died on the cross, and one day He will return to resurrect the Christians to eternal life and condemn the unbelievers to eternal torment.

McLaren has two problems with this narrative. First, he finds it morally deplorable. In the traditional narrative, God starts with a perfect, pain-and-evil free world, but ends with a world in which a good portion of creation is suffering in Hell. He writes:

“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.

Brian McLaren's Ten Questions that Are Transforming the Faith

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:

1. The narrative question: What is the overarching story line of the Bible?
2. The authority question: How should the Bible be understood?
3. The God question: Is God violent?
4. The Jesus question: Who is Jesus and why is he important?
5. The gospel question: What is the gospel?
6. The church question: What do we do about the church?
7. The sex question: Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it?
8. The future question: Can we find a better way of viewing the future?
9. The pluralism question: How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?
10. The what-do-we-do-now question: How can we translate our quest into action?

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.

Scot McKnight on Brian McLaren's New Book

I have appreciated Scot McKnight's approach to Brian McLaren. He gives him the benefit of the doubt, shows him grace and patience, and looks for the good in his writings. This makes his review of Brian's new book all the more damning. He writes, "Unfortunately, this book lacks the 'generosity' of a genuine orthodoxy, and, frankly, I find little space in it for orthodoxy itself."

I'm going to read the book for myself, but, sadly, this feels like McLaren's last credible defender jumping ship.

Jared Wilson on "Evangelicalism with More Cowbell"

Jared Wilson has a great post at Evangel about the new building project at First Baptist Dallas. He links to some impressive videos that show you just what $130 million will get you.

I predict that this campaign will be an epic failure. I went to FBCD for a number of years. I almost quit the ministry after my time there. They need a new building, but their problems run much deeper than that.

Allen Yeh's Review of The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah

Allen Yeh has written a great review of The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah. He says everything I thought when I read the book but was afraid to say because I am white.

Dr. Soong-Chan's book is important, but I agree with Dr. Yeh's critiques.

Michael Spencer on What Is Wrong with the Church

This is fantastic.

IMonk--Evangelical Untouchables 4

Michael Spencer has posted the fourth installment of the Evangelical Untouchables. This week we were asked our opinion of formal church membership. You can read my response here.

Evangelical Untouchables 1

Michael Spencer has posted the first installment of a series called The Evangelical Untouchables on his blog, Internet Monk. (The series is a gangster theme--Untouchables as in Elliot Ness.) As I mentioned here earlier, I am one of the evangelical pastors he is interviewing for the series. Our first assignment was to describe the Gospel as we would to a group of unchurched 20-somethings. Then, we were to discuss a little bit of what our church was doing to promote the Gospel.

Faith Only Lasts Three Generations?

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman quotes a Chinese proverb, "Wealth only lasts three generations." The proverb means that when someone becomes wealthy through hard work and wise decisions, they normally pass a little bit of this ethic to their children along with the wealth they leave behind. Their children usually pass down the wealth to the third generation, but not the work ethic, so the third generation squanders the wealth. Friedman's warning is that the ethic that made America great is missing in the rising generation and that without major changes the future could be bleak for the American economy.

As the question of the hour for the American evangelical church is, "Why aren't twenty-somethings in the church?" I wonder if perhaps the Chinese proverb could be applied to faith. Maybe "Faith only lasts three generations."

Americans of three generations ago were great. They made our nation great, and they made evangelicalism great. In the hard years of our country—during World War 1, The Great Depression, and World War 2, a huge number of people became evangelical Christians. Theirs was an authentic faith birthed out of struggle. They experienced first-hand loss, poverty, and gross evil. They had to rely on God. They saw first-hand what the world looked like without God, and the prayers they prayed in fox holes stuck with them when the wars ended.

The generation after them inherited this faith, but they didn't have to work as hard for it. My generation in turn has inherited that faith, but we haven't had to work at all for it.

Essentially, we have a generation of trust-fund Christians who are living off of the faith of their grandparents. It’s no wonder we are leaving the church.

So, what does the future look like for evangelicalism? I think the prediction of our loss of numbers and influence is accurate. I think that when someone has a radical conversion to Christ as an adult, the effects of this conversion will spill over for about three generations. Right now our numbers are high because there were such a large number of adult conversions three generations ago. But the effects of this "revival" or "awakening" are wearing off as the older people are passing away and their less-committed descendants are walking away. So, one of two things will happen:

1. America will continue as it is and Christianity will decline in influence to the levels of Europe. There will continue to be genuine conversions, and these conversions will leave ripples for three generations. But unless the younger generations undergo significant spiritual experiences that cause them to "own" their faith for themselves, the ripples will stop after three generations.

2. America will undergo a catastrophe or in some other way experience "revival." World War 3 or an economic meltdown throws all predictions of the end of Christendom out the window, as they may lead to another time of mass conversion. These conversions may not be to evangelicalism, but to whatever branch of Christianity that best offers hope and an explanation of the catastrophe. The numbers of that branch will swell for three generations.

Regardless of which scenario plays out, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, we have a big God who is in control of history. He knows where it is going, and He's going to win in the end. Second, not everyone in the church is a Christian. Just because evangelicalism has large numbers and great influence doesn't mean that "Jesus is winning." The church will always consist of genuine believers and those who just show up for sociological reasons. We should expect nothing more. Third, Christianity is a global movement, not an American one. Ours is an age of a post-Christian west and a post-western Christianity. While the numbers may be down here, the Gospel flourishes in South America, Africa, and East Asia. More and more we will look to them for spiritual leadership. Finally, our kids have to embrace the faith for themselves. They can't inherit our faith. We can do our best to model Christianity for them (and we should, because they can tell what we really believe), but ultimately God has to speak to them, and they have to respond for themselves. So we need to pray for them.

The Evangelical Untouchables

Following up on the success of his Liturgical Gangstas series, Michael Spencer is starting a new series on Internet Monk called The Evangelical Untouchables. He has chosen seven evangelicals to represent six sub-cultures of evangelicalism--Southern Baptist, Calvary Chapel, Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church of America, Christian Missionary Alliance, and two from Dallas Seminary.

I applied and I am on the squad representing DTS and "Non-denominational/Bible Churches." The other DTS guy is Michael Patton from Reclaiming the Mind.

I'll link to all future posts. I have no idea what we will be discussing (but I suspect it is about "The Coming Evangelical Collapse").