Brian McLaren, one of the leading voices and visioneers in the Emergent Church culture, recently spoke at a conference for student and youth pastors at Willow Creek Community Church. It is an undeniable fact that McLaren has been working hard to encourage pastors and ministers to “reimagine” the Gospel. He is not a friend of traditional evangelical doctrines. At this latest speaking engagement McLaren questions the traditional doctrine of hell and the Second Coming of Jesus. His position on these matters has been made unquestionably clear in his latest book Everything Must Change.
I’d like to link several articles that are worthy of your attention and reflection.
David Roach’s article on the conference
The question is this: Can McLaren apparently misunderstand the heart of the Gospel so clearly and yet still be Christian? This isn’t a judgment. It is a question. McLaren often say very thought-provoking, insightful things about culture - both secular and sacred. However, in McLaren’s response to consumerism and an attachment to things and image so valued in our culture, he has, in my estimation, moved away from the core values of the Gospel. He has elevated the causes of poverty, social justice and love above the cause and aim of the Gospel.
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 23, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Jennifer
Elevated justice and love above the Gospel? Really? Which gospel are you referring to?
Is your problem mainly with his questioning the doctrine of hell? Because that is different than subordinating the aim of the gospel. Of course, if you understand the gospel mainly as a remedy for hell, then I could see how questioning it would seem really dangerous. But I think McLaren’s intent is to take what he considers the heart of the gospel and the teachings of Jesus/the Bible and reexamine how well the rest of doctrines are lining up with it. Another major goal of his work is to really examine what the biblical witness has to tell us about our doctrines. because it’s not nearly as straightforward on what hell is, who goes there and why, how long it lasts, etc., as most modern evangelical theology would suggest.
I also wonder if you’ve read any of McLaren’s thoughts in their entirety, rather than just looking at snippets that others have quoted while critiquing him. That’s an honest question, by the way, not an accusation. Obviously, that would make a difference in how you react to it. I read his “The Last Word and the Word After That” and LOVED it, but as you may have guessed, I’m probably more flexible in my doctrinal commitments than you would tend to be.
Anyhoo, regardless of whether you would count him as a fellow believer, I think he is raising some really valuable questions that need to be addressed. And I would guess that he is much more intent on causing us as a church to find ways to be more loving, caring, and devoted to Jesus than on demonstrating his Christianity. Sadly, because of the short-sightedness of his critics, he doesn’t seem to be succeeding in either.
April 23, 2008 at 7:30 pm
johnaaronmartin
Jennifer,
I would suggest that the causes of justice and the ability to love as God commands are implications of the Gospel. But they are not the Gospel itself. The Gospel is clearly stated throughout the NT. One such verse that provides clarity is 2Cor 5:21. Contextually we see the implications of this truth are that we are live as ambassadors for Jesus in the world. However, the implications cannot be said to be the Gospel. When this happens our focus becomes the implications rather than the Gospel itself.
My problem is not mainly with McLaren’s view of the doctrine of hell. It is with his view of the Gospel itself. I think you’ve already diagnosed the problem. You said: “McLaren’s intent is to take what he considers the heart of the gospel and the teachings of Jesus/the Bible and reexamine how well the rest of doctrines are lining up with it. ”
I believe McLaren has embraced a Gospel of his own choosing. The problem is “what he considers the heart of the gospel”. Because his worldview is steeped in postmodern epistemology, it is impossible for McLaren to embrace anything conclusively so his hold on the Gospel is tenuous at best. It is a fluid construct for McLaren, based less in objective truth and more in subjective experiences lived out within particular cultural contexts.
I have read some of McLaren’s works.
I’m not sure it’s fair to label his critics as “short-sighted”. This assumption necessarily assumes that McLaren is right in his observations and anyone who is critical of him is wrong. I hope you wouldn’t say this is true. Scripture makes it clear that it is our responsibility to be discerning believers and it is the responsibility especially of pastors to be on the look out for false teachers and false doctrines. The church certainly hasn’t fulfilled all the implications of the Gospel (any more than any one individual has faithfully followed Jesus as the Gospel demands), but this doesn’t mean we should embrace every kind of Jesus-speak the wind blows into our churches.
April 23, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Jennifer
Ah, I love 2 Corinthians. Haven’t read it in a while, thanks for pointing me to it. Anyhoo, yes, 2 Cor 5:21 has a clear straight-forward message. I am just not convinced this is the only articulation of a/the “gospel” that we have in the Bible. Here’s a couple other verses that make me wonder:
James 1:27 - “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Luke 4:18-19 - “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Both of these seem like good, sum up statements about what Christianity/Jesus entails. Neither of them mention sin. Neither of them mention faith. Neither of them suggest substitutionary atonement. Neither of them explicitly label their message as “the gospel,” but neither does 2 Cor 5:21. Why are these verses secondary to the verse you’ve pointed to?
Also, I certainly did not intend to suggest that critiquing McLaren is short-sighted, nor am I saying you need to agree with him. Of course, be discerning. I am just saying I think he has questions that need to be answered, and I just wish, in general, that responses to McLaren and to all the emergents were more constructive than defaming or accusatory. Your question of whether or not McLaren is a Christian is probably a larger question about what actually qualifies one as a Christian. But I think it also implies that if we develop some criteria that he doesn’t meet, then we don’t have to listen to him or deal with his observations, and I don’t think it’s that simple. I also think it’s beside the point. The point, his point at least, is what did Jesus think? What/who did Jesus care about? What does love look like, and how do we make it happen? And aren’t those questions we can and should be engaging? Is our purpose in the world to be something that can be recognized and categorized as “Christian,” or is our purpose to be like Christ?
April 24, 2008 at 5:23 pm
johnaaronmartin
Jennifer,
I think what we have here is a lack of understanding on what I mean by “Gospel”. It seems to me that when you articulate the Gospel you mean both the message and implications of the Gospel. I don’t want to dismiss the obvious implications of the Gospel in our lives, but at the same time, I see a distinction between the Gospel and the implications of the Gospel (though you may think I am splitting hairs here).
The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a sacrificial substitute for sinners and rose again in power, making a way for sinners to be reconciled to God by faith. There are profound implications to this message that have significant ramifications for the building of a community of redeemed sinners and how we are to interact with fallen humanity as we eagerly await the redemption of our bodies and creation. But these implications are not the same thing as the Gospel itself.
I would say that James 1:27 gives us a clear sense of how the message of the Gospel is supposed to work its way out in our lives. As sinners who recognize that we deserve God’s just wrath and condemnation, and as sinners who have received a reprieve from these things because God has satisfied his justice by pouring out his wrath on His Son, effectively terminating his anger towards us in our sin, this good news should inspire a life of faithfulness as we seek to be conformed to the image of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of the effect of the Gospel on our lives, we give ourselves away for the sake of orphans and widows, and seek to keep ourselves free from the pollution of the world which corrupts our flesh.
Luke 4:18-19 is different because your interpretation of this verse seems to be socio-political in ways I don’t believe the text intends. Commentator Darrell Bock says, “The oppression in view in Luke 4 is largely aimed against spiritual aspirations, as the light and blindness imagery makes especially clear. However, at the same time the scope of Jesus’ deliverance has implications for one’s relationship to fellow humans, as well as one’s relationship to God. The church must face these implications and reflect aspects of its mission. The gospel does have social implications, not so much directly for society, as it does for how the redeemed community approaches humans and social structures.”
When Jesus’ audience heard Isaiah 61, they would have immediately thought of God’s coming new age of salvation. This would not have been a socio-political idea. They would have thought of a spiritual and social transformation revealed through a new community.
The key to understanding the “poor” in Luke 4 is to understand it contextually. In Luke 6:23 the poor are compared to the prophets (those who bear and believe the message of God) and the rich (6:26) are those who reject the message of God. Jesus’ use of this quotation from Isaiah 61 clearly does not mean that Jesus has come to bring the Gospel primarily to those who are economically depressed. He is bringing his message to those who are open to receiving his Gospel. He is bringing his message to those who are morally and spiritually impoverished – which, as is the case – is commonplace among the poor because the rich are less likely to be aware of their spiritual poverty (Rev 3:14-220. The language of poverty has more to do with a proper response than it does with economic status.
I don’t think you can talk about the Gospel without talking about both sin and faith. Period. We may disagree here, but I think this reflects the language of Scripture as you look at the overall trajectory and implications of the Gospel.
McLaren may be asking questions that we really need to pay attention to and answer. However, one of my primary concerns about McLaren is that he is asking questions about Scripture at times that sound eerily like the question of the serpent in the Garden when the serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say…?”
All I have time for today. Thanks for your thoughts.
April 24, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Jennifer
Fascinating stuff! Here’s the thing. I have inherited a way of reading Luke that is much more in line with what you’re proposing, namely, that language of poverty, blindness, etc., points to spiritual conditions, not physical ones. Why have I inherited this way of reading? Because it is more in line with the way we in America live and think about the gospel. But surely the text itself has not spiritualized these terms. Bold claim! Let me defend it.
Luke is quoting Isaiah 61, as you’ve indicated. The Isaiah passage seems to suggest a much more holistic picture of restoration, both physical and spiritual. I’m not sure why you think this passage is somehow not socio-political, since it was written to a people living in the wake of socio-political oppression and exile, but we’ll let that slide. If it’s spiritual and social transformation, then it’s in part socio-political, but anyhoo. The passage includes language of freedom from darkness and binding up the broken-hearted, and those are spiritual/emotional conditions. However, in Luke’s quoting of this passage, he leaves out these phrases! Who is Jesus ministering to for Luke? The poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. Nothing about the broken-hearted and nothing about darkness.
Also, you reference the Lukan beatitudes in Luke 6 as evidence that Luke is using “rich” and “poverty” as spiritual descriptions. Curious. When one compares these Lukan beatitudes with those found in Matthew’s Gospel, one sees again that Luke removes the spiritual language and leaves only physical language. Matthew blesses “the poor in spirit;” Luke blesses “the poor.” Matthew blesses “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness;” Luke blesses “those who hunger. now.” Yes, the rich reject God. But how would rejecting God make one rich? Who would ever say that? The only way I can see to make sense of this passage is if poverty and wealth are literal. I mean, Luke is not the kind of guy to shy away from spiritualized language. He has angels and demons popping up left and right, where neither Matthew nor Mark include them. If he meant “the spiritually impoverished,” in light of his remarkable emphasis on the Spirit, I think he would have said so. Yet, it seems if we attempt to understand Luke 4 contextually, we see that a strong case could be made that Luke sees Jesus coming as a liberator to the physically poor and as a harbinger of doom for the physically wealthy. If you look at Luke 16:19-31, you have an example of a rich man, who didn’t help the poor, being sent to hell/torment, and a poor man, who did nothing particularly saintly, being sent to Abraham’s bosom. If that doesn’t challenge our understanding of justification by faith alone, I don’t know what could.
I apologize, I get very excited about the Bible. If you think I’m missing something, I would welcome your thoughts.
I understand that for you, there is a clear distinction between “the Gospel” and “the implications of the Gospel,” the former being justification through faith in Jesus and cleansing from sin, and the latter being all manner of other things. But I think that’s your distinction, and evangelicalism’s distinction, not the Bible’s. Again, because there is no indication in the Bible that verses like 2 Cor 5:21 are to be given foundational priority over these other verses I’ve mentioned.
Hope you don’t think I sound like the serpent! It’s true, the serpent did ask “Did God really say…?” But I know of another mischief maker that did the very same thing, and He’s the one I’m after. The serpent’s craftiest move, afterall, is to dress up in a Jesus costume, or to slick back his hair, put on a suit, and stand behind a pulpit. Maybe our traditions, our orthodoxy, can dull us to the voice of God, and the voice of Scripture (e.g., Mark 7:1-23).