- RSS FeedSubscribe
- « Previous PostA La Carte (2/16)
- Next Post »Discipline
A New Kind of Christianity
- 02/16/10
- 102
Early in George Orwell’s iconic 1984 is a particularly haunting scene. Winston, the hero of the story, is confessing to his diary a sexual encounter with a prostitute. Though Big Brother rigidly controls even sexual union and though sex is viewed as “a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema,” still Big Brother cannot remove from humanity the desire and the need for intimacy. One evening Winston spots a prostitute near a train station. “She had a young face,” he writes, “painted very thick. It was really the paint that appealed to me, the whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips. Party women never paint their faces.” In a society where abject fear and loneliness are the norm, Winston craves the intimacy of sex. But as he goes into this woman’s apartment and lies with her, he turns up a lamp, casting a bright light on her face. And immediately he sees that the appearance of beauty was a lie. “What he had suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman was old. The paint was plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing nothing except a cavernous blackness. She had no teeth at all.”
But, despite his horror, his revulsion, Winston continues. In his diary he writes “When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.” Though the woman loses all sexual appeal, Winston continues in this act. He continues because, though his desire is quenched, still sex is an act of rebellion. By sleeping with this prostitute he is engaging in an act of heart-felt rebellion against Big Brother.
It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about Brian McLaren and got in trouble. Reflecting on seeing him speak at a nearby church, I suggested that he appears to love Jesus but hate God. Based on immediate and furious reaction, I quickly retracted that statement. I should not have done so. I believed it then and I believe it now. And if it was true then, how much more true is it upon the release of his latest tome A New Kind of Christianity. In this book we finally see where McLaren’s journey has taken him; it has taken him into outright, rank, unapologetic apostasy. He hates God. Period.
“It’s time for a new quest,” write McLaren, “launched by new questions, a quest across denominations around the world, a quest for new ways to believe and new ways to live and serve faithfully in the way of Jesus, a quest for a new kind of Christian faith.” McLaren frames the book around “Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith.” They cut to the very heart of the faith, foundational in every way. He asks:
The narrative question: What is the overarching story line of the Bible?
The authority question: How should the Bible be understood?
The God question: Is God violent?
The Jesus question: Who is Jesus and why is he important?
The gospel question: What is the gospel?
The church question: What do we do about the church?
The sex question: Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it?
The future question: Can we find a better way of viewing the future?
The pluralism question: How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?
The what-do-we-do-now question: How can we translate our quest into action?
His purpose, he insists, is not to answer the questions, but to provide responses to them. Answers indicate finality, responses indicate conversation and openness. “The responses I offer are not intended as a smash in tennis, delivered forcefully with a lot of topspin, in an effort to win the game and create a loser. Rather, they are offered as a gentle serve or lob; their primary goal is to start the interplay, to get things rolling, to invite your reply. Remember, our goal is not debate and division yielding hate or a new state, but rather questioning that leads to conversation and friendship on the new quest.” But that is mere semantics. Whether answering or responding (whether saying tomato or tomahto), what McLaren does through these ten questions is to completely rewrite the Christian faith. His “gentle lobs” rip the very heart out of the faith.
At the center of his remix of the faith is the claim that most Christians look at their faith through a flawed Platonic, Greco-Roman lens instead of through a biblical, Jewish lens. “God’s unfolding drama is not a narrative shaped by the six lines in the Greco-Roman scheme of perfection, fall, condemnation, salvation, and heavenly perfection or eternal perdition. It has a different story line entirely. It’s a story about the downside of ‘progress’—a story of human foolishness and God’s faithfulness, the human turn toward rebellion and God’s turn toward reconciliation, the human intention toward evil and God’s intention to overcome evil with good.” This Greco-Roman God, the one that most Christians believe in, is a “damnable idol … defended by many a well-meaning but misguided scholar and fire-breathing preacher.”
McLaren plays the all-too-typical “everyone else has it wrong” card. It turns out that most of us (all but a handful of enlightened intellectuals, as it happens) have been reading the Bible through the distorted lens of a Greco-Roman narrative. This narrative produced many false dualisms, an air of superiority and a false distinction between those who were “in” and those who were “out.” These three marks of false narrative have so impacted our faith that we can hardly see past them. But Brian is willing and eager to play Moses, leading us out of the Egypt of our own ignorance and into the Promised Land of the new Christianity.
It would take more time than I’d be willing to give it to offer a point-by-point explanation of what responses McLaren proposes for each of the ten questions or to document the ramifications of his new theology. He denies the Fall, he denies original sin, he denies human depravity, he denies hell. And that is just in the first few pages. Needless to say, all of this leads him to a radically unbiblical view of the cross and the purpose and work of Jesus. Though he insists that he considers the Bible “inspired” (though certainly not in a traditional sense) he also says that most Christians have read it wrong, having viewed it as a kind of constitution in which God gives Spirit-breathed, inerrant revelation of himself. “I’m recommending we read the Bible as an inspired library. This inspired library 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.” After all, “revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.”
What does the Bible accomplish then? What does it teach us about God? “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.” The Bible is an ongoing conversation about God’s character in which humans come to progressively more accurate understandings of who he is. There is no reason to think that any of them actually had it right. His reinterpretations of Job and Romans are a sight to behold, so muddled and so fabricated that they become absolutely nonsensical. There is a deliberate ignorance at work here.
The arrogance of it all is stunning. McLaren is angrier than he has been before and more scornful. Still, though, he presents his ideas coated with the veneer of a false humility. But, handily, he builds into the book the means he will use to answer his critics. He will simply accuse his detractors of having this old Greco-Roman understanding of the faith. We poor fundamentalists cannot be among the new kind of Christian until we have been enlightened to understand the Bible through an entirely new narrative structure. Only then will this all become clear. Until then, more to be pitied are we than any men.
Here, in A New Kind of Christianity it’s as if McLaren is screaming “I hate God!” at the top of his lungs. And swarms of Christians are looking at him with admiration and saying, “See how that guy loves God?” I don’t know what McLaren could do to make the situation more clear. In fact, his book is nearly indistinguishable from many of the de-conversion narratives that are all the rage today. Compare it with Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem and you’ll see many of the same arguments and the same misgivings; you’ll find, though, that Ehrman is at least more honest. He at least has the integrity to walk away from faith altogether rather than reinventing God in his own image.
McLaren says he would prefer atheism over belief in the God so many of us see in Scripture. Well, he is not far off. This new kind of Extreme Makeover: God Edition Christianity is no Christianity at all. It is not a faith made in the image of Jesus Christ, but a faith made in the image of a man who despises God and who is hell-bent on dragging others along with him as he becomes his own god.
As Winston turned up the light, he saw that prostitute for what she really was. Here McLaren turns up the light and we see what his faith, what his Christianity, really is. We see it in all its toothless, caked-on horror. This new kind of Christianity is simply paganism behind a thick coating of false humility and biblical language. It is an expression of rebellion against God far more than it is a pursuit of new intimacy with the Creator.
And like Orwell’s whore, many will go to this book seeking intimacy with God only to content themselves with rebellion against him. For each is satisfying in its own way.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
Releasing on April 1, The Next
Published in 2008, this book
This is a guide that calls men,
This review of the bestselling
New to the site? You can get
This is a guide written
Comments (102)
Many pastors preach and teach and practice goodwill as if everyone is heading for heaven and no danger of eternal hell exists… Universalism has become thoroughly respectable, while assertion of hell for the most part, at least in the Western Protestant world, is felt to be disreputable to a degree.” - J.I. Packer
Recently read these words and thought they relate. I’d venture say that most pastors in the West today are functional universalists, which is not surprising at all. McLaren is no exception to this trend.
McLaren is nothing new. I recently wrote a brief article comparing the statements of McLaren with the 19th century liberal theologian Horace Bushnell. The blog I originally contributed to folded but it is preserved here: http://howawesomeami.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/a-generous-orthodoxy.html
For kns, although Tim filed this under a book review it would be fair to say that this article never claims to be anything other than a response to McLaren as a whole.
There are heretics in every generation essentially saying the same things.
You lost me at a 50-year-old woman being described as “quite an old woman.” :(
“It strikes me as supremely ironic that someone championing “discernment” skills falls so woefully short of displaying them in a simple review post. ”
I liked the review. Tim gives us his thoughts, and to honest, Brian has his own theology, and not the Holy Scriptures theology. His teachings are man-centered, and not Christ-centered.
Does he hate the God of the Bible?
I don’t know. He may well.
The religious leaders in Jesus’ day said they loved God, but they hated Jesus. So they hated God. Their ftaher was the devil, not God, although they claimed God as their Father.
The key to discernment is the Scriptures, not Brian McLaren’s books, and writings and thoughts.
He takes verses that he likes, and forms his own gospel, and they says things like “maybe not, maybe yes, maybe maybe”, the guy drives me nuts with his indecision.
The Bible is clear. The truth is pure and simple, and Satna subtly, and masterfully, wnats to dismatle this foundation of truth the Church has. He is very crafty, and he uses all kinds to work his schemes.
I wrote to Brian, and shared with him my thoughts, and heart of how his teachings were unbiblical. I never got a response.
May the Lord bring Him back to the truth, to the Holy Writ. Amen.
Thanks again Tim for the post.
Jeremy,
I realize Tim isn’t in being “detached”. But I don’t think anyone needs to be “detached” in order to write a compelling, critical review. But I presume they do need to at least provide arguments - and not simply assertions. I simply see no “connections” going on at all; but rather a string of statements that lack support (as here presented). As I said, I’m happy to call this a comment or rant. It’s his blog and he’s welcome to put what he likes on it; and he’s obviously willing to be subject to criticism. He was sarcastic, and I responded in kind.
I feel no need to either defend or comment upon Maclaren’s text here since I was commenting on how Tim’s post is symptomatic of what Mark Noll calls the “scandal of the evangelical mind”.
Perfect juxtaposition of the toothless horror and McClaren. Yes! Well done Tim. And as for the Orc defenders of Brian Saruman McClaren, there is still a dwarf that still draws breath in Markham. Let them come!
“The claim Maclaren “hates God” is superbly supported by absolutely no evidence whatsoever.”
On the contrary, that claim is well supported by demonstrating that McLaren hates God’s own description of himself, of man, and of human and redemptive history. He hates God’s account of things so severely that he goes on to make up his own version of everything.
Insightful analysis, Tim. I think that many people owe D.A. Carson a big apology. They said he over-reacted, and he’s been proved right. They said he had an edge to what he said, but he isn’t even close to the nasty that Brian packs in this book. At least it’s out in the clear light of day now. I’d like to hear from friends of Brian—that they appreciate his friendship but can no longer agree with his theology. Silence now is the same as an endorsement.
kns,
I think all I can say is that we’re reading (or expecting) two different things from what Tim has written. I don’t wish to press the issue, so I’ll leave it at that.
“I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart. When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn”.
-Thomas Cranmer, 1556
Tim Challies recants his recantation!Hooray!
The toothless old whore. Wow- what a picture of the sinfulness of sin…
“Silence now is the same as an endorsement.” Dr. Wittmer brings up an excellent point; I wonder, will we be hearing emerging church leaders denouncing McLaren’s progressive Christian theology?
Jeremy,
You’re right, we are taking different readings away from the post (horror of horrors). Also - I just noticed that you said that I said Tim was ignorant. I never said that at all. I said his review was a poor one and then gave some reasons why. That’s an important difference.
David, read more carefully. I am saying that Tim’s post provides no evidence. Talking about Maclaren more generally is talking about something other than my comment.
(All of that said… I sincerely love you all.)
ksn,
Sorry, I misread you. As for any evidence, I do believe Tim quotes McLaren (though with no page reference). And regardless, I don’t think the post is supposed to be taken in seclusion, but rather with everything Tim’s said about McLaren in mind. That’s the way I read it, anyway.
“Also, I am having trouble believing that all of Tim’s eager little followers/commentators have actually read this book, let alone any of his others classics.”
It doesn’t follow logically that one has to read everything an author has written to make a statement. One cannot give a complete picture of course, but that doesn’t preclude one from giving an accurate picture.
And in this case, I believe this be an accurate picture. I actually have read several of Maclaren’s books (although not this one - I think it’s new?) as I wanted a fuller understanding of the man. And I was very disturbed with what I read. This review is completely within line of my own conclusions. The points Challies writes are only points Maclaren wrote about years ago, taken to their end.
So, bravo, Challies, right on.
For the record, I automatically delete comments containing insulting language like “all of Tim’s eager little followers,” as well as any follow-up comments protesting said deletion.
Also, to assert that BC “loves Jesus, but hates God” is worse than anything BC has ever said, and denies Christ’s supremacy. Jesus even said so - that to know Him is to know the Father. In John 17:5, Jesus reminds us that they cannot be dissected, despite our limited ability to grasp this. If he (BC) “loves Jesus”, then, by default He loves GOD - since, as it says in Col 1:15-29, He IS God.
What does it take for someone to be our brother in Christ?
There is a big difference between pointing out a wolf, and demonizing a [seemingly confused] sheep.
By all means, SHOOT THE WOLVES. However, please discern accurately that they are, in fact, a wolf.
Paul talked about not allowing anyone to associate w/ the worshipping community that added to Christ. It is clear that they’re are many who believe BC to be teaching “Jesus, plus something”, but I disagree. If anything, it is quite the opposite. His ongoing work has been fleshing out the Gospel into real life - stripped down of all the unnecessary things that have been weighing it down.
The “he hates God” being somewhat sensational, it is clear that the deception has come out of the camouflage and is parading down mainstreet. Let no one deceive us away from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Jason,
Many view Jesus as distinct from God and will not agree with your view or interpretation of Scripture. It’s very possible for one such as McLaren to love Jesus but hate God—many people do exactly that. Rather, think they are doing that. I think Tim has only said what BC is afraid to say, or won’t himself admit (having read the majority of McLaren’s books, I’m inclined to agree with Tim). McLaren may be good at reminding us that faith requires action, but that doesn’t really mean much either way.
Jeremy,
Again, I acknowledge in my comment that Tim quotes Maclaren’s book. But to me that is not enough. I don’t read Tim’s blog generally, so all I have to go on is this post, though I’ve tried to keep that in mind.
I think it is fair to say that McLaren hates God (the God of the Bible and the one true God, that is) when he says in his new book that he would rather be an atheist than worship the God most Evangelicals do.
I actually cannot think of anything more hateful to sit in judgment of God and say if he is like what the Bible says than I hope he does not exist.
Tim,
I suggest that you go cleanse your palette by returning to your 10 Million Words project and read something more edifying like a biography of Paris Hilton.
I think it is fair to say that McLaren hates God (the God of the Bible and the one true God, that is) when he says in his new book that he would rather be an atheist than worship the God most Evangelicals do.
I actually cannot think of anything more hateful to sit in judgment of God and say if he is like what the Bible says than I hope he does not exist.
“His ongoing work has been fleshing out the Gospel into real life - stripped down of all the unnecessary things that have been weighing it down.”
Could you mention a couple of these “things” jason? If you have the time.
“Also, I am having trouble believing that all of Tim’s eager little followers/commentators have actually read this book, let alone any of his others classics.”
the idea of Mclaren having something that could be considered a “classic” is quite frightening…but yet humurous as the same time…mostly frightening.
“When I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old at least.”
I’m about to turn 50 - I don’t think 50 is really that old.
I think it is fair to say that McLaren hates God (the God of the Bible and the one true God, that is) when he says in his new book that he would rather be an atheist than worship the God most Evangelicals do.
I actually cannot think of anything more hateful to sit in judgment of God and say if he is like what the Bible says than I hope he does not exist.
“the idea of Mclaren having something that could be considered a ‘classic’ …”
That cracked me up, too.
For those of you pointing out that age 50 is not old, I agree, but the article was quoting Orwell— this is not Tim’s own statement.
@ Alexander
I know.
Thanks for the post Tim. McLaren has always bothered me. Even when I didn’t have much Biblical knowledge, whenever I read something of his, I cringed.
Now, as a seminary student, and being introduced to much theological thinking, both good and bad, and studying the history of Christian theology extensively, I wonder where McLaren gets the idea that the God most evangelicals worship is a Greco-Roman Platonic god. Maybe someone could tell me where he comes up with that.
Reminds me of Reinhold Neibuhr’s analysis of liberalism: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Well at least the wolf has stripped himself of the sheepskin.
Tim: Thanks for contending for the faith!
Jason,I appreciated reading your comments and providing an alternate perspective. You are not alone.
@kns @jason @KC
what is frustrating to me about folks that share your sentiments on these sorts of things is that you assume that pointing our error (As Tim and commenters on here have done) is hateful and unloving.
Not at all. Speaking truth clearly and straight forward. THAT is the truly loving thing to do.
No one, at least on this post, has suggested that Brian M is beyond redemption. Nor have they suggested that they don’t want to see him reconciled.
I would love nothing more than to see men like Brian Maclaren, Rob Bell, Tony Campolo, etc repent and start preaching Christ!
That hasn’t happened thus far and it doesn’t seem that they are headed in that direction either. Everything seems to be pushing them down an ever increasing decline.
Maclaren hides behind the disguise of just wanting to have an ongoing “conversation” so that when conservatives raise questions and flat out attack his views he can pretend to be the hurt puppy in the corner. Then he can make his baseless claims that critiquing him is mean and hateful. As some of you who support him have done.
The motivation for our critiques must be out of love. That’s demonstrating Christ. But if you think that showing love means allowing him to propagate his lies and unbiblical views without being called out for it, then you haven’t paid close enough attention to Christ’s interactions with the religious leaders of His day.
At this point in time, Brian IS a wolf in sheep’s clothing who has crept in not sparing the flock. He needs to be called to repent. And as overseers of the Truth we have the obligation to try and restore him…
Hateful would be if we didn’t care that he taught false doctrine. Hateful would be letting him persist on and turn a blind eye as he steps dangerously close to denying even more essential truths of Christianity.
If I taught something false, I would expect no less from those who loved me than for them to challenge me on it so that I would take a hard look at the issue to see what the Bible had to say.
Someone earlier on here said it well, Maclaren seems to be trusting in his own theology rather than the theology laid out in the Bible.
It seems with BM and others of the emerging crowd that the “wisest and best” have the ability to call a spade a “man-made manual excavation implement”! Eventually there are those who see through the obfuscation and see it and call it for what it is.Apostasy! Thanks Tim
I would love for this debate to go away. Soon. I am so tired by it.
I left the Emergents around 5 years ago because they were blithe about things that I thought were very, VERY important. I wanted answers. They wanted questions. The morass of the Emergent church left me completely intellectually and spiritually unfulfilled because, apparently, answers don’t exist and even trying to find answers is a dirty old Greek idea and, apparently, “real” New Testament Jewish thinking never asked for answers to questions.
The call to go back to early Hebrew thinking over and against Greek thinking is nothing but plain stupid ignorance with either no education behind it or intentional ignorance behind it. The Hebrews were more interested in absolute answers than anyone else of whom I am aware.
Thanks for the very helpful review Tim. While an excellent piece of prose I should have liked some clearer examples and quotes from the book itself.
So I googled the word ‘heresy’ the other day. Oddly enough, McLaren’s picture came up.
There’s also a kind and graceful way to correct, disagree and critique. In my opinion that’s missing from Tim’s review and a lot of comments here. So here are some honest questions I have, can Christians agree with BM? Do you need to be reformed to be saved? Are arminians and or emergents true believers? Who’s in and who’s out (Heaven)? Should we be (brutally) honest as long as it’s out of love for the other?(I find most people respond better to truth with kindness. I heard it said’ “truth without compassion is cruelty.”) I do agree pointing out an error to people we love is good, but should it not come with respect and kindness? And Is it really any ones place to judge who “hates God”?
God give us the grace to differ graciously.
While I am not fully in the camp of the Emergent Church, I can’t deny that I—-and a few people I know—-haven’t been shaped by it. I have read Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis and a close friend of mine adores Don Miller’s writing (Blue Like Jazz AND A Million Miles in a Thousand Years). Velvet Elvis isn’t a fully theologically solid book but I am not one to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I learned a lot from his book, things I probably would have never learned if it had not been for the emergent conversation that is taking place. I cannot speak for the theology of Don Miller’s writings since I have not read him but my close friend’s faith is theologically sound and Miller’s book has challenged her to live radically for God in a way that no other book has. There may be a lot of junk in these books but that doesn’t mean we need to discard what’s golden.
I mention Rob Bell and Don Miller here because they are two other major leading voices of this emergent movement. I don’t defend or condemn Brian McLaren’s book or theological teaching because I have never personally encountered it. While I respect Mr. Challies’s review, it appeared to be a scathing assessment on a book that appeared to have no redeeming quality. If my experience with Bell and my friend’s experience with Miller are any indication, it probably is a book with a few choice nuggets of wisdom accompanied with a good lot of bad teaching. Reading this review along with seeing the comments on this blog post have prompted me to add this book to my reading list. While I take book reviews and book critiques into consideration, a person’s review will not fully define or shape my opinion of an author or his or her work.
As J (commenter 88) pointed out, kindness and graciousness in disagreeing and critiquing McLaren are missing here, mainly among the commenters. After reading Jason’s comment (comment 25), I read further as following comments ungraciously and unkindly jumped all over him for attempting to provide an alternate view. He simply said that based on his previous reading of McLaren’s book, he had something valuable to say and that he wasn’t afraid of finding truth in them all and “spitting out the bones.” I would have never made a comment on this blog if I had seen more comments directed toward Jason out of Christian love rather than supposed righteous indignation.
I’ve been a part of legalistic fundamental Christianity that called anything heresy that wasn’t fully in line with its doctrinal beliefs. I was taught that all Roman Catholics are bound for hell. I was taught that you are saved by grace and not of works but was made to feel as though the lack of constant attendance at church and soulwinning made me less of a Christian. Having come out of that, I suppose I, too, have a “generous orthodoxy.” Not all Roman Catholics are unsaved and showing up to church each week doesn’t make you a better Christian than the person who doesn’t go to church regularly.
From a non-regular reader of this site, the commenters here seem to dislike anyone who attempts to have a differing view than the majority voice. It is possible to be critical of someone’s teaching with a loving attitude. And I’ll say it again, there’s no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If that’s the case, I would have walked away from Biblical Christianity once I left my legalistic fundamentalist church.
@KC”From a non-regular reader of this site, the commenters here seem to dislike anyone who attempts to have a differing view than the majority voice. It is possible to be critical of someone’s teaching with a loving attitude.”
I think you need to make the distinction between the general dislike of Brian’s view and your defense of him, and as to how you are really being treated here. The simple fact that people don’t embrace your arguments, doesn’t make them unloving and unkind by default.
Personally, I thought Tim’s critique was biblical, civil and restrained and that he presented his total disdain for Brian’s book in a way that should be applauded - with gentleness and respect.
@J”There’s also a kind and graceful way to correct, disagree and critique. In my opinion that’s missing from Tim’s review and a lot of comments here. So here are some honest questions I have, can Christians agree with BM? Do you need to be reformed to be saved? Are arminians and or emergents true believers?”
J, you seem to be projecting some pent up frustrations at Reformed folk in your “honest questions” because the tone of the commentors and Tim’s post are quite civil here. I’m not sure where you’re coming from theologically, but if I could share a critique of my own it is that Emergent-types and their defenders often fall back to ad hom attacks about tone whenever they are thoughtfully and biblically challenged. That’s not to say that we Reformed folk err when it comes to kindness in discussions like this one, we certainly do. But it’s amazing to see how regular the attack is even when a critic bends over backwards to project such kindness.
“From a non-regular reader of this site, the commenters here seem to dislike anyone who attempts to have a differing view than the majority voice.”
How is ABOVE part of having a loving attitude?
Amazing how liberals can question, but anyone questions them, and somehow it’s automatically “unloving” and “judgmental.” The Tu quoque fallacy in all its irrational glory…
McLaren says we falsely worship idols. His position is we are NOT actually Christians. (Is that a loving attitude, BTW? Just asking) So we disagree with McLaren. But WAIT…now we are suddenly crushing dissent and kicking helpless puppy dogs for questioning his position. LOL. I’m not surprised by this attitude, because really it’s just typical, utterly predictable and boring.
Is there a commandment that being a “progressive Christian” requires espousing the rest of the progressive fundamentalist dogma, e.g. perpetually playing the victim, whining about being judged even as one judges, calling opponents idiots ad hominem, i.e. “scandal of the evangelical mind.” Somehow these are part of the package, such as having an Obama bumper sticker on your Prius?
Again, what shocks me is how boring it all is.
Bravo, Tim!
Well said. Pithy and cogent.
kns,
Have you actually read Noll’s “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” or are you just using the term? Noll paints a picture of faithful, evangelical Christians speaking deeply on a broad range of cultural and intellectual topics.
McLaren, not Tim Challies, far better illustrates an inability to speak prophetically or intellectually about anything precisely because he dishonestly asserts that he isn’t making any assertions, just starting “conversations.”
I remember John Armstrong a year or so ago calling McLaren the next Francis Schaeffer! Then again, Armstrong wandered over the path sometime ago.
@KCThis issue is, how much error makes you go “hmm, I think I’m just not going to read this.” I read Velvet Elvis carefully and there was one chapter that I thought was really good. But every other chapter had theology that was really poor at best, and simply not Christian at worst.
When Rob Bell says that we’re jumping on a trampoline (being a Christian) and theology, well that’s just the springs and that’s not the point, I agree with him in a very limited sense: theology is not the point.
But I believe he’s then thrown out his theology. And what happens to a trampoline when you break the springs? You hit the ground.
Here’s my question: Do you honestly believe that Rob Bell (he’s the only guy I’ve read) preaches the Gospel? That people are saved from death through faith in Jesus Christ?
I’ll say no, not when you dig into what he’s saying. He preaches this universalist thing that uses the name and not the substance of Jesus Christ (I’ve read Velvet Elvis, watched the videos, listened to sermons, couldn’t bring myself to buy and read a book called Sex God), and so why would you look for nuggets of Christian living from a guy who doesn’t preach the Gospel?
Just because you say “I’m a Christian” doesn’t mean you are one. This isn’t a reformed/calvinist/anything issue, it’s a “do you believe the basic tenets of Christianity about God, Sin, Judgment, Atonement, and Grace”? Those are Gospel issues there. You’ve got to have them.
Wow, I’m stunned at the number of people lining up to applaud such a vitriolic and insulting review! You can disagree with a writer without releasing the attack dogs.
While I’m here, can I politely suggest you don’t read any more of McLaren’s books?
“Wow, I’m stunned at the number of people lining up to applaud such a vitriolic and insulting review!”
So you write a vitriolic and insulting comment in response?
Did you know: You can disagree with a (review) writer without releasing the attack dogs, Mr. Plank-in-Your-Eyes.
Predictable and boring too.
“Wow, I’m stunned at the number of people lining up to applaud such a vitriolic and insulting review! You can disagree with a writer without releasing the attack dogs.”
Mr. Plank, meet Mr. Sawdust.