Post Series
Introduction
Reimagining Christian Religious Identity (Part 1: The Crisis of Christian Identity)
Reformulating Christian Doctrine (Part 2: The Doctrinal Challenge–1)
Reformulating Christian Doctrine (Part 2: The Doctrinal Challenge–2)
Reconstructing Christian Practices (Part 3: The Liturgical Challenge)
Redefining Christian mission (Part 4: The Missional Challenge)
This post is the third in a series examining the ideas in Brian McLaren’s newest book, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World
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McLaren’s gospel for a multi-faith world begins at the beginning with creation, moving from there to the doctrine of sin. I will not rehash here what I do in my Kingdom book regarding McLaren’s understanding of our problem, except to say that it is important to realize that McLaren believes that people still exist in their original goodness. While he rightly insists that every person shares the same divine image and are created in the image of God, (103) he wrongly assumes that original good image is still intact and unaffected by original sin. As he argues, “We are trusting that original sin, for all its terrifying power, is not more powerful than the more original goodness God has written into the code of creation and of us.” (159) This means that people of other faiths have as much original goodness in their code as Christians. McLaren’s belief that God’s original goodness is still written into the our code and creation’s code reflects the 5th century known as Pelagianism.
Pelagianism is named after Pelagius, a British monk who was made famous for his heated exchanges with another famous Christian thinker: Augustine. Pelagius believes that the original spark of divine goodness was still present in humanity, that we are not fundamentally cracked and broken image bearers as Augustine and other early church fathers believed. If we are still by-nature intact image bearers of God, why do we sin? Four reasons: ignorance, bad examples, which lead to bad habits, and perpetuate into continued patterns and systems of sin. Pelagius believed that people were capable of choosing, on their own, either good actions or bad actions. Accordingly, nature does not compel a person to sin; ignorance, examples, habits, and systemic patterns do. Thus, because the divine image of God is still intact, and merely tainted or off-track, people can choose, on their own, to do acts of goodness that lead to salvation. Not only does Pelagianism mark McLaren’s doctrine of creation, it influences his view of sin, too.
Though McLaren believes we need “a fresh understanding of original sin,” how he defines it isn’t at all fresh; it is recycled Pelagianism. Five concepts mark McLaren’s view of sin, which he takes from Catholic theologian James Alison and philosophical theorist Rene Girard: Imitation, rivalry, anxiety, scapegoating, and ritualization. McLaren insists that “all human beings are caught in these subtle webs of destructive imitation, rivalry, anxiety, scapegoating, and ritualization.” (110) Inherent to this definition is Pelagius’ view of example and habit: “Humans beings are by nature imitative,” says McLaren. “You start as my model for imitation” and “I may become the perpetrator of violence against those I envy;” “we imitate one another in violence” which produces patterns and systems of “social disintegration.” (109) As I argued in my Kingdom book, McLaren believes sin isn’t natural, but social; it is learned behavior from bad examples, which form bad habits, leading to bad systems and social patterns. As McLaren says, “sin is utterly derivative, utterly imitative…there is no escape from dismal, degrading cycles of mimicry apart from a return to the creative goodness that is even more original than sin.” (112) That “return to the creative (original) goodness” was provided by the better example and better pattern of living of Jesus.
Although I dealt extensively with McLaren’s view of Jesus’ person and work in my Kingdom book, it bears repeating his view of Jesus here, because of its implications in a multi-faith world. It seems clear that McLaren views Jesus as one religious figure among many, although perhaps a tad more special than the rest. McLaren places Jesus among Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed as “four of history’s greatest religious leaders.” (2) He believes that God was revealed to Jesus in the same way God was revealed to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Mohammed, going so far as to say God spoke “to humanity through these great men and that each ones teaching and example should be trusted and followed” along with Jesus’. (90) He even thinks it ridiculous to pit Jesus as a rival against other prophets or gods or saviors, suggesting that Jesus himself would not condemn or counter other religious figures. (136) So it seems clear that for McLaren, Jesus is one valid religious figure among many legitimate figures. But who is Jesus and what did he do?
In a remarkable reinterpretation of the Colossian hymn that the historic Christian faith has always taken as a pivotal text teaching Jesus’ deity and exclusivity, McLaren says that Jesus is “the true image of God,” he is “the true embodiment of the fulness of God.” (136-137) As I pointed out earlier, notice that McLaren doesn’t say Jesus is God, but rather he is the image of God or resembles and is like God; Jesus embodies and models God in how He lives. He goes on to say that Philippians—another crucial passage of Scripture the historic Christian faith has always used to teach Jesus’ deity—makes the point that Jesus is “a true image bearer of God,” he “reveals the true nature of God.” Again, McLaren isn’t saying Jesus is God, merely that He lived like God; Jesus is the moral Son of God, not the metaphysical Son of God.
In another remarkable turn away from historic Christianity, McLaren counters the traditional meaning of the deity of Christ—“God = Jesus; Jesus = God” (139)—by cleverly reframing Christology to mean “What is true of Christ is true of God” and “God is like Christ.” Rather than Jesus being God himself, He is merely a model of God, He merely images God. Thus, the incarnation is transformed from God becoming man to “Jesus embodies the divine creativity that makes impossibilities possible and that makes new possibilities spring forth into actuality.” It’s as if for McLaren God is merely an idea that Jesus embodies, like Tillich’s view of God as the symbol of the universal human ideal. Again, rather than the actual Being of God becoming a human being, Jesus is a man who embodies “the deepest meaning” of life. As McLaren argues, “in his story we see the syntax of history, the plot-line of evolution, the deep meaning of the surface events, the unified field of theory that explains all data.” Later, he makes this obtuse statement more clear when he says that “the true logic of the universe—the true meaning or syntax or plot-line of history—has been enfleshed in Jesus and dwelt among us…” (143) As I argued in my Kingdom book, Jesus’ life embodies the universal human ideal, which is love. That’s what makes him divine, not that He Himself is actually God.
So if this is who McLaren’s Jesus is, what did He do? Again, I’ve outlined much of Jesus’ works above in my Kingdom book, but it bears some repeating here. Because McLaren’s problem hinges on the Pelagian view that the human problem is bad habits formed by bad examples and ignorance, we need a better example to form better habits, and then better patterns and systems of living. Thus, what Jesus did was give us a better, more true example and model to live. This work of Christ, then, is something that any person of faith can follow and accept, all the while never leaving their own religious identity.
This is why McLaren could write approvingly of his Muslim friend, who believed that Jesus was a great prophet that God was speaking to all humanity through, and that Jesus’ word and example must be followed and that God would evaluate people against the measure of Jesus’ life and teaching. (135) In a multi-faith world, all that matters is Jesus’ loving life and example, and his words and teachings that urge humanity to pursue the universal human ideal of love. (233)
Of course this call to pursue love was the crux of Jesus’ greatest contribution and life work: his “community organization movement.” “What did the movement do?” McLaren asks. They spread their message, looked for “people of peace” and networked them together, they fed the hungry and healed the sick, they offered hope to the depressed and promised freedom, they confronted oppressors and conversed with their critics. (137) In other words, they spread the universal human ideal of love. And this is the saving message proclaimed by Jesus and then carried along by His followers. The saving significance of Jesus was “the light of Jesus and his example.” And this true light was his attitude of loving descention “into common humanity, down into servanthood, down into suffering, down into death,” which in turn revealed the true nature of God. (137) This loving example actually is our salvation, because Jesus’ loving life presents an alternative system to the destructive ones of this world.
More specifically, what is the salvation that’s inherent in McLaren’s gospel, in the new kind of Christianity tailor-made for a multi-faith world? From both this book and A New Kind of Christianity, it seems clear McLaren’s good news is the offering of the life of Christ. And by “life of Christ” I don’t meant the born-again life of the historic Christian faith, where the sinner is freed from the wages of sin, delivered from death, and literally re-created a new. I mean the model and example of Christ.
To understand this style of salvation, it’s important to understand what McLaren means by the wrath of God. Rather than God’s wrath being directed toward sinners, as the Church and Scripture have taught, McLaren believes God’s wrath is against “evil things.” “If we speak of an angry God at all, we will speak of God angry at indifference, angry at apathy, angry at racism and violence, angry at inhumanity, angry at waste, angry at destruction, angry at injustice, angry at hostile religious clannishness.” (259-260) Then McLaren makes clear God’s anger is never against us; it is against “what is against us,” which are the dysfunctional systems and stories, and things they produce. (260) In other words, “the greed, pride, fear, craving, and hostility that infect humanity” are the objects of God’s wrath, not people who are greedy or prideful. And here is where salvation comes in: “and they are what God loves to save us from.” (260, emph. mine)
For McLaren our salvation isn’t from a sinful nature, but sinful systems; we don’t need salvation from death, but from life, or perhaps the bad things in life that affect us. Thus, he proclaims the salvation of his gospel is exclusive, inclusive, and universal:
our saving message is indeed exclusive in the sense that it excludes hostility, injustice, apathy, and violence. And it is inclusive in the sense that everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of religious label. And it is universalist in the sense that it will not rest until everyone who wants to can and does experience the abundant life of shalom, humility, kindness, and justice that God desires for all. (261)
And for McLaren’s gospel, this last part is fundamental: He wants to share “the treasures of Christ” universally with everyone, which is Jesus’ example and model of abundant life. It is in following Christ’s example that we are saved, that we are liberated from the dysfunctional systems and stories of this world. McLaren even claims Paul and Silas proclaimed this while in jail in Acts 16.
In this episode of Paul’s missionary journeys, Paul and Silas are brought before the Roman authorities for their proselytizing activities and put in jail, where an earthquake later frees these two missionary prisoners. (McLaren interprets this event symbolically, arguing that the story “symbolized the earthshaking radicality of the liberating message Paul’s team proclaims…”) Afterwards the jailer rushes in to find that his two prisoners didn’t run away but stayed put. The jailer is dumbfounded and, according to McLaren, cries out “What must I do to be liberated?” Here is McLaren’s interpretive paraphrase: “Paul and Silas said something like this: ‘You live in the fear-based system of the Lord Caesar. Stop having confidence in him and his system of domination, hostility, and oppression. Instead, have confidence in the Lord Jesus. If you do, you and all those in your household will experience liberation.” (235)
Notice McLaren doesn’t say the jailer is living in rebellion to God, but living in response to the system of Caesar. Salvation, then, comes by putting confidence in Jesus’ life-system, instead of Caesar’s life-system. It isn’t that the jailer would experience salvation from the wages of sin, which is death, but rather liberation from a bad life-system. Of course this life-system of Jesus is the Kingdom of God, which “confronts Caesar’s empire of fear and death” with “liberation and reconciliation.” (236) And what McLaren insists this world needs are “teams of unlikely people,” Christian or not, who come together and proclaim “the way of Jesus,” which is “the way of liberation;” Jesus’ way, example, model of love, humility, and servanthood liberate us—save us—from the dysfunctional, destructive ways and patterns of this world. This way of Jesus is salvation, and proclaiming this way is the heart of McLaren’s redefinition of Christian mission.
