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 fifth 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
——————-
The of doctrine we’ve witnessed in the past 2 posts has an inevitable sister act: the reconstruction of the Church’s liturgical practices. Because the core doctrines of the Christian faith can no longer be conceived in ways exclusive to the Church, now the liturgy isn’t even the Church’s; now it’s for the world. Which makes sense because the Church holds zero place in McLaren’s religious enterprise. How could it? If the Church is the exclusive membership of those who’ve placed their faith in Jesus Christ, as the New Testament says it is, then how could such an exclusive group have any mention in such an overtly inclusive enterprise? Likewise, how could the exclusive liturgical practices of the Church remain so in such an inclusive religious reidentification exercise. They can’t, beginning with Christmas Day.
Yes, you read that correctly. Now Christmas isn’t even the Church’s day, but humanity’s day: “On Christmas Day, we would celebrate the birth of the man who repudiated the violent path of obsessive taking and blaze a new path of generous self-giving…And the celebration of Christ’s birth could become a birthday party, not just for Jesus but also for the new humanity that transcends and includes all previous identities.” (171) Now Christmas is a celebration of the new humanity, not for Jesus the Messiah.
Not only is the birth of Jesus the Messiah reformulated with a decidedly humanistic bent, other major Church holidays are, too, including Lent, Holy Week, and even Easter. For McLaren, Lent should simply be considered an annual season devoted to the life and teaching of Jesus. (172) For Palm Sunday, McLaren calls on people to join Jesus in “weeping over Jerusalem for its ignorance of the ways of peace,” (173) rather than of their ignorance and rejection of Him as their Messiah. Maundy Thursday is merely a celebration of Jesus’ command to love one another. (173) Good Friday isn’t the glorious day when the Son of God went to the cross as an atoning sacrifice for human rebellion. Instead, it “becomes the great celebration of God’s empathy with all human suffering and pain.” (173)
And what of Easter? After defining miracles as something that conveys “an unexpected meaning or message,” McLaren goes on to say there was a scandalous meaning conveyed in the resurrection of Jesus. (174) What’s important isn’t that Jesus actually, physically, bodily rose from the dead. What’s important is the meaning of the story of the risen Christ. Similarly, the meaning of the ascension is far more important than the fact of the ascension. (175) While some might be surprised by this characterization of the most important event in the church, the resurrection and the the ascension, it makes sense considering McLaren’s liberal roots.
For generations theological liberals have meant something very different than what the Christian faith means by the resurrection. For liberals, Jesus resurrected spiritually or existentially. Spiritually, Jesus lived on in the memory of His disciples. Existentially, Jesus lived on in the example or lives of the disciples. Similarly, for McLaren, what’s important isn’t what happened at the tomb, but what the story of the empty tomb means, particularly for all humanity. Because according to McLaren, Easter means something “more” than “the resurrection of a single corpse—it means the ongoing resurrection of all humanity from violence to peace, from fear to faith, from hostility to love, from a culture of consumption to a culture of stewardship and generosity…and in all these ways and more, from death to life.” (175) So the resurrection stands as a symbol for the movement of all of humanity from that which brings death to that which brings life.
As the previous section revealed, this part carries with it an explicit universalism. That universalism is carried to its full logical conclusion in the final part where McLaren completely redefines Christian mission by writing the Church out of it.
