AN OLD KIND OF CHRISTIANITY: A HISTORICAL THEOLOGICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN ALBRECHT RITSCHL AND BRIAN MCLAREN

Introduction
On Human Nature and Sin
On The Person and Work of Christ
On Salvation
Conclusion

This is a short series based on a 30-page paper I wrote for my ThM in Historical Theology. I set out to compare the theology of Brian McLaren to Albrecht Ritschl, a German liberal theologian who was the successor of Friederick Schleiermacher, the father of modern day liberalism. The reason I chose to do this type of theological comparison is because I want to bring the lens of historical theology to bear on contemporary theological discourse. People have said McLaren is a liberal theologian along the lines of Schleiermacher, and I wanted to see if that’s true. Here are the fruits of that labor.

If our human problem is the dysfunctional societal machinery and destructive framing narratives—in other words the “web of sin” and bad ethics formed by world’s systems and stories—what is the solution? Like the traditional Christian faith Jesus is the answer for the world today, but in a way that is different from that historical answer. While the historic Christian faith recognizes Jesus Christ as God and in someway a substitute sacrifice for the sins of the world, McLaren recognizes neither. Instead, Jesus is the best teacher of a better way of living, the one who lived the best way to be human, and one who is our best picture of the character of God. The best teacher, way, and picture of God is the perfect solution to McLaren’s problem, because according to him we need a better example to follow in order to live differently and avert dysfunction and destruction. In The Story We Find Ourselves In, McLaren describes Jesus as a “revolutionary” who was a “master of living.” ((McLaren, Story We Find Ourselves, 115, 121, 122.)) According to McLaren, “Jesus really is in some mysterious and in a unique way sent from God and full of God.” ((McLaren, Story We Find Ourselves, 122. )) Notice McLaren does not say Jesus is God, but merely a messenger of sorts from God and full of Him, which is code for sharing in the divine. As it will be shown, this divine attribute comes from his ethical way of living. Again, because the problem is bad systems and stories, our solution needed to be in the form of a better teaching, system, way of life, and story. Jesus provides that new, better system and story as a messenger from God who founds His Kingdom.

McLaren affirms this characterization in his recent book by insisting that Jesus “brings us to a new evolutionary level in our understanding of God…the experience of God in Jesus requires a brand-new definition or understanding of God,” because He “gives us the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of the living God.” ((McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 114, 115.)) This emphasis on the “character of God” is used throughout McLaren’s description of the person of God in A New Kind of Christianity: “When you see [Jesus], you are getting the best view afforded to humans of the character of God;” “Jesus serves as the Word-made-flesh revelation of the character of God;” and “the invisible God has been made visible in his life. ‘If you want to know what God is like,’ Jesus says, ‘look at me, my life, my ways, my deeds, my character.’”((McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 118, 128, 222.))

Elsewhere he writes, that Jesus simply identifies Himself with God, telling His disciples that those who had seen Him had in “some real way” also seen God. ((McLaren, Secret Message of Jesus, 31.)) In fact, McLaren agrees with a Quaker scholar, Elton Trueblood, whom he quotes: “The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.” ((As quoted by McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 114. )) Jesus, then, is not God Himself: Jesus is like God and God is like Jesus. In a “mysterious and unique way” Jesus is full of God, He shows, images and expresses God’s character. McLaren suggests He accomplishes this primarily through his life and teachings. This is a good thing because humanity needs a better life and set of teachings. Because the human problem is ethical, the solution and its bearer must also be ethical.

From McLaren’s earlier writings one can detect this theological trajectory and emphasis on Jesus as “teacher” and “liver.” In explaining Jesus as “Lord,” he argues this means Jesus “was the master of living…it would mean that no one else could take the raw materials of life…and elicit from them a beautiful song of truth and goodness. [The disciples] believed Jesus’ way was higher and more brilliant, and the right way to launch a revolution of God.” ((McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, 121.)) Elsewhere he writes that Jesus’ message and teachings is an “alternative framing story” that can “save the system from suicide,” a message that focuses “on personal, social, and global transformation in this life.” ((McLaren, Everything Must Change, 73, 22.)) Furthermore, “Jesus’ life and message centered on the articulation and demonstration of a radically different framing story—one that critiques and exposes the imperial narratives as dangerous to itself and others.” ((McLaren, Everything Must Change, 154-155. )) Again, since the problem is bad systems and stories, Jesus’ mastery over life through his higher, brilliant way of living and alternative message provides the ethical solution.

What exactly was that message that Jesus articulated? The message of the Kingdom of God, or as McLaren puts it the “revolution of God.” Through his life and teachings, Jesus “inserted into human history a seed of grace, truth, and hope that can never be defeated,” a seed that will “prevail over the evil and injustice of humanity and lead to the world’s ongoing transformation into the world God dreams of.” ((McLaren, Everything Must Change, 79-80.)) Because the human problem is bad systems and stories, we need a new system and a new story to repair and heal us. Jesus provides humanity the solution through his teachings on the Kingdom of God and living out the way of that Kingdom. McLaren makes it clear that the central point of Jesus is the Kingdom of God. As he insists, “[Jesus] 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. Seen in this light, Jesus and his message has everything to do with poverty, slavery, and a ‘social agenda.’” ((McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 135. )) He insists that Jesus himself “saw these dynamics at work in his day and proposed in word and deed a new alternative. Jesus’ creative and transforming framing story invited people to change the world by disbelieving old framing stories and believing a new one: a story about a loving God who calls all people to live life in a new way.” ((McLaren, Everything Must Change, 237-274.))

His newest book revises and extends these arguments by insisting that Jesus came to “lead the way in liberation from the social and spiritual oppression of his day;” He was chosen by God “to liberate His people from oppression.” ((McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 131, 132.)) As we have already seen, our human problem is not a sinful nature, but dysfunctional systems and destructive stories. Rather than being affected on the inside by a sinful nature, we are oppressed on the outside by bad social and spiritual systems and stories. Jesus is the antidote, the cure for these bad systems and stories by providing the alternative system and story of the Kingdom through His life and teachings. And what is the Kingdom of God? “A life that is radically different from the way people are living these days, a life that is full and over flowing, a higher life that is centered in an interactive relationship with God and with Jesus…an extraordinary life to the full centered on a relationship with God.” ((McLaren, Secret Message of Jesus, 37. ))

According to McLaren, this is what the Apostle John termed “eternal life,” or “life of the ages.” Through his Kingdom message and Kingdom way of living, “Jesus is promising a life that transcends ‘life in the present age’…[he] is offering a life in the new Genesis, the new creation that is ‘of the age’ not simply part of the current regimes, plots, kingdoms, and economies created by humans.” ((McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 130.)) Jesus has come, then, to liberate us from these old regimes (i.e. dysfunctional systems) and plots (i.e. destructive stories) and teach and show us the highest, best way found in the Kingdom. As liberator from the bad systems and stories of the world, this course of action culminates in the ultimate showdown between the system and story of Caesar and Christ: the cross.

In the traditional Christian faith, the cross occupies a central feature of God’s saving plan and work of Christ, for upon it Christ breaks open his body and sheds his blood for our sins in our stead as a substitute. What place does the cross have in McLaren’s Christology? As with the other parts of his theology, the cross does have a place in God’s saving movement, but a different one from the historic understanding. In response to the existing theories of the atoning work of Christ he argues for what he terms the ‘powerful weakness theory,’ which hinges on the word vulnerable:

by becoming vulnerable on the cross, by accepting suffering from everyone…Jesus is showing God’s loving heart, which wants forgiveness, not revenge, for everyone. Jesus shows us that the wisdom of God’s kingdom is sacrifice, not violence. It’s about accepting suffering and transforming it into reconciliation, not avenging suffering through retaliation. So through this window, the cross shows God’s rejection of the human violence and dominance and oppression that have spun the world in a cycle of crisis… ((McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, 105. (emphasis mine.)))

Later he insists that “the cross calls humanity to stop trying to make God’s Kingdom happen through coercion and force…and instead to welcome it through self-sacrifice and vulnerability.” ((McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, 106.)) For McLaren, the cross is a stage upon which Christ renders a grand performance illustrating God’s love, wisdom, acceptance, and new way of sacrifice and suffering. Through the cross Jesus “exposes Roman violence and religious complicity, while pronouncing a sentence of forgiveness on his crucifiers.” Throughout Jesus’ life, his message has been one of non-violence and triumph over enemies through peace and self-sacrifice. The cross, then, is the culmination of those teachings as an exposé on love. Rather than joining in with the “‘shock and awe’ display of power as Roman crucifixions were intended to do,” Jesus gives us a “‘reverence and awe’ display of God’s willingness to accept rejection and mistreatment…” ((McLaren, New Kind of Christianity, 158-159.)) The cross is not the point at which God objectively dealt with the objective reality of human sin and our sin nature, as the historic faith insists. Instead, the cross event gave us the example of love, self-sacrifice, peace, and way of God’s alternative Kingdom in contrast to the prevailing system and story of Rome.

Like his views on the human sinful condition McLaren mirrors Ritschl’s Christology in significant ways, too. According to Ritschl, “Jesus, the Founder of the perfect moral and spiritual religion, belongs to a higher order than all other men;” “His unique worth lies in the manner in which He mastered His spiritual powers through a self-consciousness which transcends that of all other men…” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 2, 332.)) As a unique higher man, He was “conscious of a new and hitherto unknown relation to God.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 386. )) As with McLaren, Ritschl does not describe Jesus as being God himself, only a unique man belonging to a higher order of humanity. In fact, in regard to his relationship with God Jesus is described as having a “strength of a fellowship or unity with God such as no one before Him had ever known.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 333. (emphasis mine.))) Apparently, Jesus’ “unity” with God is similar to the fellowship or unity a man has with his wife: he and she are not ontologically one, they simply possess a relationship with each other unlike anyone else they have had with another. For Ritschl the same is true of Jesus with God: Jesus is not ontologically one with God, but simply has a unique relationship with Him. This uniqueness cashes out in his higher ethical display through his life and teachings.

A fuller picture of the theological connections between their Christology is seen when observing how Ritschl describes Jesus divinity. Like McLaren Ritschl does not indicate Jesus is God, but instead Jesus “brings the perfect revelation of God, so that beyond what He brings no further revelation is conceivable or is to be looked for;” He is the “Bearer of the final revelation of God.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 388, 397.)) In Jesus we also see “the complete revelation of God as love, grace, and faithfulness.” ((Ritschl, Instruction in the Christian Religion, 197. )) It is when we examine the life of Christ that we receive this image of God and come to a fuller understanding of His person: “when we have placed the one common material of Christ’s life, His speech and conduct as well as his patience in suffering…we exhaust the significance of his person as Bearer of the Divine lordship, or founder of the Divine Kingdom.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 482-483.)) As McLaren suggests, Jesus is the highest, most advanced view of God and His character. Both McLaren and Ritschl agree that through Jesus’ life we see and experience God, rather than through Jesus Christ the person. They believe Jesus shares in the Divine and is “full of God” because of how he acted, not who he was.

Furthermore, Christ’s ethical actions are what connect him to God and give him what Ritschl terms the attribute of Godhead and Godhood. “Christ’s Godhead is understood as the power which Christ has put forth for our redemption…[the Godhead attribute] of Christ is to be found in the service He provided, the benefit He bestows, the saving work He accomplishes…it is an attribute revealed to us in His saving influence upon ourselves.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 395, 396-397, 398.)) Christ’s Godhead is described as an attribute, rather than an essential part of who Jesus is. Jesus is not ontologically God, but ethically so: He shares in the Divine because of His ethical services and action. In the words of McLaren, “Jesus is in some mysterious and unique way…full of God.” Jesus isn’t God, but uniquely participates in the Divine through his higher ethical living and teaching.

As Ritschl makes clear, it is through the ethical activity of Jesus we find God. While Ritschl does say “[Jesus] is equal to God,” it is clear from his writings that this equality is ethical, rather than ontological. He is equal with God because of his moral and ethical activity. ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 483.)) This activity is primarily the fulfillment of his vocation as the founder of the Kingdom. As Ritschl asserts, Jesus is the “personal vehicle of the Divine self-end;” He is “that Being in the world Whose self-end God makes effective and manifest after the original manner His own eternal self-end, Whose whole activity, therefore, in discharge of His vocation, forms the material of that complete revelation of God which is present in Him, in Whom, in short, the Word of God is a human person.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 451. )) Jesus reveals God through His vocation as the founder of the Kingdom of God, as a “teacher” and “liver” of the “universal ethical kingdom of God,” which is the “supreme end of God Himself in the world.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 451.)) Jesus’ ethical teachings and kingdom vocation, then, constitute Him as participating in the “Godhead,” in the Divine. In fact, his “Divine” authority as Ruler does not come from being God Himself, but “by His morally effective teaching and by His gracious mode of conduct…”((Ritschl, Instruction in the Christian Religion, 195.))

Finally, the significance of the work of Jesus is “‘related to the moral organization of humanity through love-prompted action,” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 13.)) which is the Kingdom of God. His vocation was founding, living, and teaching the love-prompted actions of the Kingdom as triumph and transcendence over the ethically bad systems of the world. Through this vocation he provided the prototypical example of self-sacrifice, discipline, and attainment of virtue for others to follow. This was especially acute through His work on the cross, which served as confirmation and codification of that vocation for the rest of the world. Ritschl argued—and later affirmed and recycled by McLaren—that the significance of Jesus’ work on the cross for others served as an example to the rest of the world: “It is not mere fate of dying that determines the value of Christ’s death as a sacrifice; what renders this issue of his life significant for others is His willing acceptance of the death inflicted on Him by His adversaries as a dispensation of God, and the highest proof of faithfulness to His vocation.” ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 477, 4779 )) Thus His sufferings served as a means of testing His faithfulness to His vocation, while also confirming and codifying it. ((Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 480.)) Both he and McLaren affirm that the work of Christ centered on founding, living, and teaching the Kingdom, and the cross was the culmination of that vocation in that this highest ethical common good was tested and displayed for all the world to see and follow. In this testing and display humans find their ethical solution to their ethical problem.