Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

This is my second attempt at writing the intro to my introduction to the series on Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity. My first was heavy on the snicker and snark with little sensitivity to the man behind the curtain. I’ve struggled with how to introduce this series because of how much I’ve struggled with the book. Yes, I’ve struggled with the ideas and theology and writing itself. For me it’s more than that:

I don’t get it.

I don’t understand what happened. How did Brian get from THERE <——-to——-> HERE? The Brian of ANKofXianity doesn’t seem like the same guy who launched this whole Emergent journey nearly a decade ago. The man behind this book just doesn’t seem like the guy I encountered in his first-ever book, The Church on the Other Side, the man who was as generous in his orthodoxy as he was genuinely appreciative toward orthodoxy itself, and the wandering, yet tethered, theo-explorer I found in his mythic characters Neo or Pastor Dan.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t know Brian McLaren. I’ve had a few encounters and conversations with him, like at some sessions at the National Pastors Conference a year ago. But I also attended his church for half a year and was involved in a social justice project he helped coordinate while in Washington D.C. Here’s the thing: I leapt into his church and into this social activism because I trusted Brian and his voice. While wading through my own spiritual deconstruction process five years ago, I gravitated to the only person I knew who was asking the questions I was asking, but seemed tethered to the “pieces” that still mattered to the Christian faith. I respected him for his prophetic voice and when people bleated and bellowed on and on about his so-called “heresy,” I defended. I went to the mat with my boss in ministry, skeptical friends, and mortified parents.

So when I ask, “what happened?” I ask the question as one who was, to some extent, personally invested. Sure I man-crushed on the guy a bit to hard, but I sought his wisdom and insight and church community to help me navigate the terra nova at the intersection of postmodernity and Christian spirituality. I saw in Brian a desire to peal away the crap the USAmerican Church attached to Jesus and the Cross, while not cashing in the farm completely.

That, however, has changed.

While I know I have shifted in my own spiritual/theological journey, it is clear Brian has progressively shifted, too. I highly doubt Brian would have guessed 28 years ago at the beginning of his pastoral Christian ministry that he would push a new kind of Christianity that scantily reflects the Holy Scriptures and subverts the historical Rule of Faith that believes Jesus Christ is exclusively Lord and Messiah. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case.

Though Brian wonders aloud “How did a mild-manner guy like me get into so much trouble” (2) and insists he “never planned to become a ‘controversial religious leader,'” (3) he is the one to blame. He is the one who has shifted and engaged in this current theological endeavor. This theological enterprise is not accidentally garnering unwarranted criticism because there is nothing accidental about Brian’s theological endeavor: Brian’s book is a bold, intentional rhetorical tour de force that strikes at the very heart of the historic Christian faith, parodying the faith that both the Communion of Saints and the Spirit of God has given the 21st Century Church;  his work pushes a version of Christianity that falls far outside the witness of the Holy Scriptures to Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Savior.

I realize these are bold, strong claims, ones I will exegetically and theologically unpack over the course of the next month in 10 posts that address the 10 questions Brian himself believes “have a special power to stimulate the conversations we (Christians? People of faith?) need to have.” (18) Many of us are tired of people being hoodwinked by the “different” theology being pushed and the hoodwinkers getting a pass. That’s why I want to seriously engage McLaren’s theological offering.

Before then, however, here are 10 observations I have over 200 pages into the book:

1. His portrayal of conservative evangelicalism is a gross caricature and unworthy of any serious thinker. He deliberately exaggerates and distorts the theology and exegesis of those with whom he disagrees in order to create an easy rhetorical jab called a Straw Man. As you probably know, a Straw Man is a logical fallacy that intentionally misrepresents an opponents position in order to easily strike it down in order to give the illusion that said opponent is defeated. Such rhetorical devices litter this book, making it an unworthy conversational partner.
2. Brian makes grand, sweeping claims with skimpy-to-no scholarly support. Perhaps this is why he insists over and over and over again that he had no formal seminary training? This is one of the most frustrating aspects of a book that asks us to take it seriously. For instance, his Greco-Roman narrative claims came to him not through research and scholarly reading, but through two conversations with two separate friends. (37)
3. Brian’s interaction with the Holy Scriptures has no exegetical methodology. Instead he simply asks the reader to take his word for it. For example, his exegesis of John 14:6 is so innovative that he could find no commentary support for it. His presupposition re: the audience of The Book of Romans is just flat out wrong; the consensus among commentators is that Paul wrote the letter to converted Gentile Christians, not Jews.
4. While Brian claims otherwise, the new version of Christianity he pushes bears little to no resemblance to historic Christian orthodoxy, especially Nicene Christianity. In fact, he claims the creeds were mandated by the emperor to promote unity in the church and bring about imperial control. (12) Furthermore, by shoving Christian orthodoxy into his “Christian religion” rhetorical device, he is able to transcend the Christian faith entirely with a generalized “Kingdom of God” motif.
5. His portrayal of the Biblical narrative is Christless, centering squarely on Abraham and the Kingdom of God (which fits nicely with his view of the Abrahamic faiths as encapsulated in the nonprofit http://www.abrahamicalliance.org/ on which he sits as Board member).
6. His view of Jesus Christ in no way affirms that He is God. Instead Brian reduces Him to a revelation of the “character of God.” Jesus is no more than a model citizen.
7. His view of the Holy Scripture is not divine revelation, but purely human conversations in which people simple talk about their understanding of God and progressively, courageously “trade-up’ (his words not mine) their understanding of God for even better images. Brian follows Pete Rollins’ suggestion that our understanding of God is not actually the knowledge of God, but simply our understanding of God, begging several questions: Does God present Himself to us in the Text? Is He even saying anything to us in it? Can we really possess the knowledge of God? These questions seem to have a negative answer, though it isn’t clear.
8. He rarely uses Jesus’ messianic designation (Christ), which reflects his refusal to acknowledge Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah. (So far he uses “Jesus” 204 times, “Jesus Christ” 3 time, and “Christ” 11 times.)
9. He consistently preemptively belittles those who will push against his innovative, new Christianity through gross ad hominems by reducing us to “gatekeepers” (103) anxious and paranoid (212-213), “religious thought police” (85), brainwashers (48), and people who are vulnerable to repeating yesterday’s atrocities in the future (including anti-Semitism, genocide, and witch burning) (85), among many others charges.
10. While Brian feigns theological innocence by merely offering a “new way of believing,” rather than a new set of beliefs (18), make no mistake about it: Brian is absolutely, unambiguously offering new beliefs. Though he may insist he is merely offering questions to inspire new conversations in the interest of a new quest, (18) he knows exactly what he is doing. He is disingenuous when he insists he is merely offering responses to his questions, rather than answers.

In the end, Brian’s McLarenism faith isn’t really about Jesus Christ, but about a vanilla, generalized World-Spirit god that has visited all other religions outside the Christian faith. Like his good buddy, Samir Selmanovic, Brian believes that Jesus and the reconciliation God offers to the world is not found only in the Christian faith (or “religion” as he puts it). In Selmonvic’s book (a book Brian endorsed), Samir says, “We do believe that God is best defined by the historical revelation in Jesus Christ, but to believe that God is limited to it would be an attempt to manage God. If one holds that Christ is confined to Christianity, one has chosen a god that is not sovereign.” (It’s Really All About God, 129) Brian agrees.

In fact, it is clear his entire theological endeavor is a concerted effort to “pluralize” reconciliation to God and His Kingdom by divorcing it from Jesus Christ entirely, rather than insisting that reconciliation to both comes through Jesus Christ alone. While Brian uses the “Christian religion” as a rhetorical device to argue against “theo-containment,” the One True God described in the Holy Scriptures is exclusively revealed in the very human, very divine Jesus Christ. It’s really NOT all about God. It’s really all about Jesus Christ.

As Karl Barth reminds us, “Any deviation, any attempt to evade Jesus Christ in favour of another supposed revelation of God, or any denial of the fulness of God’s presence in Him, will precipitate us into darkness and confusion.”(CD II,1:319) There is little evidence Brian believes that the fulness of God’s presence is exclusively in Jesus Christ, that salvation and rescue and reconciliation is found in no other name under heaven besides His.

After Jesus, there is nothing left. And after Brian’s new kind of Christianity, neither is Jesus Christ.