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

It is becoming clear that for Brian, the Christian faith should not really be about Jesus Christ, but God. As one commenter said: “it really does look like [Brian] is trying to move away from a Christocentric understanding of God towards a more open/inclusive concept…When Brian speaks of ‘God,’ he isn’t speaking about the Triune God of the Bible, but some generic pan-deity. Its the least common denominator of God.”

Unfortunately, Nathan is dead on.

For Brian the biblical narrative does not climax in the redemption of humanity through Jesus Christ alone; the Text itself does not pivot around the revelation of God exclusively in Jesus Christ; the Bible does not actually reveal God to the world, but merely human conversations about their understanding of God; and Jesus Himself is not God, but is simply “the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of God.”

At this point, just three questions in, Brian’s theology is no where near orthodox, no where near Christian. This becomes increasingly clear when we examine his understanding of Jesus Himself. In the Jesus question, Brian asks: Who is Jesus and why is He important?

Brian begins by characterizing—or rather caricaturing—the Jesus of conservative evangelicals. He quotes one of his most “loyal and dedicated critics,” Mark Driscoll—though I really do not understand why he leaves him unnamed and unsourced. After arguing, and rightly so, that “many different saviors can be smuggled in under the name ‘Jesus'” he quotes Driscoll’s characterization, which apparently is built on the Greco-Roman six-line narrative, a constitutional reading of the Bible, and an interpretation of God based on these two sources (120):

In Revelation, Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

On this point Brian and I agree: this characterization of Jesus is just stupid.

While this question is almost like watching Jim Carey’s and Jeff Daniels’ characters in the movie Dumb and Dumber—like the movie, by the end you have a hard time deciding who is dumber; in the end both portrayals of Jesus are unsatisfying and unpalatable—I do grant Brian’s points that we are guilty of “letting Jesus be re-imaged according to contemporary tastes” (121). Unfortunately, although he cites the white Supremacist Jesus, the prosperity-gospel get-rich-quick Jesus, colonial Jesus, male-chauvinist Jesus, and homophobic Jesus, Brian’s own biases blind him to the ways in which he and his like make Jesus in his image, such as: the Oprah Winfrie Jesus, Depok Choprah Jesus, Al Gore Jesus, and Sojo Jesus.

I would also argue that the view espoused by Driscoll is in no way mainstream and is used, yet again, by Brian as a rhetorical Straw Man. He pulls such an extreme example in order to attempt to gain easy trust from his readers that the “other sides” view of Jesus really is utterly detestable and unbelievable. This simply is not the case, however. While I am certainly no Driscoll apologist, Driscoll is being his typical over-the-top, polemical self. For Brian to trumpet his view as representative of all conservative evangelicalism is pitifully weak.

In order to refute said Straw Man, Brian launches into an explaination of the text from which he claims such a view of Jesus comes: Revelation 19:11-16. It reads as follows:

Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Over against the Driscoll and other conservative evangelical types, McLaren interprets the passage as follows (bear in mind, however, that Brian continues to remain consistent with his pet rule: “thou shalt not cite any authoritative primary or secondary sources other than my own!”) (124-124):

this image of Jesus as a conqueror reassures believers that the peaceful Jesus who entered Jerusalem on a donkey that day wasn’t actually weak and defeated; he was in fact every bit as powerful as a Caesar on a steed. His message of forgiveness and reconciliation—conveyed as a sword out of his mouth (not in his hand, as my loyal critic asserted–quite an important detail)—will in the end prove far more powerful than Caesar’s handheld sword and spears. And the blood on his robe—that’s not the blood of his enemies. It’s his own blood, because the battle hasn’t even begun yet, and Revelation has already shown us Jesus “as the lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered” (5:6). And it may also recall the blood of the peaceful martyrs (6:9-11), since in attacking them, violent forces were also attacking Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who taught them the way of peace.

In fact, rather than being violent, “Revelation actually tells us, that the humble man of peace is Lord. It confesses, in the midst of persecution and martyrdom, that the poor unarmed Galilean riding on the donkey, hailed by the poor and hopeful, is the one to trust. It invites us to pledge allegiance to the one who rules by his own example of service and suffering rather than by making examples of others.” And in response to the suffering servant’s name, “every knee will gladly bow.” (emphasis mine. 126)

While all of this sounds lovely and convincing, there is one slight problem: he is simply wrong; Brian is no exegete and he twists the text to conform to his agenda.

If Driscoll portrays Jesus as another incarnation of The Rock, McLaren portrays him as Ghandi, perfectly peaceful without a care for judgment. In so denying judgment (a theme which we will address in more detail in chapters 9 and 9), he twists and contorts the Revelation passage to mean everything else but a portrait of Judge Jesus.

In this passage we have “the most expanded description of Christ’s defeat and judgment of the ungodly forces at the end of history.” ((Beale, Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 948.)) The defeat of the beast, the false prophets, and their followers (who are all the ungodly) is portrayed in the climax verses in 17-21. Christ’s word of truth imaged in the sword coming out of his mouth is His weapon of judgment ((Beale, Revelation, 949.)) Christ rides in on a while horse in promise of judging “the wicked in order to vindicate his name and his followers, and he will be ‘faithful and true’ in fulfilling his promise.” ((Beale, Revelation, 950.)) His eyes are “a flame of fire,” evoking His role as divine judge as is clear from 14-21 and 2:18-23. ((Beale, Revelation, 951.)) “In Ch 2. the point was that Jesus as ‘Son of Man’ always knows the spiritual condition of the ungodly who claim to be members of the covenant community, which results in their judgment…The link with the same phrase in chs. 1-2 suggests the apostate are among those judged in the present scene.” ((Beale, Revelation, 951.)) The symbolic meaning of the “unknown name” is that while Christ has not yet thoroughly revealed his promise of salvation and judgment, when he comes to carry out his vindication of his followers all His character of grace and justice will be revealed; “only his people will experience the full revelation of his grace, whereas his opponents will experience the full expression of his justice.” ((Beale, Revelation, 956.))

The final expression of his judgment is the image of Jesus’ “robe dipped in blood.” Contrary to Brian’s assertions that this blood is his or his followers who’ve been martyred, it is the blood of his enemies and those he has judged. Here John is clearly referencing Is. 63:1-3: “…your garments are red, like those of one treading the winepress…I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothes.” John is affirming “Isaiah’s prophecy of God as a warrior and identifies Christ as that divine warrior. In Isaiah the warrior judges to achieve ‘vengeance’ and ‘redemption’ on behalf of his people…the stained garments symbolize God’s attributes of justice, which he will exercise in the coming judgment.” ((Beale, Revelation, 957.)) Here in the Revelation passage in vs. 11-16, the blood symbolizes attributes that Christ Himself will exercise judgement over the wicked; it is through the judgment that they are exercised and demonstrated. In the Apocalypse “blood” can refer to the suffering of the judged or to judgment itself, the most decisive use is in 14:18-20, where “blood” is used with winepress metaphors and clearly refers to the judgment of unbelievers. ((Beale, Revelation, 959.))

I realize this was a data-dump of sorts, but the information was given to expose the lie that Brian insists Jesus will not come as judge. At the end of chapter 14 he says, “In response to the crucified one’s name—not Caesar’s or any other violent human’s—every knee will gladly bow. (emphasis mine. 126). Gladly? If only that were true! Brian falsely inserts this word in order to give the appearance that in the end all will be saved, that Jesus will not judge because everyone will gleefully bow before Jesus Christ as King and Lord. As Peter T. O’Brien states, however ((O’Brien, Philippeans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 243.)):

It ought not to be assumed that the bending of the knee by all will be glad acknowledgement of Jesus’ lordship. Since the following words of 10c, which explain the meaning of ‘every knee’, include both good and evil beings who acknowledge Jesus’ rule rather than voluntarily confess or praise him, one ought to understand the bowing of the knee as an act of submission to one whose power they cannot resist.

Phil 2:10-11 come from Is. 45:23-24, which is also quoted in Rom. 14:11, a passage that endorses the idea that ‘we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.’ ((O’Brien, Philippeans, 243.)) The context of Is. 45 precisely fits the notion that all beings and powers (righteous and wicked) will bow before Jesus Christ’s authority in submission, rather than all finding salvation in the end in that bowing, which Brian suggests is the case. The verses are christological, not eschatological. ((O’Brien, Philippeans, 243.))

It is clear that Brian (along with many others within the emerging church conversation) cannot handle the idea of judgment, let alone a Judging Jesus. I agree that Jesus Christ did not come “merely to ‘save souls from hell’…he came to launch a new Genesis, to lead a new Exodus, and to announce, embody, and inaugurate a new kingdom of as the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6).” (135) This is not the full story, however. While Brian tries to assert the “day of the Lord” will bring liberation for the oppressed and accountability for the oppressors (135), it’s far more (and really different) than that.

“The Day of the Lord” is “the time of the decisive visitation of Yahweh, when he intervenes to punish the wicked, deliver and exalt the faithful remnant who worship him, and establish his own rule. Both judgment and salvation are especially prominent aspects.” ((“The Day of the Lord,” Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 324.)) In the NT it is identified with the return of Jesus Christ who, as the Creeds assert, “comes to judge the living and the dead.” Because Jesus Christ is Lord and Messiah, and is Himself YHWH, He is the one who will intervene “to punish the wicked, deliver and exalt the faithful remnant who worship him, and establish his own rule.”

Brian cannot say this, however. He refuses. On the one hand, “Jesus serves as the Word-made-flesh revelation of God’s character,” which means He Himself is not God/YHWH. (128) (Which, again, serves his agenda to pluralize God and minimize Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah) On the other hand, “So many are like my loyal ciritic; they have so utterly bought into the six-line, black-and-white, soul-sorting heaven-or-hell Greco-Roman narrative that it has become the precritical lens through which they see everything…” (136) Part of that so-called “six-line narrative” is the reality of judgment, the reality that Jesus Christ will come as judge. While the good news of Jesus does include “a new Genesis, a new Exodus, and a new Kingdom come,” there is also separation and judgment.

But Brian, if Jesus and the gospel bring salvation to everyone who believes (Rm. 1:16), from what are people saved and what about the people who do not believe. Does not Jesus Himself explicitly explain what He Himself will do with those who stand in defiant opposition to Him and His Kingdom?

In my book, (un)offensive gospel of Jesus, I wrote about the tension of telling a better, more compelling Story that explores how Jesus and His gospel are inherently, good, and reassuring, while also being honest about “That Other Place.” Here is a portion of what I wrote:

While I think the prospect of a universal re-creation is possible, I find it hard to reconcile that idea with all the different teachings of Jesus which show a separation of people who choose belief from those who choose unbelief. Jesus Himself seems to insist that there is a separation between those who choose to entrust their stories and lives to Jesus in total commitment and those who hold onto the Way of Self while actively vandalizing shalom and rebelling against God and His Rhythm of Life.

I asked my friend Andy about his own struggle with judgment and hell. Like many of us, myself included, he has struggled with the idea that people will be judged and punished forever because of sin. The idea the some will receive eternal heavenly bliss, while others sit in hell has been a struggle for Andy. Recently, though, he’s begun to understand why judgment seems to make sense. “For the longest time both judgment and hell made me shudder, leading to a rejection of their existence. But in doing that I rejected the reality of our world. The reality is that there are consequences to our rebellion, which I think is hell. Now it makes sense that there is a hell and judgment because of that reality.”

In trying to tell a more compelling Story, Brian completely neglects and ignores the reality of judgment, which in the end decimates the gospel and changes it completely. We will explore how he does this in more detail with the next question: the gospel question.