Tag: Brian McLaren

Missional living

I’m trying to tie my hands back some to keep from giving away too much from books I’m reading – especially those I’m still chewing on.
My latest read, A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren is giving me some great insight as of the last few days. First off, I love the sub-title:

Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed- yet hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian.
Continue reading Missional living

McLaren talks Homebrewed Christianity

My buddy Chad and his friend Tripp interviewed Brian McLaren this past week for their Homebrewed Christianity podcast.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet but Chad promises it’s great. It’s already 9:19 tonight and I’m debating on downloading it and listening to it before heading to bed or waiting and listening to it on the bus tomorrow.

Here’s the quote Chad pulled out for his blog:

“You know, if people want to say that the gospel of sin management is easy and hopeful, I have to ask myself how deeply they’ve thought about it, because what it really ends up doing is making most of life for most people pretty much meaningless, and yet, to me, the gospel of the kingdom then brings meaning and value into every dimension of life, and it brings value to all people’s lives as well. So, I would say, the good news is 10,000 times better than I used to believe.”

You can listen here or subscribe via iTunes.

UPDATE: I’m listening to the podcast now – this quote grabbed my attention (around 11:30 in the podcast):

I would never want to say this in a harsh way, but in a true way the gospel for an awful lot of people has become the ultimate spiritual commodity and it’s a consumer product. And an awful lot of what we call Christian activity is the marketing of that product and the winning of new customers so that they can remain satisfied customers for life. When you contrast that with the idea of being invited to join God in the healing and on going development and growth and fertility and goodness of the world — the difference is staggering.

Andrew Jones chats with Brian McLaren

Andrew Jones shared a recent e-mail conversation with pastor, author and speaker Brian McLaren on his blog about his latest book, Everything Must Change.
Great questions from Jones I thought (several occurred to me and several that didn’t – I think I just remained optimistic when something wasn’t directly addressed, it wasn’t because it was purposely left out because McLaren didn’t agree, but more because he wasn’t the focus of the book) and great answers from McLaren I thought.
You can read the whole conversation on Jones’ blog, but of course I’ll share a few highlights:

McLaren: One of the things that I hope the book does (by understatement, perhaps?) is help people think of “church” in broader ways. For example, I don’t think that the church per se is going to intentionally solve economic problems in Africa. But churches will inspire entrepreneurs and activists and politicians and health care workers and community organizers and film-makers, etc., to work together in ways that will bring more and more healing. In this way, “church work” is building up the church, but “the work of the church” is doing kingdom work in our daily lives and jobs, from business to art to government to education to agriculture to whatever.

Jones: 2. The apparent absence of HOPE in your view of future things. Maybe i missed it but you don’t seem to acknowledge hope in the afterlife, resurrection of the dead, etc in your book and i had to guess whether you had walked away from these foundational orthodox doctrines or you were focusing exclusively on the immanence of the gospel in today’s world for effect.
McLaren: Again, I set a pretty specific goal for myself in this book: to explore global crises and what the message of Jesus says to those crises. I did address life after death in Secret Message of Jesus, chapter 20. So I haven’t walked away from hope in the afterlife, etc. If anything, I see more than ever how hope in the afterlife is necessary to keep us going when progress in this life seems slow or nonexistent.

Jones: Brian, your view on the last things has a few of us guessing. How does your eschatological position compare with . . say . . an evangelical post-millenial view? And do you believe in life after death?
McLaren: Just to be super clear … YES! I believe in life after death! I find it hard to line up my views with conventional pre, post, or amillenial views because I think they are all based on an assumption I don’t share, i.e. that the book of Revelation is intended to tell us how the world will end. This view presupposes a deterministic view of history, which I don’t share. I suppose I’m more Wesleyan and Anabaptist in this regard than Calvinist. Anyway, I talk about this in detail in SMJ, and refer to it briefly in EMC – I believe the Book of Revelation is an example of Jewish Apocalyptic which, although it may be concerned with the end of the age, is not really talking about the end of the world at all. In this, I follow NT Wright’s general line of thought, so if I’m off the ranch, so is he. I see Biblical prophecy in terms of warnings and promises, which are different from prognostications. If I had to put a name on my eschatology, I suppose I would call it “Participatory” – meaning that God invites us to participate in God’s ongoing work in the world, leading to the ultimate victory of all that is good and the ultimate defeat of evil. Beyond that, there are a lot of eschatological details I was much surer about twenty years ago when I read the Bible less and popular end-times books more!

Jones: You seem to be calling the American church to a new level of repentance, one that is deeper and more connected with structures. How has the response been?
McLaren: My loyal critics are by and large ignoring this book (so far), or if they pay attention to it – this is very sad to me – they generally ignore everything about poverty, war, and environmental destruction, and focus on doctrinal issues they disagree with me about. Sheesh. I can only hope that someone they agree with theologically will get them thinking more seriously about global crises. Apart from these loyal critics, though, response is really encouraging. People are telling me they are coming to faith or back to faith through the book … and they are feeling more confident to call themselves followers of Jesus when Jesus is presented not just as a fire escape and savior from the world, but as a liberating king and savior of the world. I am also hearing privately from some “big names” who can’t afford to associate with me publicly because of all the nastiness in the American religious world, but who are thankful for the book and affirming of its message.

Is Brian McLaren anti-Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement?

A few excerpts from the comments section of the blog:

You’d have a point about McLaren if it wasn’t for the fact that he has consistently attacks the doctrine of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

In his book “a new kind of Christian” he likens it to cosmic child abuse. There is a recurring pattern and history with McLaren regarding Christ’s death on the cross and that patter is to re-imagine, redefine it and steer us away from what the scriptures clearly teach on it.

It bugs me when people take things out of context and don’t cite their sources.

You mean to tell me you don’t think the cross exposed “the cruelty and injustice of those in power?”
You don’t think it instilled “hope and confidence in the oppressed.”

Join in the fun and leave your own thoughts and comments in the comment section.

Quote the whole dang thing!

Oh how I wish more people would have spent some time in a journalism class!

I’m so tired of people quoting only half of a statement because that’s all they chose to hear.

I’ve got the day off today (nice) and I woke up and read another section of “Jesus for President.” Bought it last night before going to the Dallas Museum of Art with Laurie.

I was good and ready to write a quick blog post about the what I had read before when my friend John forwards this to me from a site he forwards stuff from pretty constantly:

EXCERPT:

There is a word that describes John Dominic Crossan and that word is Heretic.

On a related note: Brian McLaren of the Emergent Church in his latest book Everything Must Change quotes favorably from Crossan’s latest book. McLaren and Crossan reinterpret the message of the gospel in such a way as to practically eliminate the doctrine of Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement (This is the Biblical teaching that tells us the Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and died as our substitute on the cross in order to propitiate God’s wrath against our sins). After quoting Crossan on pages 122 and 123, Brian McLaren concludes that rather than die for our sins, “Jesus will use his cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.”

That is not the Biblical gospel!

That is a bunch of Emergent goblidy gook!

But here again the scriptures tell us plainly what the gospel is and so we ask who are you going to believe?
Mark 10:45 [Jesus said] “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Arrghh! I’ve read the book. I knew exactly when I read the email which portion of the book it came from. I had to jump up immediately. Head out to my truck and grab the book.

My response

again… taking one line out of an entire chapter.

McLaren NEVER says, “rather than die for our sins…” McLaren is making the point about Jesus’ framing story compared to that of Ceaser Augustus.

Now I’ve got to type this whole thing out to prove my point……. geeze….

The empires “good news” is a framing story of peace through domination, peace through redemptive violence, peace through centralized power and control, peace through elimination of enemies. (Sounds a lot like modern America doesn’t it*) It involves the gods legitimizing those in power so that resistance to their sacred regime becomes not only treason but also heresy. The imperial narrative that drives them to dominance often drives them to self-destruction. Jesus’ alternative framing story, as we’ve seen involves God bringing down those in power (Luke 1:52-53) so that the poor can be legitimized (Luke 4:18) and so that the religious collaboration with the empire can be exposed as hypocrisy. The empire uses crosses to punish rebels and instill fear and submission to the oppressed: Jesus will use a cross to expose the cruelty and injustice of those in power and instill hope and confidence in the oppressed.

*my note

I have to wonder – would we really have that much to talk about, blog about, write about, get angry about if we’d only quote the whole dang thing. Maybe if, rather than listening for a sound bite to put on YouTube we’d actually take a couple hours (or maybe minutes) and read the entire chapter or book, or listen to the entire message.

Example 2

I have to share this from Kevin Hendricks re: the recent hub-bub about Jeremiah Wright:

Wow. The craziness is flying over comments made by Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. I’ve read reactions from people stronly opposed to Wright, and from people defending Wright (or at least giving some helpful context — Knightopia links to several more).

Some of what Wright says is clearly off the deep end (i.e., the government invented AIDS to wipe out people of color). But I think some of his comments are right on. Like the “God Damn America” comments:

“The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people — God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” (Seattle Times)

The ABC News story left out the last sentence, which I think helps give some context. Wright is preaching prophetically, like the prophets of old, who spoke out against injustice. I love America and the freedoms we have, but it’s not anti-American to speak out against injustice committed by America. That’s patriotic. (I wish Obama would have made that point.)

And America has some injustice going on when there are more black men in prison than in college.