Review: Brian McLaren’s “A New Kind of Christianity”, Pt. 2 “UN-Faith”

Brian McLaren’s new book “A New Kind of Christianity” (abbreviated as ANKoC from now on) starts with Ch. 1: “Between something Real and Something Wrong”. As I read through Brian’s first chapter, I was rather surprised that someone who is touted as an author and free-thinker would be so wrong in just a few short pages.

I will readily admit that some of the statistics Brian quotes are sobering. But the conclusions he draws from these statistics display where the real error occurs. For instance, McLaren draws from Jim Peterson’s “Evangelism as a Lifstyle” – Navpress 1985, in which Brian says that the church was losing touch with “normal people” and “It’s preachers had forgotten how to speak their language.” While their may be problems in evangelical Christianity, certainly the preachers are not called to speak the language of “normal people” but instead they’re called to speak the language of God, spreading the good news of the Gospel to a dying world, where the “normal people” are lost in sin without Christ.

As a pastor, I know my calling is to preach God’s word. It’s to proclaim His truth in love. Yet to Brian, the answers that he’s coming up with stray from that calling. For instance, McLaren states on p. 6 of ANKoC that when people came up to him with questions after listening to him preach for six months, that:

“I would give them my best answers, but often after they left, I felt hollow. If they “bought” my answers I was strangely disappointed. If they pushed back and told me my answers still made no sense to them, I thought, “Good for you, because some of them don’t really make that much snse to me either.” (ANKoC p. 6)

I am immediately reminded of Paul taking young Timothy under his wing. In 2 Timothy 2:1-2, Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2) The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

First, Timothy was to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. He was not to waver. He was remain true to his teaching, which had come from Paul and was certainly confirmed within Timothy by the Holy Spirit. Second, Timothy was told to “entrust” the teachings he’d received from Paul to faithful men. In other words, Timothy was to take others and teach them as he had been taught by Paul, and since this was to be through the strength that comes from the grace that is in Christ Jesus, it would have to be the case that the Holy Spirit would confirm within Timothy that what Paul taught him lined up with Scripture.

This is not the case with Brian McLaren. Do you hear from the quote above on p. 6 that Brian himself doesn’t really put a lot of faith in the historic, orthodox teachings of the church? No wonder he went to other places to search for truth! Not only was he floundering over the truth, but McLaren later goes on to say on the same page that after a while their questions became his questions. His new-found faith was based on doubt!

Now don’t get me wrong, we SHOULD examine ourselves to see if we are indeed in the faith:

2Co 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?

And again:

Acts 17:10-11 The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. (11) Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

And therein lies the problem. Brian makes the case over the course of his book that we’ve gotten it all wrong. He makes a big strawman argument (which I will point out soon in another chapter review), and mischaracterizes true Christianity. Why? Because He doesn’t believe it to be true. He modifies the truth to fit his liking.

When Brian talks about his “disillusionment” with the Christian community during the 80′s and 90′s, he makes this argument:

“They wanted to protect unborn human life inside the womb, but didn’t seem to care about born human life in slums or prisons or nations they considered enemies. They loved to paint gay people as a threat to marriage, seeming to miss the irony that heterosexual people were damaging marriage at a furious pace without any help from gay couples.”

OK, this just doesn’t make sense. Is Brian trying to make the case that because church pastors didn’t stand up against rampant divorce and infidelity (even among Christians) that it’s now OK to love the homosexual lifestyle? (He answers that in chapter 17 “Can We Find A Way to Address Human Sexuality Without Fighting About it?” And unfortunately, when we get to that chapter, the answer he presents is anything but Biblical.) Just because pastors have done a lousy job of preaching the truth about sexual purity, personal holiness, etc. doesn’t give Brian the right to rampantly gut what the Bible says about ANY issue, not just homosexuality.

He continuously makes a case that there is a “brutal tension between something real and something wrong” in the faith. (ANKoC p. 7) The “something real” is apparently his view, and the something wrong is the “Greco-Roman” worldview strawman argument that Brian believes the rest of us conservative believers hold. After time though, he tips his hand and lets us see his cards:

“My spirituality was intact – because I was learning that there is a kind of faith that runs deeper than mere beliefs – but my belief system was in shambles. Little by little, though, a new coherence begant to emerge. That coherence was more a new way of believing, less a rebuilt system of beliefs, and I felt compelled to try to share what I was learning and experiencing. So I began to write, and from that time of theolofical collapse and spiritual recovery, my first book took shape, The Church on the other Side.”

This is the key to understanding McLaren.

McLaren readily admits that his belief system was in shambles. What he believed was falling apart, and as a result he was hobbling together a new belief system that would be based on doubting many of the core beliefs that makes Christianity what it is. During this time he “felt compelled” to try to share what he was learning and experiencing. So here’s the crux of it: Brian McLaren was having a faith crisis, and he was writing about it, and passing off his new-found doubt as the new faith of Christianity.

Let’s get something straight. I have no doubt that there are problems in evangelical circles. That’s true. But men of God don’t shipwreck the faith of others by casting doubt everywhere they go. Real men of God speak the truth in love.

So now that he has painted his side as one that is slowly coming to believe what is “right”, let’s take a look at what he poses as the “other side”. (THat would be us conservative, orthodox Christians who believe the bible is inerrant):

“The other side” referred to a position after the beginning of what I called the “postmodern transition.” On the past (“before”- side of the transition, in the modern era, nearly all our Protestant denominations had been formed. They were insitutuional children of the era of Sir Isaac Newton, the conquistadors, colonialism, the Enlightenment, nationalism, and capitalism. each denomination made sense of Christianity within the lines and boxes of modernity. You might say they rewrote and rearranged the anciend “data” of Christianity…..”

As for Brian’s definition of Christianity, he slams us as being part of a modernistic mindset, that is antiquated and behind the times. My question would be why does inception during the Modern era make something bad? Instead, Christianity is a product of Christ. Those who are truly following Christ don’t sit down and think, “You know, I need to make sure that what I believe was steeped in modernism.” Yet Brian’s argument later is that Christianity is fractured because of this very reason, that we are of a “colonial” mindset. Keep in mind that he is writing this of people that he is calling his “fellow Christians”, who are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. Many modern inventions that help man are from modernity. Should we throw them out too?

Instead Brian paints his “side of the equation” as follows:

“…the old modern paradigm…. was giving way to a new postmodern paradigm of pluralism, relativism, globalism and uncertainty – or at least a different kind of certainty, at its best more akin ro humble confidence. Modern Protestantism in both its liberal and conservative forms was being lost in transition and lost in translation.”

McLaren even goes so far as to say that those of us who are Protestants “seemed equally clueless” to what was going on outside of our churches. Brian’s broad-brush painting of Protestantism while wearing myopic glasses has painted a picture of us that’s simply untrue. Where in Scripture are we told that being pragmatic and relevant are the answers to a lost and dying world that so desperately needs a Savior? Instead we read the following in Hebrews:

Hebrews 11:32-40 And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, (33) who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, (34) quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. (35) Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; (36) and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. (37) They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (38) (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. (39) And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, (40) because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.

Those who were of faith were men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. Does that sound like pragmatism? Does that sound like a description of being relevant? No, it does not.

Even in this first chapter Brian reveals where it is that he went astray. He was listening to polluted wells, sources who were also writing and agreeing with him, yet they themselves were not holding to traditional, orthodox Christianity, people like: Brian Walsh, Stan Grenz, and Leonard Sweet. McLaren writes:

“In spite of our diverse backgrounds, we all agreed: something isn’t working in the way we’re doing Christianity anymore. And although we didn’t know exactly what to do about it, we knew that we needed to keep talking and searching together- through the Internet, conferences and retreats, books and networks. So our quest for a new kind of Christianity had begun.”

Notice what’s missing from McLaren’s search: the Scriptures! Having heaped up for himself teachers, authors, writers, and conference speakers who were saying what he wanted to hear, it’s apparent from his new book that he’s drifted even further off course.

How could he not drift away from historic Christianity when he gives credence to people like Phyllis Tickle? This is the same woman who said at Rob Bell’s church that when we’re taking communion we’re “feeding the god within us”. She’s also said that it’s only a matter of time before Sola Scripture is gone. Beyond this she has continued to deny many core Christian beliefs and is a promoter of homosexual marriage.

With McLaren drawing from such polluted sources, no wonder he’s gone astray.

Stay tuned, and next the next installment will show even more problems with the “un-faith” of Brian McLaren.