Great Expectations

Review of Brian McLaren's "A New Kind of Christian"

Below is my review of Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. Sorry, it's not too favorable...
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:A Familiar Kind of Heretic, August 8, 2005
Reviewer:
P. E. Marshall "Reference Guy" (Pataskala, OH United States) - See all my reviews
King Solomon told us in the Book of Ecclesiastes that there "Is nothing new under the sun." When we reach a time of spiritual crisis, like Brian McLaren's pastor, Dan did in this book, we can react in a number of ways. As Christians we should go back to our roots, to the Creator God, to Jesus, to His words in the Bible, to the people who love us.

Or we can opt for the more popular option that leads away from the path of the cross to the welcoming arms of popular and academic opinion. We should, as Paul said, "Become all things to all men so that we may save some." But by that Paul did not mean he would use a different gospel just to get people on board. In fact, in Galatians, he remonstrates with the church that, "If anyone preaches a different gospel...let him be accursed."

McLaren's Neo character mentors Dan away from certainty into a fog so dense that he's not even sure what the gospel is anymore. Near the end of the book, he hopes that Neo will email him and explain it. McLaren's emergent church misdiagnoses what GenX people really long for along with love and acceptance: clear cut answers. The postmodernists have their own metanarrative that worships multiculturist relativism, a paradigm that starts with our fallen minds and tries to reach to God, not one that is given the discovery of God's revelation by grace.

McLaren makes an effort to show how everyone universally likes and admires Neo for his enlightened views. Indeed there is a pull for those disenchanted with their Christian experience to fit in, to agree politically and culturally with the majority. Neo is a scientist who endorses evolution. One senses that this "modernist" view that rejects special creation is the root of the paradigm shift. Romans 1 recounts the folly of rejecting the Creator and embracing the creature.

McLaren's book is brilliant in that it shares its point of view through story/parable, and makes itself understandable and accessible to young readers and non-theologians. It is a Pied Piper that starts out leading people a little away from the truth, providing just the right amount of temptation and confusion. Contrast this with Bihop Shelby Spong's much less subtle rejection of orthodox Christianity. Bishop Spong's stark theology can no longer be called Christian in the most important senses. McLaren's road leads to the same place, but he is much more effective in the wooing.

I believe God can use the existence of the Emergent Church for good. Those of us who believe in the church of the New Testament (pre-modern and pre-postmodern) are challenged to reexamine our method of reaching lost souls, especially young people. We will be forced to defend and strengthen our position from new angles. We are challenged to love fervently as well as know the truth. Love and truth cannot properly exist without one another. Though McLaren strains to remain above the fray, he cannot disguise his liberal theology or politics (A Google search will yield an anti-Iraq war letter to President Bush). In the end, he is not a self-proclaimed C.S. Lewis or Martin Luther II, but someone who doubts and rejects fundamental aspects of Christianity that go far beyond the modern. Jesus, Paul, Augustine. These men do not fit in his "modern" category, but clearly articulate doctrine that he rejects.

Unless you have read the sequels to this book, you have to read between the lines to know that McLaren is an evolutionist, someone who rejects the literal interpretation and inerrancy of the scriptures, and an admirer of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and other "ways to God." This is not Christianity. So if you want another religion that will tickle your ears and make you popular with your liberal friends, follow this road. All true reformers will go back to the scriptures and the record of the first century church to hear the voice of God.

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posted by Great Expectations @ 10:19 AM