McLaren, again?!

Posted by on February 20, 2010

Well, I haven’t had the honor (if you can call it that) of read­ing Brian McLaren’s newest book (A New Kind of Chris­tian­ity), though from what I’ve heard it’s essen­tially a vin­di­ca­tion of every­one who believed(s?) McLaren to be teach­ing some very dan­ger­ous things (it might also cause some to recon­sider the ‘heat’ they sub­jected D.A. Car­son and oth­ers to). I recently came across a very good review of the book (and lengthy) from Kevin DeY­oung, co-author of Why We’re Not Emer­gent. If you still aren’t sure about McLaren it’s def­i­nitely worth the read, he’s even assem­bled it into .pdf format.

You can find the review on Kevin DeYoung’s blog.

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Category: Media and Literature, Theology

Comments
2 Responses to “McLaren, again?!”
  1. Nick says:
    January 22, 2011 at 8:37 am

    McLarens teach­ings, dan­ger­ous?
    never heard such a thing.
    McLarens books is the most restor­ing, help­ful, uplift­ing, spir­i­tual books i have read in a long time, includ­ing “a new kind of chris­tian­ity” so if you haven’t read it yet i would sug­gest you read it your­self with­out rely­ing on other peo­ples reviews or preconceptions.

    with love!
    /Nick

  2. Jeremy says:
    January 22, 2011 at 10:57 am

    First things first, I more or less gave up fol­low­ing any­thing McLaren said shortly after writ­ing this. So no, I still haven’t read “A New Kind of Chris­tian­ity”. I don’t plan on it either, because it says the same things he says in his other writ­ings — which I have read — and on his blog — which I still check out from time to time. Hav­ing flipped through the book at the local book­store, there isn’t any­thing new in it that would change my mind and sud­denly cause me to start see­ing McLaren as an author­ity. That said…

    …There is a cer­tain ‘legit­i­macy’ to what you’re say­ing, depend­ing on your own pre­sump­tions and what you’re look­ing for in a book (or in an author or spir­i­tual leader, for that mat­ter). Ignor­ing ques­tions such as, “is McLaren advo­cat­ing teach­ings which are con­gru­ent / incon­gru­ent with his­tor­i­cal (bib­li­cal) Chris­tian­ity”, some — as you have — might very well find a “restor­ing, help­ful, uplift­ing” [sic] series of spir­i­tual books. There could be any num­ber of rea­sons for this, and for most of those rea­sons I under­stand why one would be espe­cially attracted to McLaren or other ‘emer­gent’ authors. ‘The church’ appears to be out­dated, out­moded and unable to cope with the advent of con­tem­po­rary cul­ture (whether you want to call it ‘mod­ern’ or ‘postmodern’).

    If, how­ever, you’re look­ing for a book that teaches an authen­tic Chris­tian­ity (by bib­li­cal stan­dards) while also teach­ing a ‘new way’ of doing Chris­tian­ity (i.e. adapt­ing to sur­round­ings, new issues and facts of life, etc.). Then you prob­a­bly aren’t going to find it in McLaren, Bell, Pagitt, Jones, or any other ‘emer­gent’ authors / pas­tors / spokesper­sons, etc. The few legit­i­mate con­cerns of the emerg­ing church (I see no dis­tinc­tion between emerg­ing and emer­gent), which do war­rant action, are squan­dered on what is lit­tle more than ‘lib­er­al­ism 2.0′.

    At the end of the day I’m con­cerned with truth and the ‘Chris­t­ian nar­ra­tive,’ which I believe is author­i­ta­tive no mat­ter the per­son (a meta nar­ra­tive, if you will — the only entirely true one, when speak­ing of God). The truth I con­cern myself with might bring restora­tion, or it might not; it will assuredly be help­ful, because it’s true; it may be uplift­ing, or it may not be, and it may not be con­tained within a ‘spir­i­tual book’ (though I admit that look­ing for ‘spir­i­tual truth’ usu­ally leads one to ‘spir­i­tual books’).

    I would have to agree with myself then. If our con­cern is bib­li­cal belief about Christ and His teach­ings, then McLaren is on dan­ger­ous ground, and teaches some dan­ger­ous things.