A sloppy kind of Christianity
A review of A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming
the Faith by Brian McLaren
HarperOne, New York, 2010
by James Patrick Holding
For those yet to be introduced to the phenomenon of the ‘emergent church’,
here are a few of its premises and practices:
- Don’t look for or act like you have answers—you’ll ruin the dialogue!
- Keep yourself so busy doing good works that you never bother to critically examine
anything you believe—unless it is something out of a conservative Christian
tradition.
- Be so afraid to offend others (except conservative Christians) that you are unwilling
to even say to them, ‘You’re wrong’.
McLaren, like many in the emergent class, are hopelessly indifferent to the quality
or rigour of their argumentation.
Our subject here is Brian McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christianity,
but these descriptors just as aptly fit any of his other books, or any work by any
‘emergent’ author. McLaren does happen to be a leading figure in this
movement, and this latest book of his has the tenor of a manifesto on behalf of
himself and his emergent cohorts, so to that extent, it warrants a bit more attention
than it might otherwise be given.
McLaren is not a pleasant read, even from a narrative perspective. His prose rambles
constantly, and he seems to take one or more eternities to get to a point, only
to reveal to the reader at the end that he didn’t actually have one. He freely
admits that his writings can be frustrating, but it is not for the reasons that
he thinks: Not because his ideas are challenging or disturbing, but because he handles
Scriptural texts and issues with the same facility that one might handle needle-threading
with the disadvantage of a boxing glove.
Brian McLaren Credit: Images from stock.xchng and Wikipedia
I plan my own series on this book in the near future,1 but for the present, I will offer a few of the more
startling examples of why McLaren has earned the above evaluation.
- He is exceptionally uncritical in his acceptance of sources and points of view.
McLaren takes for granted highly debatable stances such as that homosexuality is
genetic, global warming is occurring, evolution is true, and that the war in Iraq
was unjust. He makes no effort to discern the quality of his source material with
respect to these issues. This is manifest in the fact that on the issue of reputed
‘crimes of the church’, McLaren refers the readers to (among other sources)
James Carroll’s unprofessional work in Constantine’s Sword,
and to the even more execrable work of Helen Ellerbe.2
- McLaren, like many in the emergent class, are hopelessly indifferent to the quality
or rigour of their argumentation. In another volume, A Generous Orthodoxy,
he suggested that “clarity is sometimes overrated”. Here, in this volume,
he indicates that his thought in reply to someone who says that his ideas don’t
make sense is, “Good for you, because some of them don’t make that much
sense to me either” (p. 6). Perhaps this is quite intelligible, however, in
light of the constant emphasis emergents offer on ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’
and their refusal to deal in answers—to the point that McLaren refers to his
time after lectures as “Question and Response” times. One is generally
tempted, after reading emergent material, to ascribe this hesitation to deal in
‘answers’ with a marked inability to provide them. True to the results
of the Dunning Effect,3
McLaren confesses that he “wasn’t formally trained in theology”
(p. 55) but considers this to be an “accidental advantage” when he addresses
theological issues.
As is frequently the case, McLaren has the right problem but the wrong solution.
- One of the chief themes of A New Kind of Christianity is that modern Christianity
has been distorted by ‘Greco-Roman’ ideas, having left behind ‘Hebrew’
thought forms. Now there are two sides to this: One is that easy appeals to ‘Greek’
or ‘Roman’ thinking is a staple as well of certain cults (particularly
the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses) who claim that Christianity was distorted
by pagan thinking. It was also an appeal of certain earlier orthodox writers (e.g.
Edwin Hatch). The other side is that modern scholarship, exemplified by academics
like Martin Hengel, rejects a too-sharp distinction (in the New Testament) between
‘Greek’ and ‘Hebrew’ thinking. McLaren’s own commentary
pays no attention whatsoever to the relevant scholarship on this subject, and the
result is a pastiche of undocumented, non-credible assertions about the alleged
influence of ‘Greco-Roman’ thinking on modern Christianity, one that
relies heavily on oversimplified caricatures of both Hebrew and Greco-Roman thinking.
Indeed, McLaren unwittingly admits as much in an endnote where he allows that he
is vulnerable to the same kind of “dualistic reductionism” (p. 263)
he accuses Greco-Romanism of having. His own commentary is as anachronistic as that
of the Greco-Roman strawman he erects.4
- McLaren’s effort to redefine the Bible knows few bounds. For example, attempting
to reconcile his pacifist readings of the text with the obvious interests of war
expressed in the Old Testament, McLaren resorts to such absurdities as defining
the plague of the Nile turning to blood as a “firm but gentle consequence”
and refers to the other plagues as “unpleasantries” (p. 57). We shall
next be told that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ‘inconveniences’ to the
Empire of Japan.
- Another chief theme of McLaren’s is his premise that the Bible has been misread
and misused as a ‘constitutional’ document by conservatives. He never
quite defines what he means by this, but indicates that he prefers to read the Bible
as a “library of a culture and community” (p. 81). To be sure, the Bible
can so be regarded generally, but that classification is far from mutually exclusive
of categories within the text: Deuteronomy is indeed a ‘constitution’
(it has the typical form of a suzerain–vassal treaty of the Ancient Near East)
for example, while the Gospels are ancient biography. That said, McLaren’s
more specific objection is to abuses that he supposes derived from a ‘constitutional’
reading—that, e.g. pre-Civil War slaveowners, because they read the Bible
‘constitutionally’, came up with false justifications for slavery. But
this is simply false. The error of the slaveowners was to transfer biblical instructions
from their proper social and cultural contexts.5
They did not err in their method of extrapolating principles from the biblical text;
that is certainly admissible, for it is an attempt to apply biblical teachings to
our own current situations. Furthermore, the abolitionists, following the earlier
example of Britain’s William Wilberforce, likewise defended their view from
a ‘constitutional’ reading of the Bible—i.e. those whom McLaren
would dismiss as “the religious right” if they were alive today.6 As is frequently the case,
McLaren has the right problem but the wrong solution.
- Perhaps the most telling chapter in the book is McLaren’s treatise on how
we are to react to members of other religions. McLaren counsels respect in our exchanges,
which is certainly good and proper advice, but goes to exceptional lengths to avoid
saying plainly that religions other than Christianity contain error in what they
teach. The closest he can bring himself to say this is where he indicates that one
purpose of evangelism is “recruiting people to defect from destructive ways”
(p. 216).7 But he wouldn’t
apply that to those in a destructive lifestyle that’s politically correct,
such as homosexuality.8
McLaren does well, it must be allowed, to point out various problems facing the
church at large today: Loss of attendance and interest (p. 4), for example, we may
agree is a serious difficulty for the church at large. However, McLaren’s
message of compromise and misplaced sentiment is hardly a resolution that will make
things better.
Related articles
References
- I will begin a more thorough examination in my online magazine,
the E-Block, in March 2010, www.tektonics.org/eblocksub.html. Return
to text.
- For a review of Carroll’s work, see www.catholicleague.org/research/constantine.htm.
For a review of Ellerbe’s work, see www.tektonics.org/af/elbee.html.
Return to text.
- The ‘Dunning Effect’ is that unskilled people
often overestimate their own ability and draw erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence
makes them unaware of their errors. This comes from Kruger, J. and Dunning, D.,
Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one’s
own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments, J. Personality and Social Psychology
77(6):1121–1134, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121, 1999.
For discussion of the Dunning Effect see my article, Dealing with Dunning’s
Syndrome, Christian Research Journal 31(6), 2008.
Return to text.
- Particuarly, McLaren is completely insensate to the cultural
values of honour and shame that govern interpretation of the biblical text and particularly
events like the Fall (p. 49), which he turns into a story of God “mercifully
shielding [Adam and Eve] from their shame” by providing them with animal skins.
On the contrary, the skins provide an object lesson in the necessity for sin to
be paid for with blood; and the exclusion from the Garden is a sentence of exclusion
and shame. McLaren also errs in part because, like atheist critics, he takes the
pronouncement of a death sentence with pathological literalism. On that matter please
see my commentary at www.tektonics.org/tsr/jerry722.html#fig. Return
to text.
- On this matter see Glenn Miller’s excellent article,
“Does God condone slavery in the Bible?” www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html.
One can only wonder why it would not occur to McLaren to do the sort of research
Miller did rather than simply blame slaveowners for misusing the Bible.
Return to text.
- Hochschild, A., Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in
the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005.
See also Sarfati, J., Anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce:
Christian hero, J. Creation 21(2):121–127,
2007; creation.com/wilberforce. Return to text.
- McLaren’s refusal to refer to other religions as in
error, after a full chapter of dancing around the subject, brings to mind a mental
picture of the character Arthur Fonzarelli (“the Fonz”) from the television
series Happy Days, who was so unable to admit his own errors that he could
never say, “I was wrong”, and when he tried, came out instead with,
“I was wra … wra … wo … nn.” Return
to text.
- The Gay-Lesbian Medical Association admits the far greater
physical and emotional health problems with the lifestyle in Top 10 Things Gay Men
Should Discuss with their Healthcare Provider, www.glma.org/. But if Christians
pointed out the same things, McLaren would probably regard it as a ‘hate crime’.
Return to text.
| The ‘new atheists’ claim that Christianity doesn’t have answers to evolution. This site begs to differ with over 7,000 fully searchable articles—many of them science-based. Keep refuting the skeptics.  | | |
|
