Considering a New Kind of Christian, Part 2

I’m continuing to work my way through McLaren’s book A New Kind of Christian.  I would sum it up as increasingly frustrating.  Neo keeps getting further and further out there.  And the strawmen he argues against are increasingly obscure.

This is an incredible nit-pick, but World Cup soccer is played by national teams.  DC United wouldn’t play, much less win, that competition.  Yep, this is fiction but try to keep the connections to reality there to make it believable and in the spirit of being missional- being ignorant of such matters means you lose street cred.  Okay, off the box.

Neo’s sermon contains a section from C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, one I have a particularly difficult time with.  But Neo uses it to teach truth, not illustrate truth.  This would be because the truth he’s trying to illustrate doesn’t exist.  Kind hearted muslims (or pick your religion) are not serving Jesus unknowingly.  In Scripture you find that people forsake their worthless idols to worship the true God.  That’s a bit different than what Neo is trying to encourage.

I’ll give McLaren the credit for reminding people that the church exists to expand the kingdom, benefiting the world.  How he and I understand that is a bit different.  Yes, some Christians reduce the gospel to personal salvation, ignoring the cosmic implications.  Is it possible to make too much of the cosmic implications?  Yes, if you minimize what Scripture maxamizes.  Scripture addresses the need for personal salvation far more than the cosmic implications of redemption.  Jesus and the Apostles do show a great deal of concern for the people’s fate.  His first “sermon”, “repent and believe for the kingdom is at hand.”  “Repent and believe” is conversion talk.  “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins” is conversion talk, and the point of Peter’s very first sermon.  So this notion that “it’s none of your business who goes to hell” is not in step with Scripture.  If modern evangelicals are to be chastized for importing  modern notions onto the Scripture (and they are at times), so should McLaren be chastized for importing notions foreign to Scripture and deny notions prevalent in Scripture.  He also takes some Scripture completely out of context to make his point.  He mentions Jesus’ words to Peter as though we should not be concerned with anyone else’s eternal destiny.  But Peter is asking how John will die.  THAT is of no concern to Peter.

So I find that McLaren is just as reductionistic (via the strawmen he uses) as the people he rejects.  He overlooks the varied use of salvation in the New Testament.  Christians have been saved from the penalty of sin, are being saved from the power of sin and will be saved from the presence of sin.  These correspond to justification, sanctification and glorification.  McLaren reduces the gospel to sanctification just as much as those from his own past reduce it to justification.

It is odd that McLaren, thus far, has not really addressed the reality of ‘heaven’.  He stresses the cosmic implications of redemption, but has neglected what Scripture images as heaven- the New Jerusalem descending to the renewed earth.  God dwelling with man.  No Platonism here, but it certainly seems like a real place inhabited by real people.  It is not just the slow transformation of culture, but an in-breaking of God’s presence and holiness we cannot comprehend.  A cataclysmic transformation takes place.

Neo makes some other errors that I might chalk up to white, liberal guilt.  On the basis of the parable of the good samaritan, he accuses a victimized by crime as guilty of contributing to the system that produced the drug using mugger in the first place.  The parable points to people who came into the presence of the robbed man and refused to help.  He assumes this woman has come into the presence of drug users, or at risk kids, and refused to help.  He’s over-reaching here, and teaching some very shoddy methods of interpretation.

In terms of spiritual practices or disiplines- I get confused by the words McLaren puts in Neo’s and Danny’s mouths.  He argues for a return to more ancient forms of spiritual discipline.  But he argues for intensity over repetition.  What he is reacting against is the notion of the quiet time or personal devotions that some use legalistically.  But he fails to see that the ancient practices were used just as legalistically in their day.

I see the need for routine and periods of intensity.  Farming is a common analogy in Scripture.  A farmer has many routine things that must be done every day- feeding the animals, collecting eggs, milking cows etc.  I’m thinking of the agarian society similar to Jesus’ day which did not specialize like the corporate farmers.  In growing food, there were also periods of intense activity followed by rest before the next intense activity.  You plow, then sow adn then wait.  Eventually you harvest.

Some spiritual disciplines are to be routine (Scripture reading, study and memorization, prayer etc.).  Some are periodic (fasting, corporate worship etc).

So while I’m finding McLaren’s novel fairly imaginative, I also find his conclusions equally fictional.  It is not that there aren’t real problems that need to be addressed.  There are- and we need to listen when he does his the nail on the head.  But he overcorrects most of the time, and is guilty of post-modern reductionism much of the time as well.