Mr. McLaren has tried in a portion of his book, Generous Orthodoxy, to attempt to redefine the meaning behind Calvinism's theological acrostic T.U.L.I.P., known as the "Doctrines of Grace," through the onion skin of his postmodern blended-faith. Though an effort in futility, an appropriate subtitle could have been (please sing alone) "he don't bring me tulips anymore."If Brian McLaren's name is new to you, he is the latest guru of evangelicalism's "search for significance movement" which he and others have coined as "The Emergent Church." This is the new "flavor of the month" in Christian circles. He is featured currently in the cover article of CT (Christianity Today) on the theme of "The Emergent Mystique." More on "The Submerging Church" later ("submerging" - for what is emergent is not a biblical church at all, but more appropriately - a movement).
Is This Biblical Historic Christianity?
Let's begin by taking a walk together through Brian's spiritual garden and see if you can spot "the tulip" among the postmodern hybrids in his "new" kind of being Christian horticulture. He refers to it as the "Church on the Other Side," "A New Kind of Christian," and now "A Generous Orthodoxy." At its roots, there is seemingly in part an influence of Kantianism (Kant coined the phrase 'categorical imperative', a test whereby we judge our moral principles at the bar of reason, to see if they are indeed universal rules valid for all people. He discussed questions concerning divine commands, grace, the nature of Christ's redemption, the atonement, and the Church, stressing the primacy of the rational moral judgement and often criticizing, challenging and rewriting traditional doctrines.)
McLaren's brand of Christianity also seems to be a blend of several other components in varying degree as well: Open Theism, The New Perspective of Paul, Inclusivism, social activism, an emphasis on "the self" in serving others, with a minimum emphasis on Scripture and biblical truth. Mr. McLaren is a smart winsome man, compelling author, gifted communicator, and enticing wordsmith. He is also, I believe, from pure motives, trying to make sense of an ever-changing culture and how the church should be responding or adapting. Mr. McLaren is not to be taken lightly--his words are smooth and well crafted; and at the same time there is cause for concern here; for his words are strangely vacant of genuine biblical truth and principle.
What he represents does 'sound' new--mission accomplished. But sadly, his views fail to represent historic biblical Christianity. (I am not saying these things in a flippant way. I have read several of his books in the last few weeks and multiple articles by him and others in this movement on their various websites.) But what makes this man, his cohorts, and this movement potentially hazardous is the obvious lack of Scriptural authority, doctrinal foundation and clarity in what he propositions us to believe. His books seem to represent and resemble more the tone of "cultural therapy" then of biblical theology.
Listen, I fully understand his wanting a different kind of church today. Evangelicalism is in turmoil; and in no greater identity crisis than what's taking place within the local church. I also understand how easy it is to be scarred and jaded from an unfortunate, unpleasant local church situation. It can make us all cynical, skeptical, and hopeless in feeling like we will never see real faith exemplified in the local church environment in our day again. Granted. But the solution to the current struggle is not to reinvent the faith, but to reclaim it; holding the pastors, elders and church leaders accountable to a biblical standard and truth--not a cultural one.
Whatever Happened to the Authority of the Bible?
You'll quickly discover from reading McLaren that he rarely developes his ideas or beliefs from a clear biblical foundation taken from God's Word. He usually draws the water of his fluid faith from the well of his own experiences, lost expectations, and personal dreams. That's fine if you're writing novels, but not if you're claiming to represent the Lord. The Bible is God's self-revelation to man. In it we have all that we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3-4). In other words, it is sufficient and authoritative for all things pertaining to faith and practice (Psalm 19:7-11; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21).
If Mr. McLaren holds to the absolute authority and veracity of Scripture, why is he silent on its truth most of the time? Why does he not represent his views in light of its eternal standard? Why is the message in his view, not just the methods, open for change and needs to constantly be evolving? This, ladies and gentlmen, is the primary concern I have for our brother. He does not speak from God's Word but his own predilections and moorings but then still represents them in some form as biblical. Is he convinced that the Word of God transcends our personal experiences, culture, movements and trends? Or is he seeking to rewrite or reinterpret Scripture by the culture, by movements, by personal experience and by ever-changing social trends? Postmodernism is not that difficult to understand or that unique culturally if viewed in the context of all of redemptive history. Listen, societies and cultures will always be vacillating and changing with the varying moorings of men. But what is constant is God Himself and His gospel; and it alone is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). All of our cleverly devised methods add nothing to its effectiveness or impact. It is obvious that emergent philosophy thinks that it has to somehow "change" the gospel message for it to be understood and effective in reaching pomo's (postmoderns). I couldn't disagree more. God is immutable and so is His truth (Hebrews 13:7; Psalm 119:89). We need not to alter it so it can "fit in" to our times better; but we do need to proclaim it without apology, without alteration, and without compromise. So much effort these days is spent on analyzing the times (I do agree we should understand our culture and the audience that we are communicating with) rather than on proclaiming the gospel. Acts 17 is usually quoted heartedly by those seeking to address evangelism in postmodern culture. But what is usually overlooked, is that Paul spent very little time in relating to the Stoic philosophers; and spent the majority of his time telling them about the person and character of the one true God and then immediately calling them to repentance. That is the missing element in emergent church thinking. Salvation, for them, is by relational osmosis than by gospel proclamation.
That is why reading his tomes as serious biblical efforts on being a new kind of Christian or discovering a new kind of church would leave one wanting. Again, he rarely speaks from the veracity of Scripture (again he seldom mentions or even quotes it), but usually from a faith in desperate need of maturity, clarity, direction and solidity. Brian was created in the image of God; and now he has returned the favor by recreating God, the faith and the church in his own image. In other words, he is a "postmodern babe" in sheep's clothing.
When it comes to his reinventing the five points of Calvinism, better known as TULIP, he brings the same mentality--large on sentimentalism or relationship; small on truth. Here is Brian's "Generous Orthodoxy" on the Doctrines of Grace. (Generous Orthodoxy... translation? he makes up the faith as he goes. There are no rules, no models, no denominational walls; no truth constraints; no theological grids; no ecclesiastical structures; no polity; no seemingly observance of hermenuetics for properly interpreting Scripture; no common meta-narratives (they have invented their own pomo religious language that you must understand ahead of time to fully communicate with them); and not even any agreed definitions to common biblical terms and truth. It's just him learning, growing, evolving, experiencing with a left unfinished kind of Christianity.)
