Thursday, May 01, 2008

why does this bother me ...

My friend Randy Noblog prompted me to read David Roach's Baptist Press report on Brian McLaren's comments at Willow Creek last month and in Everything Must Change. I don't know how accurately Roach reflects McLaren's views but this seems consistent with what I've seen elsewhere and among those that read McLaren more than I do ... and it bothers me. It just doesn't seem "Biblical". It seems more pragmatic ... i.e., almost as if McLaren is trying to reason out a way for God to accomplish His goals rather than going with what Scripture seems to say.

My problem is that it has been a long, long time since I studied eschatology and even then I was more than a little unsure of my position. However, I don't remember concluding anything like McLaren seems to be saying and I certainly do not agree with the implications of some of his "accusations".

Roach understands McLaren as arguing that people who believe in hell may be inclined to dominate and take advantage of other people, rather than help them. This comes from the following statement by McLaren:
Many of us have been increasingly critical in recent years of popular American eschatology in general, and conventional views of hell in particular," he wrote. "Simply put, if we believe that God will ultimately enforce his will by forceful domination, and will eternally torture all who resist that domination, then torture and domination become not only permissible but in some way godly.

I don't see McLaren's leap. And even if it were true, I'm not clear how that gives him license to rewrite God's plan. Roach quotes him again:

This eschatological understanding of a violent second coming leads us to believe (as we've said before) that in the end, even God finds it impossible to fix the world apart from violence and coercion; no one should be surprised when those shaped by this theology behave accordingly.

Hmmm ... same point. I don't see it and I don't follow the rewrite which leads to this faulty and what appears to be humanistic conclusion.

The book of Revelation does not actually teach that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, he wrote, but that a new way of living is possible within this universe if humans will follow Jesus' example.

By going to the cross, McLaren argued in his book, Jesus committed an act similar to the Chinese student at Tiananmen Square in the late 1980s -- he placed himself in harm's way to demonstrate the injustice of a society that would harm a peaceful and godly man.

I find this all very sad. While I violently disagree with McLaren on this, he tangles the above with the truth that repentance is not for some future goal but also a change of life today - that the Kingdom of God is at hand and that we are to have a new way of living now. Many of my Evangelical friends miss this great truth because they lump it with the other teaching/thinking from folks like McLaren.

That aside, Roach does a nice job in his subsequent article refuting McLaren's specific errors.
  • “The apostle Paul tells us not to avenge ourselves. Why? Because, he writes, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’ (Romans 12:18-20).
  • “As for domination, the Bible tells us not to dominate one another, precisely because ‘we will all stand before the judgment seat of God’ (Romans 12:10).”
  • Even though McLaren claims to want world peace, his own view is actually the one that leads to violence, Moore said.
  • “When a Christian understands that he does not fight for his own honor, but that justice will be done by God, either through union with Christ and His cross or at the judgment itself, the Christian is freed then to trust God, not his sword or his gun or his fists or his tongue,” he said. “It is McLaren’s vision of a life that consists only of the justice achieved in this era that leads to violence and Darwinian struggle to see that a pound of flesh is exacted.”

7 comments:

Rick Frueh said...

MacLaren is a bone fide apsotate whose views are not Christian. For someone like Hybels to have him speak at his church is like inviting the wolf into the sheepfold.

MacLaren's views are not complex and a 12 year old girl raised in Sunday School would immediately recognize the alien nature of his beliefs. Like reviewing a professor in the Flat Earth Institute we treat him as if he has a valid perspective.

The question is not "why does this bother me", it's "why doesn't this bother everyone!

Rick - is there a transcript of his talk at Willow Creek?

Anonymous said...

I know that you had to expect me to jump in to McLaren's defence, so I didn't want to let you down. So let me tackle this one at a time.

I do think that a big part of the problem Brian is addressing here deals with the fact that a big part of our picture of what Hell might actually be like hasn't come from a biblical understanding (which quite frankly can be pretty hard to piece together), but instead a charicature derived from popular culture.

In reference to McLaren's interpretation of Revelation, it's almost enough to say that McLaren holds more closely to N.T Wright's interpretation of that text, which I'm not 100% sure I understand or agree with, but I also don't think that makes him a heretic either.

But I'm not going to let you get away with that last paragraph without significant scrutiny. "while McLaren claims to want world peace, his own view is the one which leads to violence". Come on - really! The problem here is that Roach believes that justice must result in punishment, and violent punishment. If that's what you believe justice to mean, then it stands to reason that "justice in this age" would result in a violent approach. And that's the paradigm that McLaren's trying to convey.

I think it's absolutely true to say that if you believe in a dominating, violent God, then it becomes "Godly" to act in a violent way for the sake of "justice".

Anonymous said...

Rick (Frueh) - any chance you'd actually engage with what McLaren is saying rather than just write off anything he says without explanation? Throwing around insults without justification hardly seems like views that are "Christian" either.

ricki said...

Geoff - of course Roach's comment is no more ridiculous than that made by McLaren's ... I think Roach was simply pointing out the nonsensical nature of that.

You seem to echo McLaren's thinking but I see that as a rewrite of the nature of God according to Scripture. I have no disagreement with NT Wright's reminders of how we have distorted and over-emphasized "heaven and hell" but McLaren has gone a step further and has removed the concept of God's wrath toward the ungodly, etc..

Understanding God's justice in that sense doesn't by definition lead to violent acts by those that believe that. Only sin leads to that. And that is probable by those that fall on both sides of this discussion.

Rick Frueh said...

geoff - I have engaged MacLaren's words many times over the past two years, he is becoming tedious and a waste of time. Even Michael Spencer (iMonk) rejects him outright, and no one considers him a staunch fundamentalist. Parsing over MacLaren's teachings about God and His atonement is now relegated to the conseravtive wing of the Marcus Borg School of Theology.

MacLaren should be old news to any discerning student of the Scriptures, however his popularity continues to grow. That should tell us that many churches are selling coffee and do not even realize it.

Anonymous said...

Rick, I think that history shows that McLaren's statement that those who believe in a domineering, violent God are more likely to believe it to be right to act in a domineering and vengeful way towards those who aren't "God's people". Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, etc. Is it as automatic as that? No, of course not. But I think to write that off as ridiculous is a bit much.

I can't see how there's a difference between what Wright and McLaren are saying (other than that Wright uses bigger and better words).

ricki said...

Geoff - I like how you challenged one commenter to engage in the actual words used by McLaren. My response was to note that McLaren's generalized disparaging remark failed to engage anything of substance either. And is therefore in my view, ridiculous.

That aside, I understand Wright as bringing back some much needed focus on the totality of God's plan. I see McLaren rejecting a lot of good stuff going on today and trying to use human means to effect the end that Wright properly teaches.

I doubt that I could write in this space all the rationale in an effective manner but that's the difference I see.

Even that probably didn't make sense ... sorry, it's that best I can (or am willing) to do.

:-)

reftagger