More McLaren

Finally finished a Generous Orthodoxy. There are far too many comments that could be made at this point. Any perusal of this book (and the thoughts of the author) needs to be addressed by far more than a blog. Where does one start? It would take a book by itself to respond to the author’s (Brian McLaren) thoughts. Since I am only starting to seriously address the current wave of emergent theology, and its subsequent impact upon Christian thought, I will refrain from any conclusions concerning the author or the movement as a whole. Problems arise, however, from the content of the book.

Let’s address one: It is the author’s (strong) tendency to surface straw dummies that are easily knocked over to draw conclusions that do not necessarily follow. If one absorbs the thought content of his eloquent writing style without critiquing those thoughts one would conclude, by implication, that orthodoxy constantly needs reinterpretation. The author rightly condemns the fact that Christianity in the name of Christ, and justified by orthodoxy, has mass-murdered, conquered, plundered, etc, etc (fill in the blanks). The straw dummies? Evil men (usually Protestant and white) have done evil things to innocent people in the name of Christ with orthodoxy and absolutes as justifications for their evil deeds. All this is true throughout history, by the way. The conclusion? Let’s advance to a more generous orthodoxy because our God is a loving God, disapproves of Pharisaic oppressions (in the name of orthodoxy, etc) and wants us to bridge the various divides of human interaction so that we might better be able to offer to the world this wonderful Jesus of ours.

Now the author would of course consider this response of mine to be shallow and perhaps even incorrect. But remember, I am addressing those (many) who engage his eloquent writings without critiquing them. The impact (the fruit of that tree) is to conclude by implication that we are in an ongoing conversation and that absolutes only inhibit us from this valuable dialogue. Are there absolutes in Scripture that demand responses within the Christian community? But of course. What are those absolutes that retard our community so much in his mind? The author does not address them. He does address distortions of absolutes and orthodoxies, but he does not name them. Absent, also, from the book is any attempt at exegesis. Now this is not a bad thing. It is simply not the intent of the book. However, I do have a problem with his excoriating his various straw dummies and thus concluding that their (unnamed) orthodoxies and absolutes are illegitimate without some attempt by him to engage Scripture. One would ask the author if there are any absolutes in Scripture. If so, what are they? Should we be generous about changing such absolutes and the orthodoxy that they inspire? It seems to me that there are two and separate subjects that are worthy of serious discussion. One is the distortion of absolute truth by evil men. The other is the absolute truth itself. It is worthy to condemn false teachers, etc, of doing evil deeds in His wonderful name. Those distortions do not however deny the truths that these evil men proclaim. Again, a distortion of the truth does not deny the truth. To the author I would ask, what are those orthodoxies and absolutes that you would like to converse about and possibly change? By the way, as we converse and change, does that change now become an absolute?