Showing category "Mondays with McLaren" (Show all posts)
Brian
McLaren’s tenth and final question in his book A New Kind of Christianity asks ‘how we can translate our quest
into action?’ He acknowledges that many will reject the quest but asks that we
take Gamaliel’s view into consideration – if the quest is of God then it will
flourish, if not then it will wither and die (Acts 5:36ff). Much of this
chapter contains practical advice for people who share some of the same
questions – especially people who find themselves in the midst of ...
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“Jesus
said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father
but through me’.” This was Jesus’ answer when Thomas asked him how people get
into heaven and what happens to all the other religions in the world. Except
this wasn’t the question Thomas asked and we should, therefore, be very wary of
trying to make Jesus’ words fit into our preconceived ideas. And it is through
studying the context of Jesus’ words that Brian McLaren attempts an alternative
...
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Brian
McLaren (in A New Kind of Christianity) frames his ninth question – on
religious pluralism – within the context of armed conflict between faith
communities around the world. This is certainly a very potent frame but he
could also have mentioned the current narrative that is predominant among some
Christian conservatives in the west – that of the rise of Islam and the threat
to Christian religious freedom. Whichever frame we use the need to explore
pluralism is vital in today’s w...
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Finally
in this chapter on eschatology McLaren discusses the issue of final judgement. This is not
something that can be shied away from for it is ‘a central theme across the
biblical library’. A ‘true accounting, evaluation or assessment of our lives,
our works, our nations, our world cannot help but happen’. However, under the
old Greco-Roman scheme the word ‘judgement’ has been misapplied and we need to
have a truer understanding of it.
Judgement as restoration
First,
suggests M... Continue reading ...
In
my first post on Brian McLaren’s eschatology I sketched his suggestion that God
is inviting us to participate with him in restoring creation, what McLaren
refers to as ‘participatory eschatology’. He then goes on to deal with the term
‘the second coming of Christ’ – a
key term in this subject – and offers a very different understanding.
He begins
his treatment of the phrase by drawing our attention to what Bible scholars
have been saying about the New Testament authors’ ant... Continue reading ...
If
human sexuality is an explosive subject for the church then it is no more than
a damp firework compared to eschatology. This is the subject that Brian McLaren
tackles in the eighth question of his book A
New Kind of Christianity. As someone who was brought up within conservative
church circles McLaren is ‘terribly familiar’ – as he puts it – with this subject,
giving us his firm opinion on the subject from the off. I’m going to blog on
this chapter over three poists.
Eschatology a... Continue reading ...
Brian
McLaren’s seventh question has the power to be very explosive for it is here
that he addresses the issue of sexuality. And he certainly does not shy away
from the controversy in this chapter. ‘No group can exist without a devil,’ he
says, suggesting that homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered people have
become the focus of much Christian fundamentalist anxiety and anger. However,
the question he poses is not ‘should homosexual people be included in church’
or ‘is homosexua...
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The
conclusion to Brian McLaren’s first five questions was that God in Jesus has
come to transform creation through the restoring power of the resurrection. His
sixth question, almost inevitably, turns to the church and what we do about it
in response to the answers offered to the first five. His first point is one
that all of us have been witnessing in the West – for many who have been asking
similar questions and issues of faith, their response to the church question is
to leave, with t...
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On
the face of it Question 5 of Brian McLaren’s list seems a very surprising one:
What is the Gospel? Surely there is no need to unpack this one since we all
know so well what the good news is about – it is the news about God sending his
Son Jesus to the cross to die for our sins so that we could be forgiven and
have our place secured in heaven and that this is possible for us simple
through grace.
In
asking the question, however, McLaren is suggesting that we may have got the
answer wrong... Continue reading ...
In
his fourth question Brian McLaren asks who Jesus is and why he is important.
Asking such a question would suggest that he is actually opening up a debate on
the nature of Jesus’ humanity and/or divinity – but this is not something he
does. Rather he responds to some of the pictures drawn of Jesus in the US
particularly – suggesting that they find their roots more in the Greco-Roman
and Platonic meta-narrative referred to in his first question.
Roots
The
two versions of Jesus that he de... Continue reading ...
Is
God violent, cruel, and genocidal? This is Brian McLaren’s third question and
surely all would answer with a resounding ‘no’. And yet there are many passages
in the Bible – and especially in the Old Testament – that suggest that this
exactly how God can be at times, passages that make him appear very un-Christ-like.
The question that McLaren attempts to answer is whether this is a true
reflection of God or whether the truth is that God is actually like Jesus –
loving, forgiving...
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Brian
McLaren suggests that reading the Bible like a ‘written constitution’ has led
the church into supporting some clearly wrong actions such as slavery. A
different way of approaching the Bible is to see it as an ‘inspired library’.
‘This inspired library’ says McLaren, ‘preserves, presents and inspires an on-going
vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument
into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed’.
God-inspired nonsense... Continue reading ...
How
should we read the Bible? This is Brian McLaren’s second question and it deals
with the authority of the Scriptures. In conservative church circles this is a particularly
sensitive subject and daring to question the ‘word of God’ is seen as a step
too far in any quest. McLaren tackles the issue, however, with a penetrating
force that cannot simply be ignored.
Science textbook
He
suggests that we have ‘got ourselves into a mess with the Bible’ and that this
mess is threefold. Fir... Continue reading ...
In
last week’s post I shared McLaren’s suggestion that the Christian story has
been hijacked by a philosophy that was essentially pagan and which emphasised
the destruction of the body and all material things but the salvation of a
disembodied, eternal soul with god.
The Hebraic worldview
Is
there an alternative understanding? Yes, says McLaren, if we read the Bible
from the Hebraic worldview. Our problem is that we have read back to Jesus and
his good news through the lenses provided for u... Continue reading ...
What’s
the big picture? That basically sums up the first question that Brian McLaren
asks, or to put it in more theological terms – what is the meta-narrative? By
this he means that there is an overarching storyline that we live our lives
within, that helps us make sense of the world and our faith. His assertion is
that the meta-narrative the church has worked within since the fifth century
has been faulty and has had more to do with Platonic philosophy than the Bible.
And without chang...
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Where
did Cain’s wife come from? On one level a wholly irrelevant question; on
another a most profound puzzle, but it is questions like this that can set
people off on a journey that could lead to a very different understanding of
the Bible and then the Christian faith itself. There are some who feel that
such questions are better kept under a lid and should be avoided at all costs.
But for many the questions just don’t go away, they gnaw away on the inside and
insist on being heard.
A q... Continue reading ...
‘Emerging
church’ is a term that is currently in vogue in the developed, western world.
It is a broad term covering a wide variety of beliefs and practices but it is
at its heart a movement of reform within the church. As with any reform
movement within any organisation no one knows where it will all end up or how
much reform will really take place. Those who find themselves walking with this
movement often appear theologically rudderless and, therefore, lacking in direction.
All they fee...
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