[BBC List] A liberal in evangelical clothes

[Mike Abendroth]

A Generous Heterodoxy
By Charles Crane

I had the opportunity to hear emergent-church leader Brian McLaren speak at
Vision New England’s Congress held on February 3rd, 2006.
A Conversation with a harpist
Mr. McLaren’s session was basically taken from one of his recent books
called Finding Faith. For most of his talk, he referenced a conversation and
subsequent e-mails with an 18 year-old harpist that played at a book signing
held at his home church.
These e-mails supposedly captured the worldview of a typical post-modern
seeker. The girl was considering Christianity but didn’t want to be
associated with the convictions or political bents of Christians. She hemmed
and hawed about the fact that she wanted to know God, but didn’t want to be
a bigoted, hate-filled person like other Christians she had known. 
One could see that her dilemma boiled down to her desire to investigate
Christianity with an unwillingness to possibly modify her world-view or
opinions. It seemed to be about lordship in the end and who would be the
Lord of her life. If that Lord asked her to abhor things that He himself
abhorred, she wouldn’t go for it. She wanted a God who fit her mold as
opposed to the other way around. I did get the real sense that she was
genuinely searching.
He suggests that her inner turmoil act as a post-modern standard to define
how we speak of God - not just during evangelism but for all time. McLaren
often abandoned regular, meaningful terms and phrases in his presentation
for less familiar, non-Christian ones that left a lot of questions in my
mind as to exactly what he was saying. I wondered why this was done in an
auditorium purportedly filled with Christians.
McLaren’s desire to show tact and skill when engaging people is admirable,
but I feel he takes this position so far as to do the scriptures in general
and the gospel in specific great harm. In Ephesians 4:14-15 we read: 
“As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by
waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men,
by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are
to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.” 
Weakening divisive biblical truth is not what Paul had in mind. At the end
of the day, we must speak the truth in its unvarnished form with a loving
motive and demeanor. If one strips the meaning out of the truth not wanting
to offend, it is useless to sanctify.
A case in point; several times during his talk when referring to a person’s
justification McLaren used terms like “follower of Jesus” in stead of
“saved” or “redeemed” or “believer”. A dilemma exists in that one can be a
“follower of Jesus” and, in fact not be saved.

The Happy Atheist
McLaren spoke of an atheist man who was attending his church due to the
man’s more religious wife. Mr. McLaren had the opportunity to go fishing
with him alone. He engaged this man by asking “where are you with God?” The
man replied that he agreed with everything that he had ever heard McLaren
preach with the caveat that he did not believe in God. This statement caused
me to conclude two things regarding McLaren’s sermons; firstly, their
content must not heavily burden the listener with the concept of God.
Secondly, if we are told in scripture that the gospel is an offense and a
stumbling block and yet this man could happily attend his church, McLaren
either must not present the Gospel correctly if at all, or he has modified
the vocabulary so as to render the gospel presentation meaningless and
ineffectual.
The underlying problem with McLaren’s emergent tactics is that he will not
set aside his intentionally-nebulous lingo so that his beliefs can be
assessed. He knows doing so will force him to “take sides” and alienate
someone. He has elevated man-pleasing to an art form. He is very much like
Colin Powell. Mr. Powell refused to let people know his political
convictions until he was cornered during an election. I feel it is time to
corner Mr. McLaren. I ask this question; what is the difference between not
believing the non-negotiable tenets of Christianity, and refusing to express
them substantively even to fellow believers? Both are denials of
Christianity in practical terms.
The Dormitory story
McLaren continued with a story of the day when his son moved into his dorm
as a freshman. The campus was a sea of confusion with incoming freshman and
all the minivans that were delivering them. While still several blocks away
from the dorm, a campus Christian ministry team swarmed over the car and in
an instant completely unloaded it. After McLaren parked the car in a lot
some distance from the dorm, he found his son’s room already set up and a
Christian student showing him how to log into the college’s web site for
class information. McLaren said that is was a wonderful and perfectly
executed display of Christian love. But, he said, it was ruined when as they
departed they slipped a flyer for the weekly Bible-studies into the son’s
hands. McLaren said the flyer was filled with “every piece of Christian
jargon you could possibly imagine”. He contended that this nullified the
entire experience. I am dumbfounded with this ridiculous conclusion. What a
veneration of style over content! I say congratulations to that fine
organization.
McLaren’s position of disavowing all things that smack of traditional
Christianity fails to understand that the redemptive power of the Gospel is
inextricably tied to a clear presentation of words and facts, and to the
degree that those words and facts are taken from the scripture itself, the
more powerful the effect. 
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
The real danger comes when he stresses unity within all of Christendom to
achieve things that have nothing to do with our redemptive charge. When
tolerance, unity and social justice are mixed in to the emergent world of
cloudy vocabulary and an inability to assess orthodoxy, the result is
theological drift. This is what I have observed occurred with Mr. McLaren.
McLaren made a daring move and recounted for the audience how the “fishing
atheist” became a “follower of Jesus”. I thought aha! Now we will hear how
he speaks of someone’s conversion! McLaren told this story. Many Christians
at Cedar Ridge just assumed that this man was a believer simply because he
attended. (This tacitly speaks to the low discernment and immaturity of that
church) McLaren told how many in his congregation started asking this man
for his opinion on their problems and some asked him to pray for them. The
atheist man said that it was then he knew that Cedar Ridge was the church
for him. He said that if the members of this church were this messed up, he
concluded that he would fit right in. This strikes me as a sad commentary on
the state of the church. The lost should find the church to be a place where
there is something different, something un-worldly, something “other” (or
holy), to which their quickening soul is attracted – not a twelve-step
program where the dead are consulted on behalf of the living.
McLaren saw this man in line for the Eucharist. (I stop here for this side
note. I find it interesting that a man who celebrates nebulous speech would
use the heretical Roman Catholic term for communion when describing
communion in his own, protestant church. He may have used this word because
he was speaking in New England and wanted to be inclusive of all the
potential Catholics in the audience, but words mean things.) He caught this
man’s eye as he approach to receive the bread. The man gave Brian the “two
thumbs up” sign, which McLaren said is sign language for becoming a
Christian. Is this the pastoral standard for discerning who is in or out of
the kingdom? What a travesty. There was no talk of sin, no talk of
repentance.
In addition to the confusion caused by calling communion the Eucharist,
denominational lines were blurred again. The 18 year-old harpist has a
boyfriend who reportedly evangelized her on a regular basis. However, this
boy referred to going to church as “attending mass”. Brian dismissed this by
saying that “people live very complex spiritual lives.” He said that the
boy’s parents made him go to mass on Saturday night, and then he attended a
protestant church on Sunday mornings. McLaren made no delineation as to
whether both were legitimate forms of Christianity. He certainly does
nothing to discount the Roman Catholic Church in his books and articles. So,
again, a perfect opportunity to take a stand on the content of our faith was
glossed over. His desire to win people to his emergent position far exceeds
his desire to share the factual content of his position. does this boy truly
know what the gospel is since he’s attending contradictory churches? Is he
simply honoring his parents? Assuming he is a true Christian, why is he
dating this unbelieving girl in violation of scripture?
II Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what
partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light
with darkness?” 
These and many other teaching moments went unaddressed by McLaren. I
wondered if he held any convictions strongly enough so as to draw ANY lines
in the sand (besides his distaste of biblical vocabulary and doctrinal
distinctives).
In Summary
The fact that his forty-five minute talk passed without discussing God, His
attributes or any doctrine whatsoever was not lost on me. He mentioned one
scripture passage right at the beginning of his talk. The talk was chiefly
about our use of words when speaking with people without any mention of what
those words ought to convey about truth and the gospel. McLaren left me
wondering what his ultimate goal was in being so winsome and ingratiating
toward the unchurched. He never implied that his goal was to ultimately ask
them to bow the knee to Christ, repent and trust Him for the forgiveness of
sins. If anything, it was assumed by the audience.
If a man speaks enough, he will eventually reveal his beliefs. In his
on-line sermons McLaren preaches a man-centered theology often almost
apologizing for things such as God’s killing the first-born Egyptians during
the plagues of the Exodus as if it was mean-spirited and unfair. One quickly
gets that impression that he has a very low view of scripture. His recent
refusal to take a stand on homosexuality, even implying that there may be
legitimate forms of same-sex unions, confirms this impression. His skill for
charming people to himself, without any sort of revelation of exactly what
he stands for is something to behold. An auditorium of Congress attendees
applauded him like little sheep after forty-five minutes of subtly
ridiculing how Christians behave, how we must abandon our biblical
vocabulary, and how we must stop arguing over things like truth. It was a
towering example of all that is wrong in evangelicalism today; blind,
unquestioning acceptance of church fads like the emergent movement, a
vacuous lack of discernment in regard to teachers, and the belief that just
because a speaker is retained by an organization like Vision New England,
they must be biblically sound. When McLaren has as many fans in dead,
liberal churches as he has in evangelicalism, something is amiss.
McLaren’s most recent book A Generous Orthodoxy has this as its secondary
title: 
“Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative,
Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative,
Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green,
Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian”
Need I say any more on his intentional nebulousness? My advice is to avoid
Mr. McLaren, his books and his church. In 2 Timothy 2:15 pastor Timothy is
admonished by the apostle Paul:
“be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not
need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (emphasis mine)
Mr. McLaren teaches that in order to reach the post-modern person, this
verse can’t be followed. For accurately handling the word of truth means
that one must strive for biblical orthodoxy and this is too contentious.
While they may be beneficial things, authenticity and a sense of community
never saved a single soul. Christians must busy themselves with saving a
lost and dying world. This requires recognition of the divisive nature and
exclusivity of the gospel. McLaren seems ashamed of the Gospel and ashamed
of God’s word. Shame on Vision New England for allowing him to speak at
their convention.
II Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for
themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
Charles Crane is a deacon at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston,
Massachusetts


Charis,
 
Mike Abendroth
 
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.   Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."
  - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer
 
HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org
 


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