mgpcpastor's blog

So, I paid my own money for a copy of Brian McLaren’s ‘Generous Orthodoxy’. I found it to be neither generous or orthodox (and that phrase is not original to me).
McLaren’s conceit was to affirm his own definitions of various traditions within Christianity. The fact that those definitions are barely recognisable to the adherents of the traditions themselves is McLaren’s postmodern contribution.
‘A New Christianity’ is McLaren’s latest book. Frankly, I’m not going to buy it (unless it’s on a remainder table somewhere, real cheap).
But it is notable for McLaren finally seemingly detailing what he does believe.
A fellow named Mike Wittmer is taking the bullet of reading the book and providing some analysis of its content at his blog ‘Don’t Stop Believing’.
So far there have been four posts on this topic.
At a point of ‘interlude’, Wittmer observes:

The Defining Issue
Before I examine Brian’s next question, I think it is important to interact with the foundational thesis which grounds everything else he says in this book. Brian’s underlying point is that what Christians call the Creation-Fall-Redemption narrative actually starts with Plato and was adopted later by imperial Rome. It is this “Greco-Roman narrative” which generates the violence and oppression which Brian seeks to avoid.
Specifically, Brian says that the Greco-Roman narrative produced:
1. Dualisms, such as “matter/spirit, physics/metaphysics, natural/supernatural, and male/female” (emphasis mine).
2. A Feeling of Superiority, where Greeks and Romans thought they were better than other, barbaric people.
3. An “Us” versus “Them” Mentality, where we exclude those who are not like us.

If you accept this thesis then everything else Brian says pretty much follows.
1. The Bible is not our authoritative constitution because that would reinforce a dualism between God and us and enable those in the know to feel superior to those who don’t get it.
2. There is no Fall, because that would imply a dualism between a previously good world and our present fallen one.
3. There is no hell, for that would be the ultimate power play upon those on the outside, resulting in an everlasting dualism between the saved and the damned.
4. Jesus is forever the suffering servant and never the conquering Lord, for that would split him into a dualism of sorts, with the returning Jesus playing the ultimate superior who casts his enemies into hell.
5. Other religions must be acceptable because who are we to say that we are better than them? (another dualism).
6. Homosexual practice is not only acceptable, it beats advocating “the Platonic dualisms in which maleness and femaleness are two absolute, eternal categories of being into which all people fit.”

Go to Wittmer’s blog ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ for all the posts in this series. Developments like these (degenerations really) need to be followed. Liberals and heretics usually try to keep a covering of orthodoxy over their reformulations when they need the covering of the church as a platform for their views. They come out when they feel secure in the knowledge that their views are accepted by a large enough number to remain safe. McLaren’s publication of his positions is something of a statement that he feels sufficiently secure enough to make them.