Argument From Silence — What Does Brian McLaren Believe?

I mentioned that I had some topics "on the burner" so to speak.  One reason that I delayed this is that it refers to a blog that I no longer have the reference to locate.  I have tried for some time and have failed.  So I leave it to you to accept or reject my characterizations below.

-----

I have been struck over some period at the number of times that Evangelicals have questioned Brian McLaren with respect to certain points of belief. While claiming orthodoxy in belief, he responds by being surprised at the responses of those Evangelicals while he never answers their questions.  Some have taken this silence on position as evidence of a problem in McLaren’s belief.  Some defenders suggest that the purpose in the vagaries is to keep from scaring off the unbelievers before they get a chance to understand for themselves.  But McLaren says nothing, at least in any place that I have seen.

The Church and Homosexuality

First, this post is not about answering the question. But I periodically visit IBC’s discussion forum, Table & Fire, and found a new topic introduced by one of the more thoughtful forum regulars. I say forum regulars loosely. In the past, T&F had a fairly significant following. But its server crashed in a serious way, and the entire thing had to be rebuilt. And in the midst of that, the person who had been responsible to maintain it moved and was could no longer do so. So when it finally reemerged a few months later, only a paltry few signed back up. It has been fairly silent for a while until this friend opened the hottest topic yet. And it was viewed, but no response for 10 days. Here is the opening post:

I thought I'd see if T&F was completely dead. I think that IBC should re-evaluate its approach to gay people.

I would argue that God desires loving relationships and that committed same-sex couples should be allowed to enter those relationships without fear of condemnation from our church. Rather they should be encouraged as would any heterosexual couple desiring to marry. I wondered if anyone else felt the same at IBC or if I was just way off here. I'm fairly certain I'm one of a handful (if that) of IBC'ers who may feel this way. I wanted to see if there were others.

That's all. Simple, right?

Being the man of way more than a few words, I have now responded as follows:

The Church of Tomorrow Revisited

For years we’ve heard how students are the church of tomorrow. To be honest, I hate this statement for all kinds of reasons. First of all it assumes a definition of the church that is inaccurate. If the church is a group of people following Jesus and living life together, would we dare say anyone under 21 isn’t a part of that experience?

Saying students are the “church of tomorrow” assumes students will lead someday, not today. Middle school and high school students who are growing in their faith are ready to lead now. We simply have to challenge them and give them space.

Those are the opening lines of a short article “The Church of Tomorrow” posted August 4, 2010 on the IBC website. I first want to say that the article was excellent and shows to me, one of the older members of IBC, that the next generation of “church,” while possibly different than during my day, will continue its grand march through time. But these opening lines lead me in a different direction of thought. I do not diminish or disagree with what the original writer said, but look at a different way to understand that comment about the church of tomorrow.

Immigration Politics and the Christian

A response to several discussions on the immigration issue predicated upon reading “Christian Immigration”

Over the past couple of years there have been occasional articles concerning the immigration issue in America and proposed positions that Christians might take.

The first of these that I saw concerned the New Sanctuary Movement that began in the 1980s in response to the flood of refugees from Central American countries. A prominent web site with information on the movement — "allies," links, etc. — is found at the link in the footnotes [1]. It opens with the following paragraphs:

In the early 1980's, thousands of Central American refugees poured into the United States, fleeing life-threatening repression and extensive human rights violations by their governments.

At the time, federal immigration policy would have denied the majority political asylum simply because their governments were allies of the U.S. Many of these refugees had actively participated in the liberation theology movement and naturally sought protection from congregations.

The discussion that brought the New Sanctuary Movement to my attention related to the desire of a friend to at least consider this as a way to help in obeying the command to care for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, and the alien. The premise is that it is much easier to help them when they are nearby than when they are at some distance, such as in remote parts of distant countries.

And the article that was presented at the time concerned a particular case in which a mother and father were to be deported as illegal aliens but their child (of uncertain age) was not required to leave with them. As I cannot at this time find the article that started the discussion (it was on a forum that crashed and the old files not recoverable) I probably do not have details completely accurate. But I believe that the underlying premise was that the mother desired the child to remain in America, and would prefer to stay with the child, so had sought refuge in a church that was part of the New Sanctuary Movement.

In the same time frame, there was an article by Keith Giles in THEOOZE titled “Christian Immigration” that speaks somewhat to a position on immigration politics. While THEOOZE is no longer online, the article is archived within Mr. Giles' blog.[2] Some paragraphs that show Mr. Giles' position on the subject are as follows:

Atonement of Christ

Do you need to believe in the atonement of Christ to obtain the salvation that He offers?

The question is both simple and complex. There are a number of things that long-time Christians believe. Some of those may be required for salvation. Others may not. Is the atonement of Christ on the “must” list or is it not required.

When I say atonement, I am referring to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as the ultimate substitutionary death in our place as the result of the original sin in the Garden of Eden.