Parables Revisited

As I have been continuing to study the Emerging Church movement, controversies surrounding Brian McLaren seem to be a never-ending topic. In late November, 2010, I found one on my own. The following were my immediate thoughts:

I admit that I do periodically read McLaren’s blog. Since his recent book A New Kind of Christianity has been a source of many questions and comments on which he writes, I noted a new one that discussed “Violent God.” The question comes from someone who is having trouble accepting that God could really do all the violent things that are recorded in scripture. In response, McLaren points to a book by William Herzog entitled Parables as Subversive Speech. McLaren proceeds to give Mr. Herzog’s reading of the parable of the talents as being about the nature of the kingdom of the world and not the kingdom of God. It is about an unjust economy that “reaps quick exploitative profits off his fellows.”

McLaren writes “When I first read this book some years ago, I thought, ‘He can't be right,’ but now I think he's spot on in most of his reinterpretations.”

And in this one statement, McLaren places himself in an entirely new context.

There still may be things worthy of consideration from his writings. Right after reading this blog post, I purchased A Generous Orthodoxy and am in the process of reading it and intend to write a review. But unless there is yet another dodge coming that I have not anticipated, he may have truly painted himself into a corner by suggesting that the way scripture is written is misrepresenting the words of Jesus. It makes his blog entry on sola scriptura around the same time take on meaning that it otherwise did not have. And that particular post was vague enough, even if it had glimmers of acceptability.

I have often thought that what would “emerge” from any detailed review of McLaren’s theology would be a lot of questions posed for the purpose of engaging people in serious thought about what they believe. But I am beginning to see the possibility that his theology is less than orthodox and that the “openness” of his questions is masking his decisions behind a pretense of questions. (If that is confusing, then you are not alone. I wrote it and am not entirely sure that I said what I meant.)

This is probably premature, but I am beginning to wonder if McLaren was ever truly part of the Emerging movement/conversation. He does not seem to be simply rebelling against modernism, or simply the stagnant state of Christianity as it was (and at some level still is) as the movement began. Instead he seems to be rebelling against the very underpinnings of Christianity and is in search of a different religion. He would like to retain Jesus, but only with the exclusion of much of what he taught and a rather wholesale expunging of the rest of scripture.

But when he raises any question, to simply dismiss him as a nut or even not Christian would be a serious mistake. In fact, the idea that any question is not worthy of consideration, no matter how “obvious” you think the only answer to be, is foolish. It has been suggested that almost every “new” thought starts as heresy, transforms into the hotly debated new idea, then becomes fully accepted by all. (I’m not suggesting that just because it is introduced that it will ever become accepted.) Alternately, yesterday’s heresy is tomorrow’s dogma. Remember, the Bible was never thought to oppose slavery, but it is now presumed to be a fact. There is probably something incorrect about the presumption that the Bible ever spoke about the institution of slavery. But it did speak about how to treat your fellow man, even if that fellow man was a slave, or even your slave. Reading between the lines, we now presume it to have been softly directing us toward freedom for all. And that may be true. It is just not a certainty.

It is clear that I have given an answer without providing the analysis. But I do not intend to leave the analysis out or suggest that anyone should accept my conclusions without their own consideration. I still think that dealing with McLaren’s questions is an important part of coming to know what we really believe, and understanding the questions that the postmodern perspective will raise. And we should assume that in this process we will discover the foundational truths of our beliefs as well as new ways to understand, believe, and practice our faith.

But as McLaren finally begins to roll out some answers, it may be that we, or at least I, will not find myself on the same road. Yet while I have questioned whether he was ever really part of the Emerging movement, he does elucidate many of the questions that have been part of the conversation and have made many mainstream evangelicals nervous. We should not be nervous to grapple with the questions. Rather we should be nervous to simply reject them with slogans gleaned from the theologians of the past.