Review of “A New Kind of Christianity” (Part 4)

 Brian McLaren, in “A New Kind of Christianity,” provides the opportunity to explore how to re-incarnate the Christian faith in a new and changing postmodern culture.  Ten questions form the core of the book.

Question #3 – The God Question: Is God Violent?

These chapters may be among the most controversial thus far, as McLaren reveals what he believes is the “evolution” of theology in Scripture.  He suggests we see an evolution or maturing among biblical writers in five areas:

1)Ttheir understanding of God’s uniqueness (at times they write of God being supreme among many gods; at other times they write of God being the only god),

2) Their understanding of ethics (at times God seems concerned about religious and ceremonial fidelity; at other times God seems concerned about social justice),

3) Their understanding of God’s universality (at times God seems tribal; at other times God seems concerned for all people),

4) Their understanding of God’s agency (at times God intervenes in direct ways; at other times God seems distant and absent), and

5) Their understanding of God’s character (at times God appears violent and retaliatory; at other times God seems gentle and forgiving).

McLaren argues for a kind of progressive revelation to make sense of these shifts.  Early on, God revealed only that information about himself that could be understood by the people of the time.  As people matured, God revealed more about himself.  Thus, before God could reveal himself as a God who loved all people, he had to reveal himself as a God who loved one people–Israel.  McLaren suggests that the Bible presents a maturing image of God which comes to its fullest maturity in Christ.

What McLaren fails to wrestle with is the reality that progressive revelation is not as smooth and straightfoward as he presents.  For example, there are clear indications in Gen. 12 that God loves all people (…”in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”)  Yet McLaren would posit that this time period was one during which God revealed only that he loved one people.  God’s passionate concern for justice is seen as early as Gen. 4 (“The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”), well before the ceremonial emphasis in places like Leviticus.

It does not seem particularly true nor helpful to say that the instances of God’s violence are “immature” or “incomplete” images of God which eventually “matured” or were “completed” by the Christ-like instances of mercy and kindness.

Still, McLaren’s question is worth asking and answering.  What we do with Scripture’s instances of divine violence are very important in a culture increasingly skeptical about Scripture and fed up with violence committed in the name of God.

Question #4 – The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus and Why is He Important?

McLaren’s chapters on Jesus are among the best thus far in the book.   He explores how tempting it is to re-make Jesus in our image and to assume that “Jesus likes who we like and hates who we hate.”  He suggests that Jesus has become a victim of identity theft.  McLaren briefly explores various false views of Jesus today: White supremacist Jesus, Republican or Democrat Jesus, Capitalist or Socialist Jesus, American-first Jesus, Prosperity-gospel Jesus, Homophobic Jesus, Joe-Six-Pack Jesus, etc.

McLaren spends most of his time, however, rebutting what I’ll call the “Fire Extinguisher Jesus.”  There is still a view among many that Jesus came only or primarily to help people escape the fires of hell, and that he has little to no concern about helping people escape the the day to day difficulties of life before death.  McLaren shows how this view grows out of the Greco-Roman narrative which is dualistic and assumes that the physical, earthy, body stuff of this life is inferior.  Then, McLaren returns to the Genesis-Exodus-Isaiah narrative highlighted in his chapter on the Bible and shows how those themes flow through the Gospels, presenting Jesus as one passionately concerned about justice, poverty, oppression, and liberation. 

McLaren is at his best here.  These two chapters are a must-read, not only to enable Christians to take up Jesus’ mission as articulated in Luke 4, but to help churches better communicate who Jesus is within a culture increasingly passionate about justice, poverty, etc.