Brian McLaren shows true colors

[au5t1n]

The fact that McLaren and his ilk have such a growing presence

How influential is he actually? A handful of churches in cities? Hundreds of churches in agreement, or thousands? Or lots of quasi Christian colleges using his books? I'm curious about hard numbers.

His books are read even by regular evangelicals. Like I said, I used to read McLaren and loved his writing, and others I knew read him, and I was at a conservative, evangelical church (arminian baptist). His older books were very popular and they weren't as openly liberal (sort of) as his current books.

---------- Post added at 10:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:44 AM ----------

My school's online student blackboard will occasionally have a C.S. Lewis quote about education, but inevitably they will mark the quote, "C.S. Lewis, Irish scholar and writer." Um...how about theologian? Perhaps if you're seeing McLaren mentioned in non-Christian sources, they may have just omitted "preacher" for political correctness.

Lewis would have said that he was not a theologian.

Or he might say everyone is a theologian. I still felt it was bizarre to label him that way. I would have said, "Anglican Theologian and author of The Chronicles of Narnia" because those are the things he's actually famous for.

 

[DMcFadden]

I don't know about "hard" numbers, but he is quite popular in broad evangelical colleges and seminaries. I have spoken to numerous grads of my alma mater who consider him their guru.

My thought is that he is faddish. Just as we are already seeing a move away from the emergent church as yesterday's news, we will eventually see a dropping of McLaren as yesterday's writer. When I was in seminary there were a few "hot" writers that EVERYbody read; today, you can hardly find their books in print.

 

[py3ak]

Lewis would have said that he was not a theologian.

Or he might say everyone is a theologian. I still felt it was bizarre to label him that way. I would have said, "Anglican Theologian and author of The Chronicles of Narnia" because those are the things he's actually famous for.

Except that he actually did say that he wasn't a theologian, and was quite consistent in referring to himself as a layman. Thus when he is invited to address theological students, he says he is a sheep about to do some bleating.

 

[lynnie]

I don't know about "hard" numbers, but he is quite popular in broad evangelical colleges and seminaries. I have spoken to numerous grads of my alma mater who consider him their guru.

Ugh.

 

[SolaSaint]

I understand in his new book he comes right out and says things like the God pictured in parts of the OT is "hardly worthy of belief, much less worship". Has anyone read A New Kind Of Christianity?

Can anyone answer Tim V's question? I would love to see where this quote (in context) comes from if it is true.

Browse Inside A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith by Brian D. McLaren

check out chapter 11, the third paragraph. but I wouldn't stop there, he says much the same all through the parts I read. in my opinion he truly does have a hatred for God.

 

[au5t1n]

WOW, chapter 11 is WAY beyond anything he used to say when I read him years ago.

 

[dudley]

McLaren's position I believe is blasphemous and abominable to all of our beliefs as Reformed Protestants and really all Christian Protestants who accept the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, the Bible, as the Word of God and our sole source of His authority.

 

[au5t1n]

The section with the text TimV asked about is in Chapter 11, paragraph 3:

In this light, a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship. How can you ask your children - or nonchurch colleagues and neighbors - to honor a deity so uncreative, overreactive, and utterly capricious regarding life? To make matters worse, the global holocaust strategy didn't even work. Soon the "good guy" Noah gets drunk, and soon after that his sons are up to no good, and soon after that we're right back to antediluvian violence and crime levels. Genocide, it turns out, doesn't really solve anything in Genesis, even if a character named "God" does it. (Could that be a worthy moral lesson to draw from the text?)

It's painful to quote this blasphemy, but there's the reference sought. *shudder*

 

[buggy]

Sounds Gnostic to me, since it portrays God in the OT as evil and in the NT as good.

 

[Kim G]

You can listen to him speak on YouTube. This first video talks about the "secret message of Jesus." Evidently the new kingdom he brought means that we have special relationships with all people now, regardless of their religion (around the 4 minute mark).

[video=youtube;5udKP9Q4_jw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5udKP9Q4_jw[/video]

Here is a series he did on "A New Kind of Christian."

[video=youtube;fFxMruDq1L4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFxMruDq1L4[/video]
[video=youtube;UbGwAzthiIs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbGwAzthiIs[/video]
[video=youtube;gfVe1Oc6N8Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfVe1Oc6N8Q[/video]

 

[au5t1n]

Sounds Gnostic to me, since it portrays God in the OT as evil and in the NT as good.

I doubt he'd have good words to say about the God who struck down Ananias and Sapphira, or Herod for that matter. And then there's all those "mean" things Jesus said...

 

[kvanlaan]

I doubt he'd have good words to say about the God who struck down Ananias and Sapphira, or Herod for that matter. And then there's all those "mean" things Jesus said...

I remember something Beeke (I think it was him) said: of all the verses that Jesus spoke in the Bible, the largest percentage were those regarding judgment. So the most 'relevant' Jesus by sheer volume in the Bible is the 'mean' Jesus.

I agree that we should not bash the man for the sake of bashing him (and that we should not do so without solid evidence), but his heresy is so fully revealed, should we not be almost 'evangelical' in warning weaker brothers who may fall into this false teaching? How should we treat him?

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any [man] preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

He preaches a false gospel, that is completely without doubt. But I honestly want to know, in view of Gal 1:8, 9 how should we treat him if we met him or if we were invited to his house? He comes in the name of Christ and then blasphemes it continually and teaches a false gospel. How do we love this enemy who is so completely opposed to God?

I know, love your enemies. But Paul's instruction is pretty clear. It is hard to love those who you are supposed to find accursed.

 

[itsreed]

Not gnosticism, but denial of inspration/inerrancy. He doesn't believe that this is historical, or that God inspred the writing. Hence his ""some guy named god" comment. He's not accusing God of genocidal behavior, just the human authors of this "story".

This does not let him off. It does make a critique of him more accurate.

 

[puritanpilgrim]

“when we ask why God appears so violent in some passages of the Bible, we can suggest this hypothesis: if the human beings who produced those passages were violent and genocidal in their own development, they would naturally see God through the lens of their experience. The fact that those disturbing descriptions are found in the Bible doesn’t mean that we are stuck with them….”

I didn't read the book, I ripped it out of the blog which quoted the book. I'm assuming it's a real quote.

This is almost like the irony of Derrida using words and books to convey how you can't be sure the true meaning of words and books. Or like David Hume saying, "There are no absolutes." Which of course is an absolute statement.

He criticizes previous scripture because of it's bias due to the author, but neglects to discern how this negates any new insight or revelation he may have due to the same rational.