Part 3 - Everything Must Change: The Story We Find Ourselves In

One of the hallmarks of McLaren’s previous books and the Emergent Movement as a whole has been the fact that it has been extremely difficult to define their doctrine and theology. McLaren is notorious for shrouding his beliefs in mystery. In “Everything Must Change” McLaren has changed tactics and has openly come right out and said what he believes.

In chapter 10 of “Everything Must Change” McLaren gives us the clearest and most comprehensive outline of his Emergent views. He does this by comparing “Conventional Christianity's” answers to four basic questions to the Emerging View’s answers to those same questions. The four questions are:

1. The Human Situation: What is the story we find ourselves in?

2. What questions did Jesus come to answer?

3. Jesus’ Message: How did Jesus respond to the crisis?

4. Purpose of Jesus: Why is Jesus important?

[McLaren constructs this section of his book in a Narrative / Counter-Narrative format. I hope that Emergents recognize and appreciate the irony of this fact.]

In this post we are going to look at the first question, "What is the story we find ourselves in" and see how McLaren defines the two positions. (As you are reading McLaren’s interpretation of the Conventional View, please notice how he portrays it using pejorative and inaccurate language. This tells us something about McLaren and his agenda.)

Here is what McLaren wrote:

The Human Situation: What is the Story We Find Ourselves In?

Conventional View

“God created the world as perfect, but because our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not maintain the absolute perfection demanded by God, God has irrevocably determined that the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed, and the souls of all human beings—except for those specifically exempted—will be forever punished for their imperfection in hell.”(pg. 78)

Emerging View

“God created the world as good, but human beings—as individuals and as groups—have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice. God wants to save humanity and heal it from its sickness, but humanity is hopelessly lost and confused, like sheep without a shepherd, wandering farther and farther into lostness and danger. Left to themselves, human beings will spiral downward into sickness and evil.” (pg. 78)

When you take McLaren’s points and lay them side by side (see the chart below) McLaren’s pejorative mis-interpretation of the Conventional View comes into to sharp focus.

Notice that McLaren recasts the Conventional View so that the reason that man fell and will be punished is NOT because of sin (disobedience to God’s commands) but because of imperfection. McLaren even says that the Conventional View teaches that people will be “punished in hell for their imperfection”. This is not only untrue (Orthodox Christianity does NOT teach this), it makes the God of Conventional Christianity appear to be unjust and unfair. In fact, McLaren’s inaccurate description has turned the God of Conventional Christianity into a monster who unreasonably demands ‘perfection’ and will smite anyone who is imperfect. But notice that, perfection and imperfection are abstractions. The important question that critical thinkers should be asking at this point is “Perfection according to what standard?” Is God going to send us to hell because we have imperfections like pimples, freckles and skin blotches? Is God going to send people to hell because they are not perfect robots who march in lock step to God’s drumbeats? What is meant by perfection?

By discussing Conventional Christianity’s view in terms of the abstract concept of ‘perfection’ rather than the concrete concept of sin and disobedience to the clear commands of God, McLaren hasn’t portrayed Conventional Christianity fairly or honestly. The reason McLaren did this is because he is attempting to undo and deconstruct Conventional Christianity. McLaren has an agenda. In McLaren’s mind, Conventional (Orthodox) Christianity is one of the ‘things’ that must be changed in “Everything Must Change”. (see page 80 of Everything Must Change)

Since, McLaren has not fairly or accurately told us what Conventional Christianity believes regarding the answer to this question. I will take a few minutes here to set the record straight.

An Orthodox / Conventional Answer to the question ‘what is the story we find ourselves in?”

One need only spend a little time reading the book of Genesis to understand the drama that unfolded in the creation of the heavens and earth and the fall of mankind. The opening chapters tell us of the wonders of God’s creative power in speaking all things into existence over the course of six days. We learn from the narrative that God pronounced all the things that He created to be ‘good’.

We also learn that on the sixth day God created a very special species. This species was created in the actual ‘image of God’. This crowning apex of God’s creation was man.

Our first parents Adam and Eve, walked and talked with God face to face and they cared for God’s creation. God also graciously provided for all of their needs. It truly was paradise on Earth. The narrative also tells us that God laid down a rule. Adam and Eve could eat from the fruit from any tree in the garden except the fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God also warned them that to disobey him in this matter would result in their deaths. Tragically, our first parents we’re deceived and directly disobeyed God. As a result, they no longer reflected the image of God. Instead, they had become sinners and everything has been affected by their sin.

We learn from other passages of scripture (Eph 2:1-3, Rom 5:15-19) that all humans who are naturally descended from Adam and Eve are sinful by nature and dead to God. The entire race of mankind from beginning to end, from the greatest to the least are self-centered, self-worshipping and self-absorbed little deities who by nature only think about their self-interests and are in active rebellion to the God who spoke them into existence. Left in this condition, every single one of us from our greatest humanitarian activists to our most murderous dictators has earned and deserves both God’s temporal and eternal punishment.

This story alone explains mankind’s unbroken historical chain of evil, inequity, injustice, slavery, robbery, adultery, idolatry, murder, terror, environmental destruction and warfare. We also learn that our sin has even impacted nature and the environment we live in (Rom 8:19-12). All of the evil we see played out in society as a whole (macro-evil) is an extension of the evil that is individually played out in each of our own personal lives (micro-evil).

BUT, we also learn from scripture that God loves us dearly and is not about to stand idly by as we all send ourselves to hell. From the very first day of the fall of mankind God sprung into action and began enacting His rescue plan. All the way back in Genesis 3 God announced His ‘Good News’ in the promise of a savior that will crush evil and rescue us from death, sin, and its terrible and eternal consequences.

According to Conventional Christianity which is grounded and rooted in the Word of God, this is the story that we find ourselves in. This story ALONE tells us the truth about the current condition of humanity and God's relationship to us in our fallen state.

The Emerging View of the story we find ourselves in.

Sadly, McLaren has re-written the story of the fall of man. He has re-framed the opening chapters of Genesis in the Marxist social/economic categories of consumption, Imperialism and class warfare. Said McLaren:

"It's interesting to consider the importance of consumption in the biblical narrative. When the crisis of human evil is introduced in a passage beginning in Genesis 1:19 and ending in 2:20, forms of the words "eat" and "food" are used about twenty times. Consumption is closely linked with human evil. Adam and Eve live in harmony with creation in a garden, surrounded by food-bearing trees. But to be a human being is to live within creaturely limits in God's creation - reflected in self-restraint in regard to eating the fruit of 'the knowledge of good and evil' (Genesis 2:17). If they break the limits represented by the fruit hanging on that tree, they will taste death (or as we said earlier, they will decompose).

Eve exceeds the limit, drawn to consume a fruit that "was good for food and was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom" (3:6). Adam joins her. As a result, an avalanche of alienation crashes into the human story - alienation from God, alienation from one another, alienation from oneself, and alienation from the creation.

In the following chapters, brother is alienated from brother and a form of class violence enters the story, as the class of pastoralists (symbolized by Abel) are exterminated by the class of agriculturalists (symbolized by Cain). Soon new forms of institutionalized violence arise in great cities, so horrible that they are swept away by a flood of judgment. Eventually empires emerge, reflecting the imperial dream of unifying people under one dominating language and culture in Babel. Genesis provides a genealogy for all the pain and evil in the whole social structure of humans on planet Earth: it can be traced back to a problem of consumption beyond limits." (pages 209-210)

McLaren’s re-interpretation of the fall of man (which ironically utilizes a Biblically foreign and thoroughly Modern meta-narrative) distorts the Biblical story of the fall of man and thereby, completely dodges the issue of our sin and disobedience to God. But this re-interpretation of the fall also provides us with the key to unlocking the meaning of Emerging View’s answer to the question regarding the story we find ourselves in.

When the Emerging view states that “Human beings—as individuals and as groups—have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice” the evil the Emerging view is referring to is NOT sin and disobedience against a Holy and Just God. The evil the Emerging view is referring to is the evil of ‘consumption beyond creaturely limits’ and the evil of class warfare ‘pastorlists’ vs. ‘agriculturalists’ and the evil of institutionalized violence and imperialism.

This radical re-imagining of the Genesis story doesn’t provide us with an accurate understanding of sin and evil. The Emerging view only really describes the symptom of sin and evil but does not correctly address their root cause which is disobedience to God. The reason why McLaren avoids discussing evil in terms of ‘sinning against God’ is because he denies that Christ (who is God in human flesh) is going to return in glory to judge the living and the dead and punish sinful mankind with an eternal punishment. (see part 2 of my review) Therefore, McLaren has carefully re-crafted the story of fall of man in such a way that it becomes a story about mankind’s ‘evil’ against humanity. In this re-framing of the story, God no longer stands as the righteous judge of mankind. Instead, God’s role is to help save us from ourselves. McLaren’s 'god' is there to help us build the ‘Kingdom of God’ here on Earth which McLaren, later in the book, envisions as the global eradication of injustice, imperialism, environmental destruction, warfare and inequitable economies. In other words, God wants to help us reverse the destruction we are inflicting on ourselves and the planet through our Imperial framing stories. God wants to help us adopt Jesus ‘framing story’ of non-violence, peace and an economy of love. If we defect from imperialism and join the Jesus Revolution we will re-make the Earth and all human societies into the ‘Kingdom of God’ on Earth. Notice how God's Judgement and punishment of sin are omitted in McLaren's Emerging View.

As we will see in Parts 4, 5 and 6 of my review of “Everything Must Change”, McLaren’s Emerging View is not only incompatible with scripture, ultimately His Jesus isn’t the Jesus of the Bible but instead is a powerless figment of his imagination who is incapable of saving anybody.

Comments

[margie]

this is soooo amazing-- I have been reading until my eyes hurt to try to understand this emergent movement-- i have known that McClaren is the guru- but I haven't really been able to put it altogether the way you are doing here- thankyou

[Jeff]

Chris,
I was reading through your critique of McLaren's new book, and found your assessment to be very thought provoking and well thought out. I would be very interested to further discuss (not argue) your views on McLaren's ideology via email. Please email me at [email protected] so that I could possibly contact you with some thoughts for discussion. Thanks
A brother in Christ,

Jeff

[Shane Vander Hart]

Well thought out critique - it is hard for our culture to accept the fact ath we are totally depraved and dead in our sins. The theology held by McClaren and others in the Emergent Village (which I distinguish from the Emerging Church movement) cheapens the Gospel.

[Fez]

Check out this discussion of a McLaren video on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRKCmYuCWA#xoSlvAR4mOw

[john frerich]

Thank you for the excellent review of this horrible book. I have been following the development of this movement the last 2 years and it is really disturbing. An excellent, highly recommended read that puts this whole heresy into clear focus is Roger Oakland's "Faith Undone", he of "Understanding the Times" website. I just finished it and could not sleep last night.
John

[TheGroundworks]

I am certainly hesitant upon embracing B McClaren's teachings. While I would not throw out all of emergent teachings (since I've been to emergent church sights that were quite orthodox), I believe that you have done a good job in discernment without being either obnoxious or rude....the way discernment should be done. Keep up the great work.

www.xanga.com/thegroundworks

[Christian Beyer]

It is a good book, isn't it? I liked it as well. If you enjoyed Brian's books you should check out Buxey Cavey's book "The End of Religion". So scary but oh so promising.

[Christian Beyer]

It is a good book, isn't it? I liked it as well. If you enjoyed Brian's books you should check out Buxey Cavey's book "The End of Religion". So scary but oh so promising.