A Generous Orthodoxy

I just finished Brian McLaren's controversial book, A Generous Orthodoxy. Its subtitle is quite a mouthful: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-Yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian.

I decided to read the book because I'm somewhat of a religious mutt myself. I grew up in an offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God, an out-of-the-mainstream Christian group (or, to many, a cult) that observed the seventh-day Sabbath and the biblical holy days. In high school, college, and divinity school, I participated in the evangelical movement. And, interestingly, I also went to Jewish services on Friday nights and the high holy days, since I had honored those times (in some fashion) when I was growing up. I didn't keep Christmas and Easter, but I did keep those days, and the Jews were pretty much the only other people who observed them. Plus, I had an affinity with the Jewish people because of my own Jewish ancestry.

In Boston, I went to an independent Seventh-Day Adventist church, which had several Caribbean immigrants as members. When I lived in New York, I attended a conservative Presbyterian church that was pastored by Dr. Tim Keller, a former Westminster professor who is somewhat of a celebrity among Calvinists. I also went to a liberal Seventh-Day Adventist church, which embraced left-wing views on the Bible, politics, and homosexuality. Right now, I go to a conservative Catholic church that offers a Latin mass. So, like Brian McLaren, I consider myself all sorts of things. Actually, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure where I fit.

I liked McLaren's book because of its openness and honesty. McLaren says straight out that he's simply giving us thoughts to ponder, not a rigid orthodoxy. He is writing to people like me: those who want to be Christians yet are turned off by several aspects of Christianity.

And I found myself applauding many of his critiques. Quite frankly, I think that there is a strong component of Christianity that is very narcissistic and self-centered. I call this the "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" system of religion. For example, many charismatics convey an attitude of "I speak in tongues, you don't, so I'm closer to God than you are. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah." A lot of Calvinists are like, "I'm part of the elect, and you're not. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah." I mean, seriously, why are Calvinists so proud of their Calvinist beliefs? Whether they are true or not, I don't think people should convey a smug satisfaction that God has only chosen to save a select few while consigning most of the human race to hell.

And I've always had a problem with the evangelical approach to other religions. A lot of evangelicals and fundamentalists act as if they have a complete monopoly on truth, while there is nothing that other cultures can teach us. But, alas, I have to admit that they can support this perspective with the Bible. After all, the Hebrew Bible presents the Gentiles as idolaters, and the New Testament affirms that Satan has blinded this world.

My attitude towards McCaren's alternative is rather mixed. He seems to present Christianity as if it is mostly about community service, although he does allow for a significant contemplative/spiritual component. So he is somewhat like a mainline Protestant. At one point, he ridicules the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement (that Jesus died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin) as the Gospel of sin-management. In doing so, he's swimming upstream against a huge motif in the Bible, which deals precisely with sin management. In the Hebrew Bible, God teaches the Israelites how to deal with the guilt of their sin, through both sacrifices and also repentance. God also cleanses Israel of guilt by punishing her with devastation and exile. In the New Testament, Paul presents forgiveness of sin as a significant component of the Gospel.

At the same time, the Bible is not only about taking care of guilt, nor does it relate exclusively to entering the good afterlife. The Hebrew prophets talk a lot about justice, at both the personal and also the societal level. And Jesus sends his disciples out to heal diseases and cast out demons. So McClaren is right when he says that the Bible talks a lot about doing good in this life--before death and the resurrection, and before the second coming of Christ to this earth.

And conservative Christianity offers mixed signals on this. I can understand why McLaren can look at it and conclude that it cares mostly about helping people to avoid judgment in the afterlife. But it does have another side. The religious right, after all, seeks to create a righteous society in this world. Plus, there is a growing emphasis on service and social justice within the evangelical movement. Some may say that this has always existed on some level, since John Wesley opposed slavery because of his commitment to the Gospel.

McLaren also dares to offer a way of looking at things that can go beyond the "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" system of religion. For example, he argues that we should view election as God selecting a group of people to serve the world, not primarily as God randomly snatching certain people from the fire. I like what he says because it encourages Christianity to be others-oriented rather than narcissistic.

McLaren's goal seems to be to reconcile Christianity with a postmodern age. Personally, I don't believe in updating a religion to keep up with the times, as if the trends of "the times" are innately infallible. At the same time, there is a part of me that sees McClaren's goal as noble. I'm not really a postmodernist, for I believe in the existence of truth. But I also have problems with "modernist" approaches to Christianity, for I don't find them to be particularly convincing. Apologists try to establish a rational or evidential foundation for the Christian religion, and, while I am open to what they have to say, I wouldn't base my faith on their arguments. Often, evidence can be read in a wide variety of ways, not only in a manner that is palatable to fundamentalism. Moreover, fundamentalists strive to demonstrate that the Bible is completely error-free, and they often resort to mental gymnastics to reconcile apparent contradictions. So the whole truth of Christianity rests on solving the riddle of how many animals Noah took on board the ark, or the number of angels who appeared at Jesus' tomb? Isn't our faith a little deeper than that?

I liked what McLaren said about the function of the Bible: to encourage us to do good works (II Timothy 3:16-17). So I may not have all of the creation/evolution controversy figured out. The Bible may appear to me to be rather contradictory, both with itself and with non-biblical sources (e.g., archaeology, science). I may wonder at times if there is any basis for its truth at all. Yet, the Bible can equip me to do good works.

On the one hand, I see issues like the historicity of miracles to be important concerns that liberals are often too quick to dismiss. The Bible does tell us to learn from the past, and that is slightly difficult if the past that it presents is not accurate. On the other hand, I also feel that I can be a good Christian without having all of these issues figured out, as long as the Bible inspires me to do good works. I can hear (say) the story of Jacob, and I can't prove whether it is history or a legend. But can it teach me lessons about life? Can it encourage me to do good works? These are the most important things.

McLaren's critique of mainstream Christianity offers a lot of food for thought. In the end, however, I am slightly disappointed with his book. McLaren may not like Christianity's exclusivism when it says that Jesus is the only way to God. The idea that the non-Christian world is blinded may strike him as rather uncharitable or condescending. Yet, this is what the Bible appears to say (John 14:6; Acts 26:18). His task should be to show convincingly that the Bible means something different, or to demonstrate how Christians can be faithful to these doctrines while avoiding a smug, narcissistic attitude of self-centeredness that looks down on all who are unlike them. His book is a start, but difficult tasks still remain.