Review of Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change (part 2)

“Can we really make the Jesus of the Gospels come up with an answer to the world’s biggest problems”

Absolutely! Not by changing the gospels, but by hearing them in their original context. We have to unmake (deconstruct) the story. It was morphed by institutional Christianity into something other than a story about the world’s biggest problems. Answering the worlds biggest problems is exactly what the gospel does. The gospel is the notion that real peace comes through justice, real power comes through service, real wealth comes through sharing, real life comes through death, and real glory comes through humility. When we implement those ideals on a global level we get a global kingdom of God. For too long, Christianity has bound those ideals to an individual level.

“In the future foreseen by the New Testament story neither Judaism nor Rome is to be saved from self-destruction. So why should we so confidently conclude that God now is in partnership with humanity to save the whole world from whatever global social and environmental catastrophe we are heading towards? The coming of the kingdom of God in the New Testament is specifically the coming of YHWH to set his people free from the concrete, historical consequences of their sin and to install his own regent over them in place of a spectrum of oppressive political and spiritual forces”

Andrew, you seem to be stuck in the story (metaphor). The story crafted in the New Testament of YHWH coming to set his people free from sin is symbolism for exactly what Brian describes in this book. The question is how we will live out the narrative of YHWH coming to set us free from our sin. It is nice that you like to talk about the story. We need that. But, what we have often missed and what we find in Brian’s books is a realistic picture of how that can work. When we follow Brian’s advice and create an allegiance to social and political methods of change, then we are living out the story told in the biblical myths.

YHWH is coming again every day. When a nation decided that every child would receive education without regards to race or economic situation, then YHWH reversed the past sins of racism and greed. When the response to a war was decades of sacrifice, forgiveness, and rebuilding of the defeated, then YHWH reversed the sins of violence. We have opportunities every day to bring YHWH to the rescue by installing its ideals in our society. Christ is not a man that will one day literally rule the world. Christ is a spirit that rules every time humans employ his ideals. We are his body as he is resurrected in us. When that happens the kingdom comes and we get a taste of it. It is here and it is coming. It is a reality and a possibility.

“But Jesus does not, in fact, challenge empire - his anger is directed against Jewish iniquity; he is barely interested in Rome”.

Andrew, that is simply not honest and you’ve overlooked why Jesus opposed the Jewish iniquity. He was not upset at Jews rather than Rome, he was upset at their cooperation with the Empire. Jewish leaders had joined the Empire and neglected its task. Jesus stood in opposition to the values of Empire. He protested the temple, not because the temple is a bad idea, but because the temple had become an Empire and a tool of the larger Empire. He echoed the prophetic voices that came before him as they protested the imperial leanings of the temple. His enemy is imperialism in all its forms. I think you are picking up the residual effects of his protest and mistaking it for apathy about Rome.

On atonement, I disagree with McLaren and with you, Andrew. Neither of you go far enough in your deconstruction. You both imply that Jesus chose death (you more than Brian). I disagree. He chose a vocation that he knew would likely mean death, but he did not choose death and his death didn’t in itself accomplish some supernatural result. It did work as a model for non-violent protest and a critique of how empire does business, but it wasn’t a spiritual choice by either Jesus or YWHW.

Your critique of Brian’s Eschatology is also off-base. Brian correctly sees the bible’s eschatology as a grand metaphor for how the world could possibly be transformed if we accept the challenge. He then lays out practical ways to make that a reality. I think you are leaning to much toward a “left behind” type of eschatology that imagines many of the metaphors in Revelation to be interpreted literally. You seem to buy into the left behind approach that God will supernaturally intervene and remake the world. The bible’s prophetic books are metaphors of hopes and possibilitis not supernatural prognostications. You’ve criticized Brian for painting a picture and giving concrete directions for how to make that eschatological possibility a reality. I applaud him for painting this picture and writing in a way that will appeal to a broad audience.

Andrew’s review and critique of ‘Everything must change’ is entirely consistent with his own novel take on eschatology - good for him. A short sentence in his review leapt out for me, however: “But we transform on the basis of having been transformed.” As yet, the principal weakness, it seems to me, in Andrew’s theological system, is that it gives no hint of how people outside the immediate 1st century beneficiaries of Jesus’s death and resurrection, are to be transformed. There are no grounds for such a transformation within a system that relegates most of the biblical material, the events in the life of Jesus especially, to a particular people at a particular period in history.

Having explored the various synopses and reviews of McLaren’s book referred to, I think I would find equal mixtures of things to agree with, and things to disagree with. Most of all, I think I would agree with his analysis of the framing narratives of our (modern, developed) world, and the hi-jacking of religion to reinforce, rather than challenge, the narratives.

To bring such a challenge, we need, of course, more than narratives - though perception of the narratives in need of subversion and challenge is the first step. Changed lives, followed by changed lifestyle, is what Christianity has always offered, and to which it has always returned in various recovery movements through the ages. At the centre of this argument is the person of Jesus, for whom the cross was the defining feature of his life, lifestyle, mission and ministry - challenging individuals to enter his new society, based on inner transformation.

How much can we expect to change? This is an issue which has more recently been raised not only by Liberation Theology, but by movements such as ‘Transformations’ (George Otis, Sentinel Ministries etc). But how much can we realistically expect to change in the world? Millennial theorists have been arguing the case for at least the last 200 years. I take the view that we can be more optimistic than many, but less universalist than some this side of the return of Jesus.

A dream of a better society begins in the practical and often sacrificial decisions of those who believe that dreams can be fleshed out in action. A more comprehensive global and historical perspective of church history here would be of help. The anabaptists, and communal expressions of the radical reformation and beyond, continue to be pointers to social transformation. But overwhelmingly, the evangelical pioneers of the 18th century onwards have been the major engines of social change both at home and through mission, across the world (through healthcare provision, education, social welfare, social justice etc).

Methodism was theologically an evangelical movement with social justice and reform in its roots. The so-called Clapham Sect set the wheels in motion for the abolition of the slave trade, and ultimately slavery in the western world. Shaftesbury was an evangelical who initiated major social reform through acts of Parliament in Britain in the 19th century. Rowntree, Fry and Cadbury had a huge influence on philanthropic reform, providing model communities which have influenced town planning to this day, and prison reform continues to be the subject of the Rowntree Trust. William Booth was a Methodist who worked to a major blueprint for social reform, set out in his “In darkest England, and the way out.” Booth was theologically an evangelical par excellence. Booth’s book draws attention to Livingstone’s “In Darkest Africa”, which it consciously echoed, and Livingstone is himself remembered as an evangelical missionary whose major contribution to the world was the exposure of the slave trade in Africa, and ultimately its end. To this day, his statue at Victoria Falls is one of the few public monuments to white pioneers which has not been destroyed or removed.

In more recent times, there has been a huge surge in social activism from the stables of the evangelical church. In the UK, we have the various branches of ‘Care’, focusing on public and family life issues. I received this morning a briefing from Care about the forthcoming Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which is passing through the UK Upper House on its way to the House of Commons. Care has been incalculably influential in lobbying for and amending legislation such as this over the last 30 years. We have Steve Chalke’s Oasis Trust, which in this country and overseas provides many ways of engaging faith with social issues and action. Local councils and police authorities are welcoming with open arms movements known as Street Pastors, or Street Angels, who provide a non-statutory presence on the often violent and drunken streets of our town centres in the night time ‘Dr Hyde’ transformation from their ‘Dr Jekyll’ daytime face and personality. The evangelical church community is behind this movement. Christian youth movements are being directed to summers of service in the lost housing estates of our big cities, which are developing into a longer term presence. In Manchester, the Worldwide Message Tribe has provided a model of youth engagement with society which has been a major influence on schools and inner city housing areas. This influence is in itself only a more recent development of the on-going and increasing work of Youth for Christ across our British towns and cities.

I could go on and on, but it would be extremely rare these days to be in any British city or town of any size where there was not some form of active social engagement taking place, sponsored especially by the practitioners of an evangelical faith which, it has been implied, is either moribund or ineffective.

All of this does not amount to a wholesale transformation of society; neither does it necessarily bring into the frame a challenge and alternative to the controlling stories of our culture, which negatively influence Christian lifestyle and practice. But such challenges are bring brought, and they are not the sole prerogative of the so-called emerging church. In the USA, I would have thought one of the most effective sources of challenge to culture and government has been Jim Wallis’s ‘Sojourners’ movement. Wallis’s book, ‘God’s Politics’ became a bestseller amongst all types of books sold in the US - and deservedly so. McLaren, and his latest book, are heavily promoted on the Sojourner’s website, and clearly McLaren and Wallis have much in common. Perhaps in time, McLaren’s theological innovations will settle down into something more in line with mainstream belief - which has produced a Wallis, and maybe in the end will prove that a ‘Left Behind’ premillennial pessimism and withdrawal from the world was an aberration which needed to be spewed out.

So should there be an ‘emergent’ critique of church and theology? Yes to both - because times of cultural change such as we are profoundly experiencing, need radical reappraisals of our belief and practice. But for me, the catchphrase tends to hold good: that the antidote to abuse (theologically, ecclesiologically) is not non-use but correct use. In other words, highlighting and rejecting theological or ecclesiological distortions should not lead us to dispose of the real thing - no matter how profoundly or extensively our reasons for such a disposal may be argued.

Jim Wallis’s ‘God’s Politics’, mentioned in a response to the review of McLaren’s ‘Everything Must Change’, has been followed by another book, ‘The Great Awakening’. The content seems relevant to the discussion, and is referred to by Wallis in the following link http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2008/01/why-i-wrote-the-great-awakenin.html for anyone who is interested.

Andrew, you observe that:

"The church, of course, isn’t obligated always to justify itself to those outside the faith or, for that matter, to pursue a ‘common cause’ of justice and peace."

My first reaction is to agree, but on further thought I’m not so sure. The church might regard itself as being "in the world but not of it," but from outside the faith the church is just one more aggregation of human communities or institutions — in New Testament terms, a sort of Kingdom without geographical boundaries. Is this Kingdom accountable for its actions and policies to those outside the Kingdom? Can this Kingdom be expected to participate cooperatively on matters that concern everyone?

You say that the church stands for human justice and peace only indirectly, as an expression of God’s righteousness and justice as expressed preeminently among the people of God. But the people of God aren’t all people. In a sense God no longer has plans for humankind in general, having focused his attention on that subset of humanity who through faith enter into His Kingdom.

"This distinctive God-centred rather than humanitarian mission is bound to some extent to alienate people who do not share its core presupposition. But I think that the primary calling of the church is to honour the creative God who, so the story goes, brought a creational microcosm into existence out of the ruins of the macrocosm for just that purpose."

Considered from outside the faith — from "among the ruins" as it were — any group of people claiming exclusive status as God’s microcosm must be regarded with suspicion. For a community to work toward establishing peace and justice among its own members is commendable. For that community to propose that it alone has the God-given authority to represent true humanity, and that peace and justice is attainable and worth pursuing only among the insiders, that the rest of the people in the world constitute a failed creation sinking into corruption — from the outsider’s perspective this exclusivist ethos is potentially dangerous.

In theory membership in this exclusive society is open to everyone, but it’s not so. The applicant is expected to believe something in order to making the transition from the failed version of humanity into elect. Those who in good conscience cannot assert this belief are excluded from this select community, regarded as either unchosen or concupiscent and hence inappropriate for membership in the Kingdom. Barriers to entry into the elite aren’t geographical or racial but ideological.

How does the microcosm function within the macrocosm, among the outsiders who do not acknowledge the legitimacy of its elect status? If the church were to remain insulated from the rest of the world, then the church would be irrelevant to those who remain on the outside. Jesus seems like a harmless enough fellow, enjoining his followers to turn the other cheek, to walk the extra mile, to love their neighbors, etc. But what if, say, the church contends that Jesus’ instructions applied only to insiders? And what if New Testament injunctions not to take up arms against outsiders applied specifically to the first-century geopolitical situation? What if, during the unscripted "fifth act" of God’s unfolding plot, the insiders were to decide that God had called them to reinstate crusades and holy wars against infidels, to ghettoize the non-Jewish occupants of the Holy Land, to engage in wholesale genocide and enslavement of outsiders as in the days of the Old Testament? Then doesn’t the presumably irrelevant and isolated church pose a more direct threat to the outsiders. And, as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and other strident outsiders have pointedly documented, hasn’t the church repeatedly made this threat manifest in human history?

The church isn’t monolithic in its earthly incarnation, and I presume you’d agree that it’s not absolutely certain what God expects the church to be. I infer from your review of McLaren’s book (I still haven’t read it), that he proposes that the church make no practical distinction between insiders and outsiders, that Christians seek peace and justice for everyone. What harm would there be for the church to pursue this practice? Even if God really does distinguish the sons/daughters of God from the hoi polloi, the renewed creation from the failed creation, is it so certain that this distinction can and should be made based on a profession of faith, baptism, a personal relationship with Christ, or any of the other criteria by which the church has historically distinguished inside from outside?

Daniel, you say:

"Only when the Church knows itself as the Church can it become possible for the world to know itself as the world (and thus, in need of ‘salvation’)."

The world, like the church, isn’t monolithic. A significant proportion of those outside the church acknowledge that human society teeters on the brink of ruin, that injustice is endemic, that ever more powerful engines of war threaten human existence. Many try to obviate the pending catastrophe through human efforts, however imperfect in implementation and uncertain in outcome. Knocking it all down and starting over holds an undeniable appeal, as testified by the post-apocalyptic fantasies which capture the imaginations of moviegoers and scifi readers by the hundreds of millions. From the outsider’s perspective, the Christian call to abandon the world to its doom, or even to push it closer to the abyss through military adventures in the Middle East, doesn’t sound like a salvation: it sounds like nihilism.

"There can be no ‘common’ cause without a common conception of the good."

From the outsider’s perspective Christian millennial eschatology is in all likelihood wrong; that this world, this life, this humanity are all we’ve got. Maybe God stands behind all works of peace and justice in the world, regardless of whether people recognize it or not. Is it so important for Christians to say that God is concerned with manifesting peace and justice only within the church microcosm, only among those who specifically acknowledge Him and who regard themselves as members of His exclusive society? Peace, justice, love, freedom — are they to be regarded as elements of the common good, or are they restricted only to those who profess faith of God and membership in His distinctive/restrictive Kingdom?

I wanted to say something about how i see the relation of Jesus and the roman empire. I dont think that Jesus’ teachings were against worldly imperialism. In the 1. Testament God uses the empire of Babylon to dicipline the jews. He is even calling Nebukadnezar his servant alltho the guy surely had pagan tendencies to say the least. Israel was enslaved by the babylonic empire, as Israel had been enslaved by the egyptian empire. So now it became wrapped by the roman empire. It seems, that there is a scheme in this, where God is actually putting his chosen ppl into the social body of a dominant wordly empire, to conquer and transform this empire from within, keeping all the goods, that it has come up with, but overcoming and casting aside the paganism and the unholy tendencies. In fact, that is exactly what the church had done with the romans. She conquered this empire from within by the death of many, who sacrifized themselves. But the general concept of the wordly emperor who would serve as a second force was not cast aside. In fact, the church later on welcomed the idea of the emperor as the protector of the church and even granted this title as you will know.

This comment has been moved here.