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McLaren: 'Finding the Right Words Is Difficult'
By Stan Friedman
CHICAGO, IL (August 16, 2005) - Brian McLaren stands at the center of what has
been called "the Emergent Church," but he doesn't think there is such a
place.
"I don't like the term 'emergent church,' " says the pastor of the
non-denominational Cedar Ridge Community Church in the Washington, D.C.
area. "It sort of sets up a division like there is this church or that
church. I like to talk about an emergent conversation."
McLaren, author of ten books - including A New Kind of Christian,
Generous Orthodoxy, and The Last Word and the Word After
That - has been one of the leaders of emergent or postmodern
movement among churches, which includes some Covenant congregations.
While visiting the Cornerstone Festival in southeast Illinois this past
July, he sat down for an interview with Covenant News Service.
Finding the right words
McLaren says that finding the right words for the emergent conversation
has proven difficult. Critics argue that McLaren, who was named by
TIME magazine earlier this year as one of the country's leading
evangelicals, is a prime example of the postmodern age of fuzzy
pluralism and relativism in which truth does not exist.
But McLaren emphatically says that he is after the truth.
"One person who has talked about me has stated as a fact that I'm a
relativist," says McLaren. The accusation is built on the foundation of
one quote pulled out of context from one of his books, says McLaren:
"There's a whole chapter in the book that he draws the quote from that
repudiates relativism."
"It's such a wicked statement to say I don't believe in truth," McLaren
adds, "It's very disappointing." He is adamant that he does believe in
an objective truth, saying, "I can think of many places in my writing
where I make that very, very clear. They're also accusing us of
capitulating to post-modernity although we say in many places that we're
not interested in being postmodern. I rarely even use the word."
Those misrepresentations of his beliefs have hurt McLaren in his
pastoral ministry at times. "People in my church read these books that
these people write and then they distrust me, even thought they know me
and see the fruit in my life," he says.
The cancer of certainty
For McLaren, the issue is not whether objective truth exists, but what
he calls the "cancer of excessive certainty" that afflicts modernity.
That cancer has spread in such a way that it prevents people from
reaching out to a culture that doesn't believe in objective truth.
For McLaren, the core of the gospel is relational or "missional."
Offering proofs and reasons that people should be saved and how to do
it, is less important than extending an invitation to a relationship
with Jesus and others in the kingdom of God. For McLaren, the primary
concern of the kingdom's community is to bring wholeness to a broken
world rather than provide a way out of hell.
Discussions of issues such as objective truth versus relativism can get
in the way of young people who want to see living proof from Christian
community and are unswayed by arguments to reason, which has been the
traditional form of evangelism.
Mission to the current culture - with a true evangelical understanding
of bringing people into the Kingdom of God - is what drives the
discussion for McLaren and other emergent supporters, he says. Recently
however, a non-profit group called emergent has been formed, with
McLaren serving as the chairperson of the four-person board of directors
to help advance the discussion.
"We need to start getting clearer answers on some things and have these
integrated," he says. Those investing in the ideas as well those
criticizing them may have to wait, however. "I don't think it will
happen soon," he explains.
Asking different questions
McLaren worries that evangelicals have become too narrow in their focus
- looking at only a few social issues instead of trying to bring all of
life under the lordship of Jesus.
He uses for an example the issue of homosexuality, which has become a
flashpoint among Christians. "The issue of homosexuality has become one
of the fundamentals" of the faith, says McLaren.
"I wish I could ask another question," McLaren says. "Why not have some
serious discussion on pacifism and the teaching of Christ? Why not have
a serious discussion on just war theory in light of biological, chemical
and nuclear weapons? It seems to me that a lot more is at stake in an
issue like that than in some that others want to focus on."
How Scripture is used and interpreted is a key to the emergent
discussion, says McLaren. For him, the Bible is a document to be read in
light of current conditions. The church has always translated the gospel
into its context of the time, he explains. "That history began with Paul
- Paul is a living example of working out the gospel in his own context."
McLaren says Paul was dealing with the primary problem of how to include
the Gentiles into the community of faith. Against the Jerusalem
Council's practice, Paul allowed gentiles to eat meat sacrificed to
idols. "Paul was much more generous." McLaren adds that the church has
gone on to help abolish slavery and allow divorce, issues that have
divided the church based on what appear to be explicit texts.
McLaren is adamant that he doesn't mean the current culture should
mandate what Christians must approve. Rather, McLaren's general approach
is akin to being careful not to pull the wheat with the tares. To that
end, Christians can honor each other's interpretation of Scripture and
look back years later and see what bore good fruit.
Sterile or fertile?
The ability to bear fruit is important to McLaren's way of properly
understanding truth and acting in a Christian fashion.
"You can be sterile and right, but you have to be fertile to be good,"
McLaren says. "I think this is where the kingdom of God exceeds the
righteousness of the Pharisees. The Pharisees' view of righteousness was
basically summed up in the idea of 'Do no wrong.' Jesus's was summed up
in 'Let your good works shine.'"
"I think this is one of the deeper challenges we face," McLaren says.
"Christianity has practice in being a civil religion, a custodial
religion, in being isolated or persecuted. We don't have enough practice
in being a positive and constructive force."
"Martin Luther King said the church should be the conscience of the
state," McLaren recalls. "I think it also should be the imagination of
the state. That is a role that we have not had a lot of practice in."
That practice must be carried out in dialogue among evangelicals with
differing opinions. McLaren proudly says that he is an "evangelical,"
and is concerned that some are moving away from considering themselves
as such because they no longer feel included.
"That is one of the subtexts of what is going on," McLaren says. "Will
evangelical only be for pro-war people or will pacifists be included;
Will it be only for Republicans or will Democrats be included; Will it
only be for red state people, or will blue people be let in; Will it be
only be for people who are pro-American foreign policy, or will those
who are critical of foreign policy be allowed in?"
Although he may often sound critical of people considered the Religious
Right, he adds, "It's even scarier with some folks on the Left because
they would like to use people like me or Jim (Wallis) to win the next
election. I can imagine a lot of disingenuous dialogue."
Still, McLaren and others are committed to dialogue with whoever is
interested. That promises to be an extended conversation.
For more discussion of the emergent movement, Scot McKnight, Karl A.
Olsson Professor of Religious Studies at North Park University and the
author of The Jesus Creed, has an ongoing discussion on his blog,
www.jesuscreed.blogspot.com.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
