A Generous Orthodoxy
From Neoredemptive
| A Generous Or+hodoxy: 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 | |
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Brian D. McLaren
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| Book Review Policy |
Synopsis
McLaren's self-effacing, sincere, off-the-reservation, sometimes winsome, sometimes tiresome survey of his vision for a post-modern, post-evangelical, post-protestant, post-liberal, post-conservative, post-analytic, post-categoric flavor of Christianity.
Doc's Take
It occurs to me that I've become increasingly technical, nit-picky, uncharitable, and snarky in my reviews of some emergent books lately, so I've moved my notes off to another page: A Generous Orthodoxy/Doc's Notes and instead will reserve this space for more reflective comments.
I had a really hard time getting through this book. Not the kind of hard time I had with Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, in which I would fling the book at a wall and immediately pick it back up again and keep reading. More like flinging the book at a wall and hoping a pile of laundry would be conveniently dropped on it, keeping it out of sight and out of mind. What frustrates me, in a nutshell, is that I find myself as a reader learning a great deal about Brian McLaren and his opinions, influences, ideas, likes and dislikes, hang-ups, and personality quirks, but not learning much of anything about Jesus Christ, the God who sent Him, or how I can come to know Him. And that, to me anyway, seems to completely miss the point of a Christian orthodoxy.
It's difficult to disagree with this book. Not because there's no falsehood in need of correcting -- far from it -- but because McLaren writes with such a winsome, self-effacing, nice-guy tone (except in those passages where he, out of nowhere, turns extremely shrill and self-righteous, a bit of a surprise to the reader caught up in the friendly flow of the rest of the book) that you feel like a bit of a prick for saying anything negative. Which, I suppose, is one reason I'm re-writing this review... because pouring vinegar just won't accomplish much when his fans all think he's sweet as honey and twice as good for them.
So let me say this: I don't know where McLaren's heart is, but it appears to be in giving fresh voice to a Christian vision that can reach those who have been hurt, abused, and outcast by some nominally Christian sects and practices. There is not enough repentance in the Church for our own sins against people Christ died for, and to this I say amen.
However, I worry that the alternative he is proposing is too quick to discard babies with their bathwater, and the result is something that fails to maintain any distinctively Christian content. Indeed, when an author will not say anything about Jesus that would be disagreeable to the Jesus Seminar or Shelby Spong, a diligent shepherd of God's flock cannot be content with his simple insistence that he is being "orthodox"; hard questions must be asked about whether this might in fact be a different gospel (which is no gospel at all). So at the root of this book is a misdiagnosis of what ails the church and the world. Our problem is not our worldview (modern, medieval, pomo, or otherwise), but the sin that so easily entangles, that infects our hearts, our attitudes, our relationships, our theologies, our institutions, and everything else under heaven. With such a radical error in the premise, it is then no surprise that the prescription we are presented with simply shuffles the deck chairs on the Titanic of our fallen human condition. Our problem is not that we need to move "beyond answers"; our problem is that our lofty self-image is in desperate need of a Holy decimation, and our esteem for the Living God needs to grow beyond the thin, weak, emaciated terms we are willing to grant it.
Other Reviews
- Al Mohler (reprinted by Crosswalk, Tony Rose)
- Challies.com
- Denver Journal
- John M. Frame
- Bob DeWaay
