Brian McLaren is an author, pastor, advocate of postmodernism, and a senior fellow in the Emergent Church. he represents the “meadow” clearing who, as Leonard Sweet described in the introduction to the book, fits into the “evolving message/evolving methods” paradigm. however, he begins his article responding to these claims and says that it is his view that the methods never change if methods mean “love, building friendships, being honest and authentic, treating others with gentleness and respect, praying, walking humbly with God while living justly and mercifully, becoming all things to all people.” likewise, he states that the message never changes as long as message means “the story that begins with ‘In the beginning, God created….’”

however he then admits that the notion of changing methods has been “especially precious” to the himself and the Emergent movement because of prevailing “modern” notions that nothing in the church should or could change. shifting definitions, he says that he is now using methods to “include style of music, order of service, structure of governance, gender of preachers, mode of baptism, requirements for membership, list of taboos, style of preaching, color of carpeting, projection technology, and the like.” he then recognizes how interconnected methods and message are, despite his initial drive to preserve the message in his ministry. after this realization he realized that in changing his message, he felt more at ease with “sharing the good news with what are often called ‘the unchurched,’ and especially those we might call ‘postmodern seekers.’” through interacting with this group of people, McLaren notes that he began to question both his methods and message, leading him into a time of self-searching.

this self-searching included a time in which he deconstructed many of his existing notions about the faith allowing himself to question many of the modern prevailing notions about Christianity, particularly evangelism. he saw that Luther and Calvin and other church fathers had no notion of asking someone to pray a “sinner’s prayer” or give an altar call or other such activities that have come to characterize evangelical evangelistic methods. in this time, he also questioned his theological priorities as he saw that for many ancient Christians, “the Resurrection, not the cross, was the crux of the gospel,” and for others it was “the life of Christ (or the teaching of Christ, or the moral example of Christ, or the community formed by Christ, or the commission given by Christ), not his birth, death, or resurrection, that was closest to the heart of the gospel.” this led to the ultimate question that if the message never changes, how can one know what message they are talking about? if the Gospel means different things to different people, which version is the one that should take priority over the others?

following the footsteps of Adolf Von Harnack, McLaren recalls a Harvard-educated Methodist who introduced him to the idea that the gospel of Jesus is significantly different than the gospel about Jesus. what this means, is that the early church, guided by St. Paul, had [McLaren's retelling of his friend's account, not necessarily McLaren's own words or beliefs] “twisted the original message of Jesus (an inclusive message about social justice and compassion for the poor and needy here and now) and had created their own novel message about Jesus (an exclusive message about individual sin and forgiveness in the sweet by-and-by).”

now thorougly confused in regards to “message,” McLaren posits four ideas that helped him to better understand the gospel as it relates cross-culturally and across time, ideas which lead him to believe that “our message (like our methods) must change from time to time and place to place in order to remain truly the gospel of Jesus and the gospel about Jesus.” the first of these ideas is the need to see the Gospel as a story, casting off all “propositions, mechanisms, abstractions, or universal concepts” in favor of “narrative” or “what happened.” in other words, viewing the Gospel as a 5 o’clock news story rather than as a series of abstract propositions. his second idea posits that the message can exist in any form whatsoever, as long as Christ is at its core. included in this idea is the idea that all one must do is follow Christ, whatever that means to them, and not worry so much about particular schools of theology or methodology. all one needs is Jesus. his third idea is that the gospel is cumulative, meaning “the story of Jesus itself includes and continues other stories. thus the Gospel is not just limited to the life and times of Jesus, but also includes all that came before it and “is also about the continuing work of Jesus ever since, and (thinking now of John’s Revelation) the story will continue until the consummation of all things.” in the final idea that he came up with, he states that the gospel, or story of Jesus, is “performative and catalytic.” in this he means that the gospel always accomplishes something as empowered by the Holy Spirit by “convening and sustaining a community that seeks to understand it, inhabit it, let it inhabit them, and thereby live by it.” because new people are daily being added to the “story” of Jesus, “the gospel message must change along with its methods” so that it can relate to each new situation and person that it is extended to as it responds to “new opportunities, new challenges, new problems, new sticking points.”

to illustrate this point, McLaren again draws from Harnack by pitting the simple message of Christ, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the good news,” against the different message of Paul who had to react and adapt to his new situation and thus had to incorporate ideas from the wider Greek culture into his message in order to make the Gospel more approachable to Gentiles. he notes similar changes throughout history and concludes that from each situation in time, the church draws resources from the wider culture and “the message itself changes because the message changes in context, which is to say that the message itself changes by addressing new situations and problems and opportunities in new ways.” to prove his conclusion, he notes the example of liberation theology, which he states is “an articulation of the gospel for the poor in Latin America and elsewhere.” without going much into it, liberation theology, in a very broad sense, is a form of Christian socialism that emphasizes Christ as a liberator who calls the economically poor and oppressed to action against their oppressors through largely Marxist principles. through looking at those favorable to liberation theology, McLaren notes all the ways in which the church has largely failed to address “essential gospel concerns” like justice, compassion, sacrifice, purpose, and ultimate hope. instead of addressing these concerns, he notes that the modern church is much more concerned with the question of “how can an individual’s soul be forgiven of its sins so it will go to Heaven after death,” noting that this may have been the necessary question in the Middle Ages because of the cultural and social context of that time, and how that question is not in the minds of contemporary people, thus finding himself “unable to preach a gospel of what Dallas Willard has called ’sin management.’” because of this, McLaren states, the gospel must always be a changing message by being a “growing gospel” rather than a “gospel that shrinks to shorter and shorter formulae” through messages such as a “sinner’s prayer” or Four Spiritual Laws.

McLaren is careful to note, however, that he does not believe that those who hold to a “preserving methods/preserving message” paradigm are wrong, just that they are contextualizing their own form of the Gospel to those that need the methods and message that they provide. he then responds to those who might say that this view of the Gospel and message might lead to a point where there are so many versions of the Gospel, each contextualized to a particular situation, that the Gospel ceases to be about Jesus and more about a consumeristic approach to Jesus where one gets out of Him exactly what one wants. McLaren responds to this by saying, “disconnecting from the vine is a risk we always face, but it is a risk we will not avoid by seeking to repeat verbatim some unchanging articulations from the past (recent or distant) or present.” he goes on to say, “perhaps those of us who think that we stay connected to the vine by repeating old formulations should think again and recall Jesus’ words to those who said, ‘Lord, Lord.’”

he then goes on to convey his frustrations with the way the Gospel is presented by many Christian leaders. he cites interviews after the events of September 11th in which he makes the claim that all Christian leaders had the same response to questions about the future of Muslim/Christian relations, all of which having something to do with good works being useless, all humans being sinful in the eyes of God and needing to repent of their sins and accept Christ as their personal Savior. in other words, he was frustrated that Christianity was reduced to a series of propositions that one must assent to, a message that he felt “was not what Jesus would have said.”

he concludes his article by speculating that “the only people who never need to change their message and methods are those lucky ones who already understand and articulate God’s message in word and deed perfectly and fully.” he acknowledges that he does not fit into this category and that he needs to “keep growing in [his] understanding of the gospel message and [his] articulation of it, even as [he] continues to adapt and improve [his] methods.” he warns those who feel that they have “captured the gospel just right” and that he does not like those who say repeated slogans like “i’ve found it,” with it meaning the Gospel or Jesus. rather, he notes some jealousy towards those commonly called “seekers” (as distinguished from “believers”), wanting more to be identified with them since “even though [he] believes, [he] is still seeking.”

of the five perspectives given in this book, i found this one leaving the most to be desired, especially considering the tone that many of his criticisms were written in. as important as maintaining a fair and open dialogue is to those in the Emergent movement, it’s probably not the best for those arguing their position to do so in as condescending a manner as McLaren, at times, was in his article. nor is it, when the Emergent movement stresses community, probably best to caricature other groups of Christians and then complain when the same thing happens to Emergents. but all of this is neither here nor there.

first, the positives. putting aside the conclusions he reaches in doing so, i greatly admire how honest McLaren was in detailing exactly how he came to the positions he described in his article. we all should be able to give such an account for the “whys” behind what we believe and should be open to think critically, not only about others views, but our own. i think that there were a couple of great observations about the church that McLaren makes in this article. these observations come in the indentification of problems in the contemporary church, the main one being the reduction of the Gospel into a series of man-made steps that one must accomplish in order to be saved. i agree that this sort of “message” reduces Christianity to a series of “dos” and “don’ts” that must be assented to reach salvation. this man-centered, works-based view of the Gospel definitely needs to change. i also admire his emphasis (even if it is an overemphasis) on the idea of Scripture as an unfolding story. as Jonathan Edwards would say, the Bible is the “history of the work of Redemption” from the Creation to the Consummation. i think that too often, as he notes, systematic theology deemphasizes the incredible literary masterpiece that is the Bible. however, i think we must be careful in our approach to both the Bible as strictly “narrative” or the Bible as strictly “theology textbook”. one must never be accepted at the expense of the other, but both should be balanced with the other.

now, the negatives. of which, i’m sorry to say, there are many.

the first major thing that leapt off the pages and struck my “uh oh” chord was McLaren’s, at least seeming, acceptance of the position put forth by Adolf Harnack. McLaren seemed to separate the 4 Gospel accounts from the rest of the New Testament, especially in his assertion that Paul’s writing was little more than a contextualization of the Gospel to the Gentiles. this led me to several questions regarding his view of inspiration and the canon, none of which could be answered by this article alone. questions such as, if Paul’s letters are a contextualization of the Gospel to the Gentile people, what implications does that have in regards to their inspiration and what implications does this have for the evangelical view of inerrancy? if Paul’s version of Christianity is a contextualization of the Gospel, what implications does that have for other contextualizations of the Gospel? are these contextualizations just as good and acceptable as Paul’s? are all contextualizations ok as long as they have “Jesus” in them? which versions of Jesus are acceptable? where do we draw the lines at contextualizing the Gospel?

this problem is made abundantly clear in McLaren’s example, and acceptance, of those who ascribe to liberation theology. i think this illustrates the danger of this mindset. many would consider liberation theology “a different gospel”, including the current pope, Benedict XVI (liberation theology is mainly contained within the Roman Catholic Church). if views of Jesus and contextualizations of the Gospel such as liberation theology are allowed to be accepted, then there is no end to the number of “versions, facets, and layers” (to use McLaren’s own words) that will be spawned with this mindset. i wonder what McLaren would say about Pelagians, Gnostics, Arians, or other such groups who had their own version of a contextualized view of Jesus that fit their needs so that they could share Jesus with others in the way they seemed most appropriate.

there was also something else that really bothered me about McLaren’s article, something that took me a while to put my finger on. but then it hit me that what was missing from his part of the conversation was faith. for pages he rails against man-centered views of the Gospel and man-centered evangelistic methods, particularly a “sinner’s prayer” and other formulated expressions of the Gospel including the Four Spiritual Laws. yet what is his solution to these man-centered views of the Gospel and how they portray Christianity? vague ideas of following Christ, whatever that may happen to mean to any particular person, a view that eventually leads (as shown later in this response) to works-righteousness in which all one has to do is be a good person in order for God to be “proud” of them and hope that this is enough to enter heaven. this is best shown in his response to those who ask Christians “how do you know that the records we have of Jesus are really what happened?” to which McLaren responds “I would have to say that I cannot know this with absolute, undoubtable, unquestionable certainty.” again i ask, what are the implications of this sort of attitude towards the inspiration of Scripture? if we “cannot know with absolute, undoubtable, unquestionable certainty” that we have the true Word of God, divinely inspired and sovereignly preserved for us, then what is the point of holding to Christianity at all? at what point does faith come in? at what point does the Holy Spirit give those who claim Christ the assurance that what they believe is true and that they can trust the Scriptures to be “God-breathed”? are we not given “ears to hear and eyes to see” in order that we may be sure that we are not “running in vain” (Galatians 2:2) and in order that we may be “sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39)? what of faith??

the most maddening bit in this article for me involved the interaction between McLaren and a Jewish man who had volunteered to tend the grounds of McLaren’s church. now i’m going to go into a bit of a rant because, like i said, this bit of his article was quite maddening. i tell you this so that you read what follows at your own risk.

McLaren tells of this man, Sam, who, after some time of tending to the plants at McLaren’s church, approached the pastor and asked him if he was curious why Sam had never visited the church he volunteered to do work for. McLaren, approached by such a question, is of course curious and quite alarmed by Sam’s answer. Sam tells McLaren that he is Jewish and is not interested in Christianity because “I was listening to one of your evangelical preachers on the television, and he said that if Hitler had said a little prayer so that he accepted Jesus into his heart or some such nonsense, then all the wrong he did wouldn’t matter and he’d go straight to Heaven.”

now let me interject here and say that i COMPLETELY agree that explaining the Gospel in that way is a ridiculous way to do so. again, it places all the emphasis on the action of the person, and completely leaves God out of the picture. furthermore, i would emphasize, as Derek Webb has said in the past, that we are, each one of us, just as evil in heart as the most wretched person. i am no better a person or more worthy of Heaven than Charles Manson or even Adolf Hitler. it is only because of the grace of God that i am able to call Him, “Abba, Father.”

McLaren rightly acknowledges that this sort of “gospel presentation” seems to make God sound unjust, reduces Christianity to easy-believism, and trivializes the Holocaust. Sam continues by describing how his son had decided to go to Israel to join the Israeli army, knowing it was dangerous but wanting to assist his people in their struggles. one night, Sam’s son came across a group of fellow soldiers who were harassing a Palestinian man by calling him names, roughing him up a bit, and brandishing knives, telling the Palestinian man that if he was going to live in the land then he needed to be circumcised. Sam’s son was disgusted by this, encouraged them to stop, and when they wouldn’t he pulled his rifle on the other soldiers. this gave the Palestinian man the chance to run away, at Sam’s son’s command, and Sam’s son apologized for his fellow soldiers’ behavior. the next day, Sam’s son was arrested, held in prison for a good while, was put on trial, was exhonerated from any wrong doing, and even received a letter praising him for doing the right thing. after telling this story, Sam’s question for McLaren was this: “Would your God send my boy to hell because he never said, ‘Jesus save me,’ but he’d let Hitler go to Heaven for saying the magic words? Is that what you believe, like that TV preacher?”

McLaren’s response: “I didn’t answer his question; I didn’t know how.”

so let me see if i understand this correctly, and this is going to come off condescendingly, but i really don’t mean it to. you have a man who has volunteered to sacrifice his time to provide a service for you. not just a man, though, but a Jew who (at least assumingly) already believes the Old Testament. he shares with you his objections to Christianity and presents you with a “what do you, Christian pastor, say to this” story. a story in which this man’s son sacrifices himself (even if just his reputation among his peers) for another person who, for all intents and purposes, is a modern day Samaritan to the Israeli people. you have probably the best chance to share the Gospel with this man, giving him a corrected, or at least more accurate, picture (the very thing you’re arguing for in the Emergent discussion) of the Gospel of Jesus Christ than those on TBN are giving……and you don’t know what to say when someone basically says “if i (or my son) does not cling to Christ as my (or his) God and Savior, as providing the necessary atonement (terms a Jew would understand) for my sins, will he be eternally condemned?” ?? Mr. McLaren, with all due respect, are you sure that Christian ministry is the right vocation for you?

but he did say something! he doesn’t seem to recall exactly what he said, but he says, “I said something like this: ‘Sam, i think your son acted a lot like Jesus would have acted. Jesus cared for the outsiders, just as your son did, and Jesus gave up his life to protect us all, just as your son risked his life for that guy. So i think your son was following Jesus’ example, and I can see why you’re so proud of him. Really, i think God feels about Jesus a lot like you feel about your son. And i know God must be proud of your son too.”

so in this case, or in this contextualization of the Gospel message for Sam, the Gospel is being a generally good and moral person. the Gospel is acting in such a way and living in such a way as to hope that God will be “proud” of you when you stand before His throne to give an account for your life. if that is what the Emergent view of contextualizing the Gospel reduces the Gospel to or allows the Gospel to become, then i think there is a very grave and dangerous wolf among the sheep. what McLaren has done for Sam here, is not something i’m sure, at least according to Scripture, that God or Jesus would be “proud” of. he has given Sam false hope in a false gospel. instead of answering the negative version of “what must i do to be saved” with the response that Jesus would have been “proud” of, McLaren follows the Pharisees and Judaizers in presenting a gospel of works-righteousness to Sam, a gospel which condemned in the New Testament. i think McLaren needs to read the letter to the Galatians and pay particular attention to verse 2:21 of that letter.