In this next chapter of McLaren’s he makes a number of good points which, taken in isolation, would simply be good. But in the context he places them in, the direction is quite dangerous. It is kind of like admiring the discipline and marksmanship of a pirate crew. “Yes, quite. That was well done. But why were you doing it?”
But the good stuff comes a little later in the chapter. The beginning is kind of rough, even for the most generous of the orthodox. He starts off almost cranky, and more than half admits it. “The more I study the Bible and reflect on the life and teaching of Jesus, the more I think most of Christianity as practiced today has very little to do with the real Jesus found there” (p. 79). This is hard-hitting, but it is not at all unusual to hear things like this in evangelical circles.
McLaren goes on. “Often I don’t think Jesus would be caught dead as a Christian, were he physically here today” (p. 79). This is quite true also. Jesus wouldn’t be a Christian in one sense because Christians make up the bride, and He is the bridegroom. But in another sense, His willingness to be identified with us is quite remarkable. We don’t deserve it, of course, but there it is. He is not ashamed to call us brothers. If we were going off our goodness, of course Christ would have nothing to do with us. And if we were to look at the behavior of the Jews throughout the Old Testament, Jesus wouldn’t ever become a Jew either . . . no, wait. He did. This sort of thing must not be dependent on our goodness.
But from this start, which could be okay, depending on how you read it, the whole thing takes a definitely nasty turn. McLaren quotes a “dear friend” who said, “After studying church history, I can see why people believe in hell. I just can’t figure out why all Christians don’t go there” (p. 80). Never forget, this is the voice of a generous and ecumenical orthodoxy. This is not your old censorious approach, this is inclusive and non-condemning . . . actually it is inclusive of everything and everyone except the orthodox. It reminds me of The Mikado, where the Lord High Executioner has had it up to here with those people who praise “every century but this, and every country but his own.” These are Christians who cannot believe that every other Christian has somehow escaped being hell-bait, not from an awareness of our sinfulness, which we all have, but from a comparison to all those nice people outside the faith.
This is the nerdy kid in junior high, desperate for acceptance with the cool crowd, and the only trick he can think of that might get him in with that group is to dishonor his parents and family. “If I run them down enough, maybe those self-assured cool kids will interpret my emotional desperation as nonchalance.”
But from this inauspicious beginning, he does come to ask a series of good questions, and to raise some good points, which I want to take in just a moment, and present right back to McLaren. Here is one of his good questions. Is Jesus our lord, or do we treat Him more as our Mascot (p. 80)? And Jesus gives us commands, and not suggestions. “He has authority; we answer to him, not the reverse” (p. 84). Exactly. So why the agonizing over masculine pronouns in the previous chapter? Jesus did it. It’s okay. You go right ahead. Evangelical pietists need to come to grips with the fact that Jesus made lots of wine at Cana. So its okay to drink. And in the same way, McLaren needs to take his signals on the appropriate use of masculine pronouns from Jesus, and not from the feminists. Otherwise, Jesus is just a mascot, and mascots need not have gender specific pronouns applied to them, and thus we have solved another great theological conundrum. “We developed theological systems that taught us how to avoid many of Jesus’ teachings and reinterpret those we couldn’t avoid” (p. 86). Exactly right again. But McLaren has an egalitarian theological system that views Christ’s selection of twelve males to be apostles as problematic. Now what? Avoid and reinterpret are the kinds of words that come to mind regularly while reading this book.
“We retained Jesus as Savior but . . . we have had comparatively little interest in his saving us from greed, gossip, prejudice, violence, isolation, carelessness about the poor or the planet, hurry, hatred, envy, anger, or pride” (p. 86). I have already mentioned the leftist agenda that this book has. Look at that list carefully again. Evangelical Christians en masse walked away from social lethargy in the early seventies. That was thirty years ago. But McLaren is upbraiding us for just believing in Jesus “as Savior,” and not being alive to our responsibilities in cultural engagement. So why no mention of those things where we have been culturally engaged for three decades — Christian education, pro-life activism, and whatnot? Does he approve of such things? If not, then that would be telling, showing that he apparently wants “trendy seasonal Frappuccino leftism for Jesus.” But if these are good things we have been doing, then why did McLaren not mention them? Perhaps because it would show that his evangelical quietist is, at present, a straw man?
He goes on. “Our domesticated, romanticized, spiritualized Jesus has become for us the orthodox Jesus, so an alternative one looks unorthodox, unfamiliar, maybe even dangerous and deserving of . . . what?” (p. 88). This view that Jesus the revolutionary would somehow not be welcome among Christians, but would be immediately hailed and welcomed by all the honest seekers at a Manhattan secularist soiree is an interesting view, certainly. But with regard to McLaren’s fellow Christians, the one thing he should not call it is generous.